Tubby Tompkins, generally referred to as Tubby, is a comic book character created by Marjorie Henderson Buell. The character Thomas "Tubby" Tompkins first appeared in the Little Lulu comic panel in The Saturday Evening Post and went on to appear alongside Lulu in comic books, advertising, and animated cartoons, as well as in his own solo comic book series beginning in 1952.
Both preternaturally hungry and egotistical, Tubby's overriding monomania and blissful lack of self-awareness propel him through an endless series of near-disasters and minor epics of suburban adventure. Although he is best known as Little Lulu's sometimes-boyfriend and comic foil, Tubby is also Lulu's nemesis, acting as the antagonist in many of her adventures. Tubby is the leader of The Fellers, a gang of neighbourhood boys with a strict "No Girls Allowed" policy in their clubhouse, and it is in this role that he most often runs afoul of Lulu and her genius.
Character evolution
Marge began introducing male school friends for Little Lulu in her panel for the Post as early as 1937. These unidentified boys (the strip was in pantomime, with no captions or word balloons) were often dressed alike, in typical schoolboy fashions of the period, with short pants, large collar with bow tie, suit jacket, and tiny sailor cap. Gradually, a more portly version of these boys began to appear, eventually becoming a "regular" in the feature, usually as a suitor or playmate to Lulu. Marge referred to this character as "Joe" but it wasn't until the character was adapted into animated form in a series of short films