The Born Loser is a newspaper comic strip created by Art Sansom in 1965. His son, Chip Sansom, who started assisting on the strip in 1989, is the current artist. The strip is distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Association. The Sansoms won the 1987 National Cartoonists Society Humor Comic Strip Award and the 1990 Newspaper Comic Strip Award. History Art Sansom created The Born Loser after spending 20 years churning out the illustrations on his syndicate's serious strips. He originally titled it The Loser, but under the urging of the syndicate, renamed it The Born Loser. The dailies started May 10, 1965 while the Sundays premiered on June 27. Initially, the strip had no recurring characters but now focuses on the Thornapple family and the few people in their lives. Characters Main characters Brutus Perry "Thorny" Thornapple is a born loser. He simply can't get a break, whether it involves his job, his family, or just plain everyday life. He's rather old-fashioned, and the modern times seem to run him over. His birthday is November 29, 1951, though the May 10, 2011 edition proclaimed it to be his 46th birthday. Gladys "Hornet" Thornapple is Brutus's wife, she's even more old fashioned than Brutus and doesn't seem to be very bright, especially with popular culture or technology. Taller than Brutus, with blond hair, she's rather similar to Edith "Dingbat" Bunker. She can be a bit critical of Brutus, often scolding him or getting into fights with him that he simply cannot win. Nevertheless, their relationship always seems to be intact. Wilberforce Thornapple is he son of the Thornapple family. He's a very curious boy who looks up to his father and often turns to him for advice. He is friends with his neighbor Hurricane Hattie and enjoys baseball, but he's not very good at it. He currently wears his blond hair in a crew cut but in the 1970s, when boys and men tended to wear much longer hair, he wore his hair in sausage curls, and wore sailor-type suits with shorts. His appearance looked much more boyish with the new hairstyle as his wardrobe was updated with jeans, sweatshirts, and tennis shoes. Secondary characters Rancid W. "Rank" Veeblefester is Brutus's boss, a rich tycoon. A very cranky, unpleasant man, he works in an office surrounded by money bags and doesn't seem to do any real work. He always scolds Brutus for