It centers on the lives of patriarch Walt Wallet, his family, and residents in the town of Gasoline Alley, with storylines reflecting traditional American values.

[3] In addition to new color and page design concepts, King introduced real-time continuity to comic strips by depicting his characters aging over generations.

[4] The strip originated on the Chicago Tribune's black-and-white Sunday page, The Rectangle, where staff artists contributed one-shot panels, continuing plots or themes.

One corner of The Rectangle introduced King's Gasoline Alley, where characters Walt, Doc, Avery, and Bill held weekly conversations about automobiles.

Walt was based on "jolly" overweight bachelor and Western Union traffic engineer Walter W. Drew, who had "a wisp of unruly hair".

Tribune editor Joseph Patterson wanted to attract women to the strip by introducing a baby, but Walt was not married.

That obstacle was avoided when Walt found a baby on his doorstep, as described by comics historian Don Markstein: After a couple of years, the Tribune's editor, Captain Joseph Patterson, whose influence would later have profound effects on such strips as Terry and the Pirates and Little Orphan Annie, decided the strip should have something to appeal to women, as well, and suggested King add a baby.

The baby, named Skeezix (cowboy slang for a motherless calf), grew up, fought in World War II, and is now a retired grandfather.

Unlike most comic strip children (like the Katzenjammer Kids or Little Orphan Annie), he did not remain a baby or even a little boy for long.

By the time the United States entered World War II, Skeezix was an adult, courting Nina Clock and enlisting in the armed forces in June 1942.

It is in his Sunday pages that we find King showing his visual storytelling skills at their most developed: with sequences beautifully testifying to his love of nature, his feeling for artistic form, and his deeply felt response to life.

In 2003, Spec Productions began a series of softcover collections, Frank King's Gasoline Alley Nostalgia Journal, reprinting the strip from the first Rectangle panel (November 24, 1918).

To date, four volumes have appeared: In 2005, the first of a series of reprint books, Walt and Skeezix, was published by Drawn & Quarterly, edited by Chris Ware and included contributions by Jeet Heer.

Along with Nina (Janice Gilbert), the characters included Skeezix's boss Wumple (Cliff Soubier) and Ling Wee (Junius Matthews), a waiter in a Chinese restaurant.

The films starred Jimmy Lydon as Skeezix, known at that time for Life with Father (1947) and his earlier character of Henry Aldrich.