The Yellow Kid

The Yellow Kid
The Yellow Kid
Publication information
Publisher	Joseph Pulitzer's New York World William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal
First appearance	17 February 1895
Created by	Richard F. Outcault
In-story information
Full name	Mickey Dugan

The Yellow Kid (Mickey Dugan^[1]) is an American comic-strip character that appeared from 1895 to 1898 in Joseph Pulitzer's New York World, and later William Randolph Hearst's New York Journal. Created and drawn by Richard F. Outcault in the comic strip Hogan's Alley (and later under other names as well), it was one of the first Sunday supplement comic strips in an American newspaper, although its graphical layout had already been thoroughly established in political and other, purely-for-entertainment cartoons.^[2] Outcault's use of word balloons in The Yellow Kid influenced the basic appearance and use of balloons in subsequent newspaper comic strips and comic books.

The Yellow Kid is also famous for its connection to the coining of the term "yellow journalism".^[3] The idea of "yellow journalism" referred to stories that were sensationalized for the sake of selling papers, and was so named after the "Yellow Kid" cartoons. Through his cartoons, Outcault's work aimed his humor and social commentary at Pulitzer's adult readership. The strip has been described as "a turn-of-the-century theater of the city, in which class and racial tensions of the new urban, consumerist environment were acted out by a mischievous group of New York City kids from the wrong side of the tracks".^[4]