Editor’s Note: Every so often, something reminds me why I fell in love with newspaper comic strips in the first place. For this article, that inspiration came from an advance look at Hogan’s Alley: The Magazine of the Cartoon Arts #25. Even before its release, its celebration of comic-strip history led me back to one of the funniest, strangest, and most overlooked newspaper comics ever created: Broom-Hilda. If you enjoy the history behind the funny pages, Hogan’s Alley is a magazine worth watching for.
Sometimes all it takes is one magazine to send you back through comic-strip history. That’s exactly what happened when I learned about Hogan’s Alley: The Magazine of the Cartoon Arts #25. It reminded me how rich the heritage of newspaper comics really is, and before long I found myself revisiting one of the funniest and most delightfully offbeat strips ever created: Broom-Hilda.
If you’re a fan of newspaper comics, comic strips, or the artists who brought them to life, Hogan’s Alley deserves a place on your reading list. For years it has been one of the definitive magazines devoted to the art, history, and creators behind the comics page. Its new co-publishing arrangement with TwoMorrows Publishing makes it easier than ever for comic fans to discover the magazine through their local comic shops. More importantly, it’s the kind of publication that doesn’t simply celebrate comic-strip history. It inspires readers to pull forgotten classics off the shelf and appreciate them all over again.
That journey through newspaper comics led me straight to Broom-Hilda, Russell Myers’ delightfully cranky 1,500-year-old witch who has been casting spells, and maybe a few full-blown hexes, on newspaper readers for more than 50 years.
So who exactly is Broom-Hilda? She’s a green-skinned witch who’s notoriously grumpy, loves practical jokes, and has spent centuries searching for Mr. Right. During the strip’s early years she was rarely seen without a cigar in one hand and a beer in the other, making her one of the most unconventional stars ever to appear on the comics page. Those habits eventually disappeared, but her abrasive personality never softened. She remained loud, sarcastic, unpredictable, and endlessly entertaining, feeling less like a fairy-tale witch and more like that obnoxious aunt everyone secretly enjoys having around.
The spark for Broom-Hilda came from writer Elliot Caplin, the brother of Li’l Abner creator Al Capp. Caplin pitched Russell Myers the basic idea of a wild, unpredictable witch, but Myers completely reinvented the concept. Rather than creating another lovable spellcaster, he deliberately made her grumpy, socially awkward, and hilariously inept because he believed flawed characters were far funnier than perfect ones. It may have been the smartest creative decision he ever made. Perfect characters rarely surprise you. Broom-Hilda never stopped finding new ways to do exactly that.
Russell Myers also accomplished something few cartoonists could ever imagine. Guinness World Records recognized him for producing the longest-running daily comic strip by a single author, surpassing Charles M. Schulz’s remarkable solo run on Peanuts. For more than five decades Myers wrote, drew, and edited every strip himself without assistants. Coming up with one funny comic every day is difficult enough. Doing it for over half a century borders on the unbelievable, especially for someone who spent 15 years pitching unsuccessful ideas before jokingly calling himself “the most competent failure in the business.”
His artwork was every bit as distinctive as his storytelling. Myers filled his pages with rolling geometric hills, twisted trees, striped horizons, intricate cross-hatching, and wildly expressive faces that practically bounced off the page. Even without reading a single line of dialogue, you could usually identify a Broom-Hilda strip from across the newspaper. Ancient mythology collided effortlessly with modern life as medieval characters casually interacted with contemporary technology, creating a surreal landscape that operated by its own gloriously warped rules.
Myers never chased trends. He simply built a comic strip that amused him, and readers were more than happy to follow along.
That strange universe wouldn’t have been nearly as memorable without its unforgettable supporting cast. There’s Irwin Troll, Broom-Hilda’s sweet and painfully polite adopted son, Grelber, the perpetually grumpy green monster, Gaylord, an intellectual buzzard who somehow becomes the voice of reason, and The Star, an actual star from the sky that occasionally drops by just to argue. If that sounds wonderfully ridiculous, that’s because it is. In Broom-Hilda’s universe, absurdity wasn’t the exception. It was simply the way life worked.
Her own backstory is every bit as outrageous. She’s forever searching for a husband because she’s the divorced widow of Attila the Hun, and she lasted exactly two days in the U.S. Marine Corps before being discharged for “unnecessary roughness.” According to the strip’s tongue-in-cheek mythology, she still proudly wears USMC-labeled underwear as a reminder. None of it was ever meant to make sense. Russell Myers understood that comedy often works best when logic quietly leaves the room.
At its heart, Broom-Hilda was never really about a witch. It was about dropping wildly eccentric characters into a universe where absolutely anything could happen. Reality always came second to the punchline, yet Russell Myers somehow made every bit of insanity feel perfectly believable.
Debuting on April 19, 1970, on the front page of the Chicago Tribune, Broom-Hilda quickly found its audience. Between 1971 and 1987, the strip was collected into 25 paperback books, and in 1978 she even landed her own Saturday morning NBC animated segment. One memorable episode featured her friends staging a drinking intervention moments before she was arrested for public intoxication. Saturday morning television really played by a different set of rules back then.
While Garfield became a merchandising empire and Peanuts evolved into a worldwide cultural institution, Broom-Hilda quietly earned its place as one of newspaper comics’ best-kept secrets. It never relied on blockbuster movies or endless licensing deals. It simply showed up every day and earned its audience one laugh at a time.
If Broom-Hilda feels less familiar today, it’s probably because newspapers have faded from everyday life, not because the strip has lost its charm. It still appears through syndication and on GoComics, but its classic gag-a-day format naturally appeals to a different audience than today’s serialized graphic novels and webcomics. If you’ve never spent time with Broom-Hilda, don’t expect sprawling story arcs or superhero battles. Expect a few minutes inside one of the funniest, weirdest, and most imaginative comic-strip universes ever created.
Maybe that’s why Broom-Hilda still matters. Long before comic books chased cinematic universes and Hollywood became obsessed with billion-dollar franchises, Russell Myers quietly proved that one imaginative cartoonist, one delightfully cranky witch, and a newspaper page were enough to build a place readers wanted to visit every single morning. That’s a kind of magic Hollywood still hasn’t figured out how to bottle.
It’s remarkable how a single magazine can rekindle an appreciation for an overlooked classic. In my case, Hogan’s Alley: The Magazine of the Cartoon Arts #25 reminded me how rich and essential newspaper comic history really is while introducing me once again to a green-skinned witch I’d nearly forgotten. More importantly, it reinforced something worth celebrating: Hogan’s Alley isn’t simply a magazine about comics history. It’s an invitation to rediscover it.
Russell Myers deserves to stand alongside the true giants of newspaper comics, even if Broom-Hilda never commanded the same spotlight as some of its famous contemporaries. Some strips don’t need to dominate pop culture to leave a lasting impression. They simply need to be funny, consistent, imaginative, and strange enough to stay with readers long after they’ve folded up the newspaper.
If this article encourages even a handful of readers to pre-order Hogan’s Alley #25 or discover Broom-Hilda for the first time, then writing it was well worth the journey. The best discoveries rarely arrive brand new. More often, they’ve been waiting patiently for someone to turn the page.
If this article made you think, brought back a memory, or made you see something differently, I’d love to hear from you. Send me an email at sandboxworld@gmail.com. I read every message personally and, with your permission, may feature your thoughts in a future article because the best stories are the ones we share.
Discover more from Sandbox World
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.