Dirks's Bad Boys

(2 of 2)

TNT & Sympathy. With time out for the Spanish-American War (he was a corporal), a 1912 trip to Europe and a five-year fling at retirement that ended in 1937, Rudy Dirks has been chronicling the Kids ever since. The great Katzenjammer feud broke out in 1913, when the Journal sued to prevent Artist Dirks from going over to Pulitzer's World. After a Kidless year in court, the Journal won all rights to the Katzenjammer Kids title and hired the late Harold (Dinglehoofer und His Dog) Knerr to draw the strip. Dirks took the Katzies, as he calls them, to the World and started a new comic strip called Hans and Fritz. To appease anti-German sentiment in World War I, he changed the name to The Captain and the Kids (Knerr, who rechristened his wards The Shenanigan Kids for the duration, even had the kids go to court to swear that they hailed from The Netherlands).

Assisted by his son, Yaleman John Dirks, 39, spry Rudy Dirks now works two days a week to turn out The Captain, spends the rest of his time painting landscapes and portraits in oils. The Katenjammers are drawn by Joe Musial. The Captain runs in fewer than 100 newspapers.v. The Katzenjammers' 300 (including Hearst's New York Sunday Journal-American). Dirks Sr. and Jr. argue, nevertheless, that the original Kids, as portrayed in The Captain, are the more "sympathetic" of the two. Explains John: "When the Kids set off 8,000 tons of TNT under Der Captain, they only want to singe him a little. When they're punished in an adult, unknowing way, they reciprocate. But most of the provocation comes from adults." In an age that regards delinquents as more sinned against than sinning, Dirks's mixed-up Kids have never been better understood.