The Potts was an Australian comic strip. The strip was created in August 1920 by Stan Cross under the name You & Me. In 1939, it was taken over by Jim Russell, who changed it to its current title. The strip was continued by Russell until his death on August 15, 2001. That made The Potts one of the longest-running comic strips of all time and, with 62 years of syndication, the longest-running cartoon strip drawn by the same single artist, beating the record previously held by Frank Dickens' Bristow, which was in syndication for over 51 years, and Marc Sleen's The Adventures of Nero, which was in syndication for a period of 45 years. The strip first appeared in The Sun News-Pictorial in Melbourne. From 1957 to 1962, it was syndicated in the United States by LaFave Newspaper Features, renamed Uncle Dick. Publication history In August 1920 Stan Cross published the first episode of a comic strip known as You & Me in Smith's Weekly. Cross continued to draw the weekly strip for nineteen years until he left Smith's in late December 1939 to join the Melbourne Herald, taking the character of Whalesteeth with him. In January 1940 the responsibility for You & Me was given to Cross' staff colleague, Jim Russell, who subsequently lightened the tone of the strip and changed the title to Mr & Mrs Potts. Russell resigned from Smith's Weekly after a dispute with the new editor, and not long after in October 1950 Smith's Weekly ceased publication. In a complex financial arrangement, the Melbourne Herald acquired copyright to Mr & Mrs Potts and Russell resumed drawing the strip as a daily. The modified Mr & Mrs Potts was sold to The Herald and Weekly Times group, first as a daily, then as a Sunday. The new version, The Potts, first appeared in The Sun News-Pictorial on 23 January 1951, and in most other Australian states shortly afterwards. In October 1953, with the merger in Sydney of the Sunday Sun and the Sunday Herald, the strip moved to the newly-created Sun-Herald. By 1958, it had become an international strip, with an estimated daily circulation of 15 million, appearing in New Zealand, Turkey, Canada, Finland, Sri Lanka, and 35 United States newspapers. In 1976, Russell retired from the Melbourne Herald as a writer and cartoonist, but continued to produce The Potts under a special arrangement which