Murat Bernard "Chic" Young (Chicago, January 9, 1901 – Clearwater Beach, Florida, March 14, 1973) was an American cartoonist and creator of the newspaper strip Blondie, one of the most widely read comics in the history of American newspapers. His nickname "Chicken", recorded in his 1919 high school yearbook, gave him the signature he used throughout his career.
After leaving school in St. Louis, he worked as a stenographer in Chicago while attending evening classes at the Art Institute of Chicago. In 1921 he joined the Newspaper Enterprise Association in Cleveland, where he drew The Affairs of Jane, a short-lived strip that lasted only five months. He then moved to New York, worked as an assistant to cartoonist Jack Callahan at King Features Syndicate and, in 1924, began Dumb Dora. In 1930, after asking for more money and ownership of the strip, he left Dumb Dora and created Blondie, which debuted on September 8 of that year.
Blondie quickly became a commercial phenomenon, with film, radio and television adaptations and many licensed products. Young produced more than 15,000 strips. The death of his first son in 1937 led him to take a year off. In 1950, as his eyesight began to fail, former assistant Jim Raymond took over the drawing. The strip continues: in 2021 his son Dean Young wrote it, illustrated by John Marshall.