Apartment 3-G

Alex Kotzky's Apartment 3-G

Apartment 3-G is an American newspaper Soap opera comic strip about a trio of career women who share the eponymous Apartment 3-G in Manhattan. Created by Nicholas P. Dallis with art by Alex Kotzky, the strip began May 8, 1961, initially distributed by the Publishers Syndicate, which later merged with King Features Syndicate. Template:TOC left

Characters and story[edit | edit source]

The strip's situations and characters were influenced by the pioneering soap opera strip Mary Worth and Rona Jaffe's bestselling 1958 novel The Best of Everything.^[1]

The three main characters are Margo Magee, a brunette who has variously held positions as a secretary, actors' agent, publicist and event planner; Abigail "Tommie" Thompson, a redheaded nurse; and Lu Ann Powers née Wright, a blonde art teacher and widow of a U.S. Air Force pilot. Kindly neighbor Professor Aristotle Papagoras serves as a father figure. Lu Ann, originally single, met her husband and married in the 1960s, after which she moved out of the apartment to be replaced by another blonde, Beth. Lu Ann's husband was killed in Vietnam, and she eventually moved back into the apartment.

The appearances of the three main characters are loosely based on real actors. Tommie is based on Lucille Ball, Margo on Joan Collins and Lu Ann on Tuesday Weld.^[2]

Creative team[edit | edit source]

Panels from Apartment 3-G (1969), with the series' lead characters (l. to r.): Abigail "Tommie" Thompson, Lu Ann Powers and Margo Magee.

Alex Kotzky, who drew and inked in a tight and crisp realistic style, was the artist of Apartment 3-G for more than 30 years. When Dallis died in 1991, Kotzky began writing the strip. With Kotzky's death in 1996, his son, Brian Kotzky, took over as the Apartment 3-G artist, and Lisa Trusiani became the scripter. In 2000, Frank Bolle stepped in as the illustrator when Brian Kotzky left to become a teacher. Writer Margaret Shulock later succeeded Trusiani.

Dallis, formerly a psychiatrist, also created the soap opera comic strips Rex Morgan, M.D. and Judge Parker.