Fred Lasswell started his career as a sports cartoonist for the Tampa Daily Times around 1928. His work attracted the attention of Billy DeBeck, creator of the newspaper strip 'Barney Google and Snuffy Smith', in 1933. Fred Lasswell became his assistant, aged 17, and took over the famous strip after DeBeck's death in 1942. During World War II, Fred Lasswell served as a flight radio operator and created the strip 'Sgt. Hashmark'.
