Here’s the latest installment of Maggie Thompson’s ongoing look at important beginnings, middles and ends, this time for April 14-20, 2017...

155 years ago April 14, 1862 Japanese artist and caricaturist Kuniyoshi Utagawa dies at age 65.

80 years ago April 15, 1937 Artist Tom Sutton is born. He draws for Warren (including the first Vampirella story), Charlton, First, DC, and Marvel.

75 years ago April 20, 1942 Barnaby by “Crockett Johnson” begins in New York’s PM newspaper.

70 years ago April 20, 1947 J. Edgar Hoover’s article “How Good a Parent Are You?” that appears in This Week calls “crime books, comics, and newspaper stories crammed with antisocial and criminal acts” … “extremely dangerous in the hands of the unstable child.”

65 years ago April 14, 1952 New York Governor Thomas E. Dewey vetoes the legislature’s proposed amendment of Section 1141 of the Penal Law, which forbids fiction of “crime, bloodshed, lust or heinous acts, which tend to incite minors to violent or depraved or immoral acts.”

65 years ago April 18, 1952 Writer Roger Salick is born. He works on The Punisher stories for Marvel and several stories for First.

60 years ago April 19, 1957 Artist Mark McKenna is born. His career includes staff work for Marvel and DC.

30 years ago April 15, 1987 Marvel fires editor in chief Jim Shooter; Tom DeFalco becomes editor in chief.

30 years ago April 16, 1987 Berke Breathed wins the Pulitzer Prize for the Sunday Bloom County strip.

30 years ago April 19, 1987 The Tracey Ullman Show introduces The Simpsons in a short animated sequence.

20 years ago April 16, 1997 Surrealist writer-artist-film maker Roland Topor dies of a cardiovascular problem at age 59.

20 years ago April 18, 1997 U.K. underground comix creator Edward Barker dies of a heart attack at age 46.

10 years ago April 15, 2007 Award-winning artist Brant Parker, co-creator (with Johnny Hart) of The Wizard of Id, dies at age 86 of complications from Alzheimer’s disease.