The Katzenjammer Kids

The Katzenjammer Kids is a classic American Comic created 1897 by Rudolph Dirks and published in the New York Journals Sunday supplement.

The main characters where the two brother, Hans and Fritz, who where up to all kinds of mischief, stealing pies being on the mild side.

Dirks took some time off to go fight in the Spanish-American war. When he came back he introduced two new characters in to the comic, The Captain and the Inspector. These, the kids and the kid's mother became the core characters.

In 1912 Dirks wanted to take another break. The paper was unwilling but Dirks took a break anyway and Harold H. Knerr was assigned by the paper to fill in. When Dirks wanted to come back the paper did not want him back.

Dirks sued, claiming to have the intellectual property right to the comic. It ended in a sort of draw. The paper got to keep the comic with Knerr as the artist. Dirks got to make his own comic with the same characters but under a different title. Dirks new comic with the same characters got the title "the Captain and the Kids" and it was publicized in a competing newspaper(The New York World).

So we had two competing comics with the same characters. Both had very long runs, and outlasted both Dirks and Knerr. The Captain and the Kids lasted to 1979. The Katzenjammer Kids ended in 2006.