Pete the Tramp was a comic strip by Clarence D. Russell (1895–1963) which was distributed by King Features Syndicate for more than three decades. Howard Eugene Wilson, in the Harvard Educational Review, described the strip's title character as "a hobo with a gentleman's instincts." Russell studied at the Chicago Art Institute and then began working as a freelance artist. During World War I, he went overseas with the American Expeditionary Force. When he returned to America in 1920, he worked for several New York newspapers while also contributing to Judge.