Edgar Stow Wheelan (1888–1966), who signed his work Ed Wheelan, was an American cartoonist best known for his comic strip Minute Movies, satirizing silent films, and his comic book Fat and Slat, published by EC Comics. He was one of the earliest writer-artists to introduce daily narrative continuity and cinematic techniques to comic strips.
Born in San Francisco, Wheelan was the son of costume designer Albertine Randall, who drew the 1920s strip The Dumbunnies, and businessman Fairfax Henry Wheelan, a political reformer.[1]
Comic strips
Prepared at the Thacher School and Phillips Exeter Academy, then graduating from Cornell University in 1911, Wheelan found employment at the San Francisco Examiner, moving on to the New York American, where he drew an eight-column comic strip about sports.
For William Randolph Hearst's King Features, he created the strip Midget Movies in 1918, but he left in 1920 after a dispute with Hearst. To replace Midget Movies, Hearst launched The Thimble Theatre, drawn by Elzie Crisler Segar.