Chip’s Paper Route – Part 1

Chip Flagston got a job as a paperboy in 1970 and, like many boys his age, had his first experiences in the world of business. I had a paper route delivering the Greenwich Time in the mid-1960s, which might have inspired my father to come up with this idea.

Collecting money from his clients, counting his meager earnings and eventually being outdone by a papergirl taught Chip responsibility, integrity and how to get Ditto to do his deliveries for him.

Many of the newspapers around the country responded to this series by publishing special comic book collections of the strips. In the introduction to the Bangor Daily News’ “Carrier Adventures and Mis-Adventures,” Mort Walker wrote: “Whenever Newspaper Carriers’ Week comes around I often think back on those quiet mornings at 4 AM in Missouri when I got up to deliver the Kansas City Star. That was in 1935 and I wonder how many of the business skills I have today were acquired or started back then.”

Below are two early examples from this series.

Hi and Lois daily strips, October 10 and 30, 1970.

Next week we will feature a color Sunday page from 1971 showing Chip on his paper route.

– Brian Walker