Everett E. Lowry began his career as a newspaper strip artist in the beginning of the twentieth century. He created the comic 'Peg Leg Pete' for The Philadelphia Inquirer' in 1903, and a year later the title was changed to 'Barnacle Bill'. The McClure Syndicate, for which Lowry worked, renamed it 'Poor Ol' Robinson Crusoe' in 1909, after which it ran until 1911 - at first drawn by Lowry, later taken over by an unknown artist. The cast of the strip is always the same: the crew of a ship, composed by Barnacle Bill, Bunk, Captain Peg Leg Pete, Ol1 Walrus, a parrot, a monkey named Davy Jones, etc. The name "Barnacle Bill" was inspired by "Binnacle Jim", the leading character of an old series of English sea ballads, many of them particularly bawdy.