Although his father James was a shoe salesman who didn't think much of artists, all of the children in the family were creative: Walter was a painter, daughter Jamar entered the commercial art field and Lyman, Chic's older brother, drew the Tim Tyler's Luck comic strip for King Features.

He headed for Cleveland and earned a weekly salary of $22 (equivalent to $380 in 2023) while drawing The Affairs of Jane about a struggling film actress who dreamed of graduating from low-budget pictures to stardom.

When a call came from King Features' J. Gortatowski offering an annual salary of $10,000 (equivalent to $171,000 in 2023), Young thought it was a prank and turned down the job.

[1][3][4] After six months in Cleveland, Young left for New York where he created another female flapper strip, Beautiful Bab, which the Bell Syndicate began distributing on July 15, 1922.

It ran for only four months but landed him a job in the art department of King Features Syndicate, mainly as an assistant to cartoonist Jack Callahan, adopting his drawing and storytelling styles.

When it debuted September 8, 1930, it quickly became the most popular comic strip in America, gaining even more readers when Blondie and Dagwood married in 1933, followed by the 1934 birth of Baby Dumpling (later known as Alexander).

When his first son, Wayne, died of diphtheria in 1937, Young took a year's hiatus; the experience made it difficult for him to draw Baby Dumpling.

[5] Described by former King Features president Joseph Connelly as "the greatest story teller of his kind since the immortal Charles Dickens," Young at his peak received more fan mail than any other cartoonist.