Most Influential Cartoonist of the 20th Century Poll Results

I think that my friend Brian Fies was right when he commented in a previous entry on the word "influential" (not "most successful" or "most famous") as an interesting choice in the heading of the latest poll. Below is the top five cartoonists according to the learned readers of this Mike Lynch Cartoons blog:

1. Charles Schulz (a landslide)
   
   
2. Jack Kirby
   
   
3. Bill Watterson
   
   
4. Gary Larson
   
   
5. Milton Caniff

Early on, Schulz and Kirby were neck and neck. And I wondered, what with all the Marvel movies, would Kirby eclipse Schulz? But, no, with 31% of the vote, Schulz won the poll.

It's nice to see that there are two living cartoonists listed, but sad to note that both have left the daily comic strip production grind. The comics page, and comics fans, are all the poorer.

The bottom:

• Bill Mauldin received no votes
  
  
• TAD Dorgan and Scott Kurtz got one vote each
  
  
• R.F. Outcault, James Thurber, Rube Goldberg, Alex Raymond, Jim Davis and Herblock each received 2 votes

All of these men are very important, with TAD being my favorite overlooked cartoonist. Without TAD's encouragement, we might not have had Segar or Herriman. But the years have passed and TAD is not a well remembered name.

It was fun to see Osamu Tezuka and Walt Kelly get exactly the same number of votes (9 votes; 7%). Both are masters of very different kinds of storytelling!

My thanks to everyone who participated.