Percy Crosby

Percy Lee Crosby was an American author, illustrator and cartoonist best known for his popular comic strip Skippy. Adapted into movies, a novel and a radio show, Crosbys creation was commemorated on a 1997 U.S. Postal Service stamp. An inspiration for Charles Schulzs Peanuts, the strip is regarded by comics historian Maurice Horn as a classic... which innovated a number of sophisticated and refined touches used later by Charles Schulz and Bill Watterson. Humorist Corey Ford, writing in Vanity Fair, praised the strip as Americas most important contribution to humor of the century.

Percy Crosby was born in Brooklyn, New York, prior to the 1898 incorporation of the five boroughs of New York City. He grew up in Richmond Hill, in what would be the borough of Queens but at the time was considered part of Long Island. His father, Thomas Francis Crosby, the son of Catholic immigrants from County Louth, Ireland, was an amateur painter who ran an art supply business. His mother Frances , known as Fanny, was of English and Scottish descent. Percy had two younger sisters, Ethel and Gladys.

Source: Wikipedia