Gene Byrnes

Who was Gene Byrnes?

Eugene Francis Byrnes created the long-running comic strip Reg'lar Fellers, which he signed Gene Byrnes. His humorous look at suburban children was distributed by the Bell Syndicate and other syndicates from 1917 to 1949.

Born and educated in New York City, Byrnes was ten years old when he entered a contest that involved drawing a picture in a store window and won the prize, a $5 suit. He took a job as an office boy at McClure's when he was 15, and a year later he went to work in his father's harness business and soon started his own business, making horse collars. He also worked as a bug spray salesman, shoemaker and shoe salesman, introducing electric shoe repairs to New York.

Byrnes planned a career in sports, but after he broke his leg during a wrestling match, he began copying the cartoons of Tad Dorgan while recuperating in the hospital. He was a graduate of the Landon School of Illustration and Cartooning correspondence course, which displayed his name in its advertisements.