Ozy and Millie - History

History

Ozy and Millie originally started as a print comic strip in a Washington college newspaper, the Copper Point Journal, in 1997 using ink and brush as drawing implements. Simpson claims to have been influenced by comics and cartoons such as Bloom County, Calvin and Hobbes, The Simpsons and Pogo. It became an irregular webcomic in early 1998. In June 1998, it became a Monday-Friday daily strip. In the same year, Simpson won a newspaper syndicates' college cartoonist award. When the strip began, Simpson's artistic style was similar to that in Calvin and Hobbes. In 2000, the strip went on hiatus and returned with a new, unique style. The strip also went on hiatus several times. It was once on hiatus for five months, between August 23, 2003 to January 22, 2004. On January 30, 2004, Simpson began a new strip, I Drew This, a political webcomic which contains Simpson's political views, which also appear in Ozy and Millie. In 2002, the strip won the Web Cartoonist's Choice Awards for "Best Anthropomorphic Comic". The strip also won the 2006 and 2007 Ursa Major Awards for "Best Anthropomorphic Comic Strip".