World bids adieu to The Wizard of ID

Johnny Hart

In life, there are the little things which brighten your day - make you smile at moments when it was most needed. No, it is not the people around you, rather a comic strip in a newspaper, something so small in the pages and pages of information one comes across in a single day. Yet, the words of prehistoric men, ants, turtles, snakes, wizards and a despotic king frozen in the captions were filled with irony, reality and wisdom unmasking the humor in everyday life. That was the magic of Johnny Hart

American cartoonist Johnny Hart, known as the creator of the comic strip B.C. and co-creator of the strip The Wizard of Id, has died of a stroke at his home in Nineveh, N.Y., at 76. The funeral is scheduled for Friday, his wife of 55 years, Bobby, told AP. She said he was working at his drawing table at the time of his death.

Hart's "B.C." strip was launched in 1958 and eventually appeared in more than 1,300 newspapers with an audience of 100 million, according to Creators Syndicate Inc., which distributes it.

After he graduated from Union-Endicott High School, Hart met Brant Parker, a young cartoonist who became a prime influence and eventual co-creator with Hart of "The Wizard of Id" in 1964.

Besides his wife, Hart is survived by two daughters, Patti and Perri. He was a native of Endicott, about 135 miles northwest of New York City, and drew his comic strip at a studio in his home in Nineveh until the day he died.

We will miss your wisdom through your immortal cavemen, animals, wizards and kings. Rest in Peace!

By bouncing a word, visually, you're putting in an inflection, you know, the way a sentence should be if somebody heard it spoken. And I think a lot of humor depends on inflection, how a person says something. Certain things you could say as a question, and as a statement. ~ Johnny Hart