Biography

Rudolph Dirks was born on February 26, 1877 in Heide, Germany. He was a writer, known for The Katzenjammer Kids in School (1898), The Katzenjammer Kids Have a Love Affair (1900) and Katzenjammer Kids (Journal Thumb Book) (1903). He died on April 20, 1968 in New York, USA.

Creator of the comic strip "The Katzenjammer Kids". The strip was taken over by H.H. Knerr in December 1914 following a lawsuit between the Hearst and Pulitzer publishing empires; Knerr drew the strip until his death. Dirks, who regained the right to draw his characters, resumed the strip in the New York World under the title "Hans und Fritz", later renaming it "The Captain and the Kids" because of the anti-German sentiment during World War I. Ironically, Knerr was picked by William Randolph Hearst to take over "Katzenjammer" because of his strip "The Finehiemer Twins" (1903-1914), which was an obviously derivative of "Katzenjammer".

He was inducted into the Will Eisner Comics Hall of Fame in 2012.