Steve Roper and Mike Nomad
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad was an American adventure comic strip that ran under various titles from November 1936 to December 26, 2004. Initially distributed by Publishers Syndicate, it ended its 68-year run at King Features Syndicate.
The strip started out as The Great Gusto, written by Allen Saunders (creator of Mary Worth) and drawn by Elmer Woggon. Gusto followed the adventures of J. Mortimer Gusto, a patent medicine salesman who hawked Ka-Zowie Kure-All. Gusto was based on the film persona of W.C. Fields.
Gusto's sidekick proved more popular, so Gusto was quickly written out of the strip and it was retitled Big Chief Wahoo. Wahoo was a stereotypical Native American in a ten-gallon hat who was played for laughs. Wahoo was rich due to the discovery of oil on his land back in Teepe town and headed to New York to find his old girlfriend Minnie Ha-Cha, who was working in a nightclub.
The strip initially revolved around humorous tales, such as stories about people trying to cheat Wahoo out of his money or fish out of water tales of Wahoo in New York or Hollywood. In 1940, a photojournalist named Steve Roper was introduced and the stories became more serious, and by World War II, Roper was the lead in war-oriented adventure tales and Wahoo was the sidekick who was eventually written out. The strip was retitled Chief Wahoo and Steve Roper in 1945 and in 1947 simply Steve Roper. By this time Woggon's art was being ghosted by artists like his brother Bill Woggon, Don Dean, and Pete Hoffman.
The writing was taken over by Saunders' son John Saunders in 1956 and the art by William Overgard in 1954. In June 1956, Overgard introduced a character whom he had tried unsuccessfully to feature in a strip of his own. Mike Nomad was a tough truck driver of Polish-American origin (Mike Nowak) hired by Roper for Proof magazine. Nomad gradually replaced Roper as the focus of the strip's adventures as Roper retreated to a desk job and later retirement. In 1969, the strip was retitled Steve Roper & Mike Nomad, a title it retained until its cancellation in 2004.
In 1984, Fran Matera became the strip's artist. John Saunders continued to write the strip until his death in 2003. Officially, Matera took over the writing until it was discontinued by the syndicate, although it was ghosted by Keith Brenner in the final years.
References
- King Features: Steve Roper & Mike Nomad
- Don Markstein's Toonopedia: The Great Gusto, Toonopedia: Big Chief Wahoo, Toonopedia: Steve Roper, and Toonopedia: Mike Nomad
- The Toledo Blade (Dec. 26, 2004): "Roper out, Fuzzy in on Blade comic pages"