Publishers-Hall Syndicate

Walt Kelly's 1967 caricatures of Robert Hall and the Hall Syndicate cartoonists. To see the details in this image, gohere.
Formerly	Hall Syndicate (1944–1946) New York Post Syndicate (1946–1949) Post-Hall Syndicate, Inc. (1949–1955) Hall Syndicate (1955–1967)
Company type	Subsidiary
Industry	Print syndication
Founded	1944; 81 years ago (1944)
Founder	Robert M. Hall
Defunct	1975; 50 years ago (1975)
Fate	merged intoField Newspaper Syndicate
Headquarters	New York City,New York , U.S.
Area served	United States
Key people	Allen Saunders (writer, "continuity" editor) Harold Anderson
Products	Comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons
Owners	Robert M. Hall (1944–1967) Field Enterprises (1967–1984)

Publishers-Hall Syndicate was anewspaper syndicate founded byRobert M. Hall in 1944. Hall served as the company's president and general manager. Over the course of its operations, the company was known as, sequentially, theHall Syndicate (1944–1946), theNew York Post Syndicate (1946–1949), thePost-Hall Syndicate (1949–1955), theHall Syndicate (1955–1967), andPublishers-Hall Syndicate (1967–1975). The syndicate was acquired byField Enterprises in 1967, and merged intoField Newspaper Syndicate in 1975. Some of the more notable strips syndicated by the company includePogo,Dennis the Menace,Funky Winkerbean,Mark Trail,The Strange World of Mr. Mum, andMomma, as well as the cartoons ofJules Feiffer.

Hall had worked forThe Providence Journal during high school, followed by three years atNortheastern University School of Law and four years atBrown University. After attending theColumbia University Graduate School of Journalism, he was a sales manager atUnited Feature Syndicate, which he joined in 1935.

During the final months ofWorld War II, Hall began his own syndicate by distributing to newspapers severalNew York Post features, includingEarl Wilson's "It Happened Last Night,"Sylvia Porter's finance column, "Your Money's Worth" and Samuel Grafton's "I'd Rather Be Right." Soon, Hall developed his own features, including a variety of comic strips,Debbie Dean,Mark Trail andBruce Gentry, along withHerblock's editorial cartoons. Added to the mix were serialized books and columns, including Elise Morrow's "Capital Capers," Pierre de Rohan's "Man in the Kitchen,"Sterling North's book reviews,Jimmy Cannon's sports column and Major George Fielding Eliot writing on defense and tactics.

The company was incorporated as theNew York Post Syndicate in August 1946. New features added in 1948–49 includedWalt Kelly'sPogo, the adventure stripTex Austin, Victor Riesel's "Inside Labor" column and a facts panel,Wizard of Odds.^[1]

On March 1, 1949, the company was renamed as thePost-Hall Syndicate, Inc., and during the 1950s, it distributed the writings ofNorman Vincent Peale.

The name was shortened to theHall Syndicate after Robert Hall bought out thePost in 1955.Jules Feiffer's strips ran for 42 years inThe Village Voice, first under the titleSick Sick Sick, briefly asFeiffer's Fables and finally as simplyFeiffer. Influenced byUPA andWilliam Steig, the strip debuted October 24, 1956. Three years later, beginning April 1959,Feiffer was distributed nationally by the Hall Syndicate, initially inThe Boston Globe,Minneapolis Star Tribune,Newark Star-Ledger andLong Island Press.^[2][3]

In 1967, the company was sold toField Enterprises, who merged it with the previously acquiredPublishers Syndicate to form thePublishers-Hall Syndicate, and thus taking on distribution of such popular, long-running strips asMary Worth,Steve Roper,Penny,Kerry Drake,Rex Morgan, M.D.,Judge Parker,Miss Peach,B.C., andThe Wizard of Id.

In 1968, when the company began distributing John Saunders &Al McWilliams'Dateline: Danger!, it became the first nationally syndicated comic strip with an African-American lead character.^[4]

John McMeel was assistant general manager and national sales director for the syndicate when he left in 1970 to co-found what would becomeAndrews McMeel Universal.^[5]

In 1975, Publishers-Hall was (re)namedField Newspaper Syndicate.^[6] (Field Enterprises sold the syndicate toRupert Murdoch'sNews Corporation in 1984; the operation was subsequently purchased byHearst and is now part ofKing Features Syndicate.)^[7]

Strips and panels that originated with the New York Post Syndicate, the Hall Syndicate, or the Post-Hall Syndicate:

• Andy Capp byReg Smythe (1957–1975; continued by Field Newspaper Syndicate and then eventually byCreators Syndicate)
• Big George byVirgil Partch (1960–1975; continued byField Newspaper Syndicate and then eventually byKing Features until 1990)^[8]
• Bruce Gentry by Ray Bailey (1949–1955)
• Dateline: Danger! by John Saunders &Al McWilliams (1968–1974)
• David Crane byWin Mortimer andCreig Flessel (1956–1973)^[9]
• Debbie Dean by Bert Whitman (1942–1949)^[10]
• Dennis the Menace byHank Ketcham (1951–1975; continued byField Newspaper Syndicate and then eventually byKing Features)
• Funky Winkerbean byTom Batiuk (1972–1975; continued by Field Newspaper Syndicate and then eventually by King Features)
• Jules Feiffer
• Louie byHarry Hanan (1947–c. 1950; moved toChicago Tribune New York News Syndicate, where it ran until 1976)^[11]
• Mark Trail originally byEd Dodd (1946–1975; continued by Field Newspaper Syndicate and then eventually by King Features)
• Modesty Blaise byPeter O'Donnell &Jim Holdaway (1966–1967)^[12]
• Momma byMell Lazarus (1970–1975; continued by Field Newspaper Syndicate and then eventually byCreators Syndicate)
• Pogo byWalt Kelly (1948–1975)
• The Ryatts (October 11, 1954–1975; continued until 1994 by Field Newspaper Syndicate and then eventually by King Features until 1994) originally byCal Alley (1954–1964), continued byJack Elrod (1964–1994)^[13]
• The Strange World of Mr. Mum byIrving Phillips (1958–1974)
• Tex Austin originally by Sam Robins & Tom Fanning (1949–1950)^[14]

• Toni Mendez

• Comic strip syndicates
• 1944 establishments in the United States
• Companies based in New York City