Crockett Johnson

David Johnson Leisk, better known as Crockett Johnson, grew up and studied art and typography in New York. After doing advertising work and freelance magazine art, he drew a weekly comic strip for Collier's Agency in the early 1940s. It was untitled, but usually called 'The Little Man with the Eyes'. In 1942 he created 'Barnaby' for the experimental newspaper PM. This whimsical, fairy-tale strip soon became one of the classics, distributed by Field Newspaper Syndicate and Bell Publishing.

The strip was the first to feature machine-lettered word-balloons. Pursuing other interests, such as writing children's books (together with his wife Ruth Kraus, he created 'Harold and the Purple Crayon'), he left the strip to Jack Morley and Ted Ferro around 1946, returning only to write the farewell episode in 1952. In 1960-62, it was briefly revived in Comics Revue, presumably (re)drawn by Warren Sattler. Johnson produced the comic strip 'Barkis & Family' in 1955.