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Hairbreadth Harry. Hairbreadth Harry was created by C. W. Kahles (Airship Man) and appeared in the comic strip “Hairbreadth Harry” (1906-1940).

“Hairbreadth Harry” was one of the first adventure comic strips. Harry was an earnest young man, around twenty years old, who begins do-gooding on the American frontier, saving prospectors, rounding up outlaws, helping sheriffs, and the like. In a short amount of time his adventures become more complicated. He is repeatedly called upon to save his sweetheart and future wife, Belinda Binks, from the schemes of the evil Rudolph Rassendale, the original top-hatted, black-coated, tie-the-heroine-to-the-buzzsaw villain. (He's great!) Harry foils Rassendale's plots in the western frontier of America as well as in western Canada and many other parts of the globe.

* I'm including "Hairbreadth Harry" in the Best of the Encyclopedia category because of Rudolph Rassendale. Rassendale is supremely fun, a mustache-twisting scoundrel straight out of the 19^th century who really would much rather tie Belinda Binks to a railroad track than commit one of the vile modern crimes. Rassendale is so over-the-top in his villainy--you've got to be really wicked to try to force a woman into marriage with you--that he goes all the way around to become subtle again. He's splendid. (The strip is entertaining, to, but without Rassendale it's not nearly as much fun). 

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