War I he went to Europe with Tribune cameraman Edwin F. Weigle to film the newsreel that would be used in the World War I propaganda film The German Side of the War. Screenings of The German Side of the War sold out at theaters. It was one of the only American propaganda films to show the war from Germany's perspective. After his father died, Patterson took over the management of the Tribune. He had a dispute about how to run the Tribune with his cousin, Robert R. McCormick. After World War I ended, he visited London and observed a newspaper in tabloid form for the first time. Patterson moved to New York City and founded the New York Daily News as a tabloid on June 26, 1919, with McCormick as co-editor and publisher. However, the two were unable to resolve their dispute, so in 1925 Patterson ceded full authority over the Tribune to McCormick in return for full control of the Daily News. Initially, the Daily News was somewhat more liberal than the Tribune. However, over the years, it became more conservative as Patterson drifted rightward. Comic strips He took a hands-on approach to managing the Chicago Tribune Syndicate, distributor for his papers' comic strips. In 1921, he suggested the lead character of Gasoline Alley adopt a foundling child who became Skeezix, a central character in the strip. Patterson influenced Chester Gould's 1931 strip Dick Tracy, changing the title from Plainclothes Tracy, and he supported Gould's vision of a technical, grotesque and violent style of storytelling. Milton Caniff credited Patterson for suggesting a comic strip about the Orient, which led to the creation of Caniff's 1934 strip, Terry and the Pirates. Caniff recounted Patterson's role in creating Terry in a Time profile, "Escape Artist" (Monday, January 13, 1947): Patterson... stared coldly at Caniff and asked: "Ever do anything on the Orient?" Caniff hadn't. "You know," Joe Patterson mused, "adventure can still happen out there. There could be a beautiful lady pirate, the kind men fall for." In a few days Caniff was back with samples and 50 proposed titles; Patterson circled Terry and scribbled beside it and the Pirates. Another item of Patterson comic strip lore is that he rejected Dale Messick's strip Brenda Starr in 1940 because he "had tried a woman cartoonist once... and wanted no more of them." Patterson's assistant, Mollie Slott—later the vice president of