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John Buckingham Lowitz is one of the pioneers of American newspaper comics. He created 'The Captain Kiddis Kids', which started running on November 21, 1897. This series was probably the first "funny pages" that had the well-known "to be continued" label. J.B. Lowitz also made the newspaper comics 'Cathode Ray' (1896), 'The Barnyard Club' (1898), 'The Never-Was People' (1897), 'Scenes in Gazoozaland' (1896) and 'In the Jungle' (1896).
On December 6, 1903, his strip 'Swifty and his Wonderful Dream' started running in The New York Herald (which would later run the similar, and by now much more famous, 'Little Nemo in the Land of Wonderful Dreams' by Winsor McCay, starting in 1905).
The character Swifty is one of the many "messenger boys" depicted in the comics of the turn of the century.
The panel shown here is from the New York Herald in 1904, and shows Swifty's companion, the King of Zuzu Land, receiving the keys to the city from George McClennan, then mayor of New York City.
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