Ozark Ike

Ray Gotto wrote and drew this short-lived Better Publications of Canada series, which ran for four issues starting in 1949. The strip follows the adventures of a hulking, good-natured mountain man from the Ozarks, a rustic strongman who relocates to the city and finds himself in humorous, fish-out-of-water scrapes. Gotto’s energetic, cartoonish art gives the series a lively, down-home charm that stands as a modest but fondly remembered footnote in Canadian comic-book history.