Bruce Tinsley, King Features Syndicate, c. 1994.
In 1991, Bruce Tinsley was an editorial cartoonist for a Charlottesville Virginia newspaper, the The Daily Progress. He was asked to create a cartoon character as a mascot for the newspaper’s entertainment page. A duck, that Bruce named “Mallard Fillmore,” was accepted, and made his debut in the paper.
Tinsley started sending samples of Mallard Fillmore, then known as The Fillmore File, to newspapers across the country and was eventually picked up by The Washington Times, which began running it in 1992. The strip was later picked up for national syndication by King Features Syndicate, which began distributing it in May 1994.