After having sold various cartoons to local magazines Rudolph moved to New York City and found work as a cartoonist.

The World had a huge success with the full-color Sunday feature, Down in Hogan's Alley, better known as the Yellow Kid, starting in 1895.

Editor Rudolph Block asked Dirks to develop a Sunday comic based on Wilhelm Busch's cautionary tale, Max and Moritz.

After a lengthy and notorious legal battle, the federal courts ruled that Dirks had the right to continue to draw his characters for a rival newspaper chain but that the Journal retained the right to the title The Katzenjammer Kids.

Dirks thereupon began drawing a comic strip titled Hans and Fritz for the World, beginning in 1914.

The Journal chose H. H. Knerr to continue The Katzenjammer Kids, and he and his successors have carried it on to the present day.