Frank King created my 2nd-favorite comic strip (1st being "Pogo") in 1918, and hired capable journeyman artist Dick Moores in the late 1950's to help with the dailies -- meaning, I suppose, that Moores drew and King plotted. In 1964 King stepped back entirely, handing the reins over to Moores, who did the strip until his death in 1986 at 78.

I preferred King's earlier work on the strip, one of the few (and first?) in which characters aged at a natural progression. But Dick Moores gets a nod for being a close second to King. He continued Frank King's tradition of gentle humor and small-town folks who were decent to the core and treated others (mostly) with courtesy and respect and a blind eye to their failings. "Gasoline Alley" could be set in Mayberry, R.F.D.

I especially enjoyed the jump forward from the excellent collection of the strip being re-published from the beginning by Drawn & Quarterlies Books. Suddenly, Skeezix is not a small boy, he is a man in his early '40s, and Walt Wallet is the patriarch of a growing clan. I hope that IDW plans to continue this series of books; it was with a warm tingle of nostalgia that I re-read these strips I first read as a ten-year-old and had not seen since. ( )