Charles Anthony Voight (April 28, 1887 â February 10, 1947) was an American cartoonist, best known for his comic strip Betty.
Born in Brooklyn, New York City, Voight was 14 when he dropped out of school and became an art staffer at the New York World. During this period, he also did advertising art.
In 1908, he drew his first comic strip, Petey Dink, for the Boston Traveler. When it moved to the New York Herald it became simply Petey (sometimes titled Poor Little Petey). He also drew for the New York World, and for Life, he created a series titled The Optimist.
His popular glamour girl Sunday strip Betty began in 1919 with the McClure Syndicate, moving to the New York Herald Syndicate with the April 4, 1920, edition. Comics historian Don Markstein described the strip and characters:
Betty was an influential strip, notably for the illustrator and comic book artist Bernard Krigstein. Jerry Robinson, in his book The Comics: An Illustrated History of the Comic Strip, commented:
Voight continued to do artwork for advertising agencies, such as his 1932 Rinso Soap ads.
After Betty ended its run in 1943, Voight began drawing for comic books, including He-Man in Tally-Ho Comics (Baily Publishing Company, 1944) and work for Prize Comics (1945). In 1945 he created the superhero Atomic-Man in Headline Comics, and in 1946, drew Impossible Man for Captain Wizard and the superhero satire Captain Milksop for Atomic Bomb Comics #1.
Voight lived for a time in Pelham, New York. When Fontaine Fox first came to visit his friend Voight, he rode the Pelham trolley that inspired him to create the Toonerville Trolley for his long-running cartoon panel, Toonerville Folks.
Voight died on February 10, 1947, in Brooklyn, New York City.