SOGLOW, OTTO - SOGLOW, OTTO - Sentinel Louie topper & Ambassidor /Little King Sunday 1935

In 1931, cartoonist Otto Soglow created a playful mini-monarch, whose greatest joys were sliding down palace banisters, each lunch from a regular workman's pail and indulging in a daily constitutional to the palace mailbox. Rotund and ruddy, The Little King became a popular feature in The New Yorker. Curiously, his greatest appeal wasn't an air of sophistication, a haughty sense of authority or a booming speaking voice. In fact, The Little King said very little... next to nothing at all. Soglow's minimalist illustration and even sparser dialogue were part of the King's appeal. The pantomime pranks only made for huger chucklers among readers. Newspaper impresario William Randolph Hearst was among the widespread guffawers and sought to woo Soglow away from The New Yorker and make The Little King part of the King Features Syndicate stable. Still under contract with The New Yorker, Soglow declined. But he did agree to make Hearst a knock-off character, The Ambassador. The clone last three years, until in 1934, Soglow's New Yorker contract expired and The Little King debuted as a King Feature on September 7. For the next few decades, The Little King popped up in various media--from books to animated cartoons to his own comic title. He experienced global success, as producers and publishers discovered that Soglow's pantomime style required little to no translation. The runty ruler's reign lasted until 1975, when creator Otto Soglow passed away. During his years of triumph, The Little King enjoyed a media blitz (with a particularly popular china bell with a handle shaped as the king's head) and a Reuben award for Soglow.

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