Martin Branner D-106 1888-1970

  Creator of the Winnie Winkle Comic Strip, introduced it in The New York News in 1920.

 Ahead of the times of liberated women, Winnie was "Winnie Winkle, The Breadwinner." His boyhood interest had always been drawing cartoons. Martin Branner started out as a stock and musical comedy performer and would end up in vaudeville. At the age of 18, he eloped with a child actress, 15 year old Edith Fabbrini. The two later became the dancing team of Martin and Fabbrini.

 The stylish mode of "Winnie Winkle" came from the designs of Branner who studied fashion in Paris.  Edith designed Winnie’s wardrobe and dressed her to the nines. The comic strip also allowed readers to submit fashions an have them incorporated into the format. Branner also created deliberate “mistakes” which he challenged his readers to discover.

 Edith passed away January 3, 1966 at the age of 73. He retired in 1962 when he suffered a stroke, and his assistant Max Van Biiber took over the strip. Martin Branner died at the Nutmeg Convalescent Hospital on May 20, 1970 at the age of 81. He lived in Waterford, Connecticut at the time.