As a cartoonist and comic book artist Irwin Hasen, drew and helped create Dondi the comic strip that followed a loveable orphan during World War II.

Hasen was born in New York City in 1918 where he studied at the National Academy of Design when he was a child. His career began when he was a teenager during the Depression when he drew to make money to help support his family. After graduating from DeWitt Clinton High School he studied at the Art Students League of New York. He became a staff illustrator for several comics in the 1940s working on Flash, Green Lantern, and Green Hornet among others.

He served in the United States Army during World War II editing a newspaper in Fort Dix, NJ. Hasen and Edson developed the idea for Dondi when they were touring Germany with the National Cartoonists Society. Edson suggested the idea when he heard about American service members adopting Korean War orphans. Edson sent a drawing of his vision for the boy to Hasen and Hasen recalled in an interview, “the minute I saw the letter, I called him up and said, ‘Gus, this is gonna be the best strip in America.’”

In the strip Dondi is a 5 year-old orphan found by soldiers in a war ravaged Italian town in World War II. Dondi ran from 1955 to 1986 written by Gus Edson and illustrated by Hasen. At its peak the strip ran in over 100 newspapers distributed by the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. Hasen credited Dondi’s longevity to the fact that neither Hasen or Dondi ever grew up.