The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics

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Smithsonian

Collection

of

by

Bill

Blackbcard

and

Martin

W

illiamn

by John

Canaday

American newspaper comic strip (like

jazz

the

movies)

is

a

major innovative

and

crea-

cultural

accomplishment

of

the United

one that has

spread

around

the

world.

the

outset, the

comics

were widely

read

enjoyed by

the American public,

oblivious

cultural history

or

art

criticism. But

for sev-

decades,

historians of the arts

and

scholarly

mostly

shunned

the

supposedly

lowly

strips, largely l)ecaiise the

finest

of

thi'se

originally

appeared

in

the

sensational

press. Fortunately,

this situation

has

and those

in positions of

authority

in

arts

and

literature

are

now taking

the

seriously,

recognizing

the

often

subtly

splendidly inventive, and

creatively

<|iialitics

of the best

products

of

this

art.

essentially

a

narrative

art,

comic strips

provided

an

extraordinary vehich' for in-

graphic

and

narrative experimentation

accomplisliment

for

major

comic-strip

ar-

including

VVinsor

McCay

(Little

Nemo),

Feininger

(The

Kin-tler-Kuh).

E.

C.

(Thimble Theatre),

George Ilerriman

Kat),

Cliff Stcrrett

(Pollij and Her Pais),

Crane

(\Va.v/i Tuhhs),

and

many others.

comics

can

be

enjoyed

both as

gal-

art and

in

continuity iis

fiction

or

drama.

in

this

.Smithsonian

Collection

are

of

the

most

accomplished and critically

strips

from

the

Ve/Zoit, Kid

r)f

1896-tli<'

to

attain definitive

form—

to such admired

works

as

Peanuts,

B. C, and

Along

the way we come

across

old

Katzenjammer Kids. Mutt

and

]ef).

CUtnips, C.asoline

Allei/,

Moon

Mullins.

Vj)

I'atUer,

Mirkei/

Mouse, Little

Annie,

Dick

Tracij, Li

I

Aimer,

liarnnhij.

and

ever

so

many

more.

of

the

work.s

chosen

for

this vohnne

have

excellence

and wer<' popular

with

tlic

of

their

time.

The

editors

have looked

comics

that

are

important, interesting,

ar-

funny,

representational,

curious—

some or

of

these—

take

your

pick. These

newspaper

strips

ar<; an important

part of our

cul-

history.

They are also

fun

to read—and

are

to

be

enjoyed.





(



I have

enormous

respect

for

the

comic

strip

as

a

potential

story and

art

form,

although

far too

few

of

its

productions

have

realized

that

potential.

If

those

few,

however,

could be

gathered

into some

sort

of

complete

collection,

the effect

on

those who

have

scorned the

comics as

a

whole

might well

be

devastating.

. .

.

Edmund Wilson

from

a

letter

to Bill

Blackbeard

1966



6

AM»

JMAT*

asft

r*4i



The Smithsonian

Collection

of

ll lWilP^ F l B

(g(DIM (0

Edited

by Bill

Blackbeard

and

Martin

Williams

Foreword

by

John

Canaday

Copublished

by

Smithsoniaii

Institution Press

and

Harry

N.

Abrams,

Inc.



Note

to

reader

The

comic strips in

this

book

are numbered in the order in which they are

repro-

duced.

References in

the

text

and

index to particular

strips

are indicated

by

those

numbers

in brackets.

Frontispiece:

Johnny

Wise,

1902, by Tad Dorgan.

Library of Congress Cataloging

in

Publication Data

Smithsonian Institution.

The

Smithsonian

collection

of

newspaper

comics.

Bibliography:

p.

Includes

index.

1.

Comic

books, strips, etc.—United States.

I.

Blackbeard, Bill.

II.

Williams,

MarUn

T.

III. Title.

PN6726.SS

1977

741.5'973

77-608090

Smithsonian

Institution Press,

Washington,

D.C.

20560

ISBN

0-87474-172-6

ISBN 0-87474-167-X pbk

Harry

N.

Abrams,

Inc.,

New York 10022

ISBN

8109-1612-6

ISBN

8109-2081-6 pbk

Designed

by

Elizabeth

Sur

Printed

and bound

in

Japan.

All rights

reserved.

Third

printing

The

cartoons

referred

to

here

by

Chicago

Tribune-New

York

News

Syndicate:

23,

strip numbers are

reprinted

with

96-107,

128-129, 138-139,

151-156,

221-277,

the permission

of:

438-441,

644-715,

720-722,

740,

760

Robert

C.

Dille:

427-428

Edgar

Rice

Burroughs,

Inc.: 429

Field

Newspaper

Syndicate:

3-4,

11-14,

20,

22,

126-127, 142,

.505-539, 755-757,

759

Johnny

Hart: 755, 757

I.H.T. Corporation:

126-127,

142

Crockett

Johnson:

505-539

Jack

Kent:

744-749

Selby Kelly:

7.34-737

King

Features:

5-10, 32-37,

40,

47-83,

92-95,

130-

135,

140-141, 144-1.50,

1.57-161, 170-174,

278-

319,

430-431,

444-484,

718,

723-733, 750-753,

758,

761-763

Mell Lazarus: 756,

759

McNaught

Syndicate, Inc.: 28-29,

41-46,

108-125,

136-137,

16.3-169,540-541

Newspaper Enterprise

Association:

175-178,

320-

426,

432-437.

497-504

The

Philadelphia Inquirer: 162

Scripps-Howard Newspapers:

1,

15,

19,

24-27,

30-31,38-39,716-717

The Seattle Times:

84-91

Skippy, Inc.:

174

Jessie

Kahles Straut:

14.3

Warren

Tufts:

741

United

Features Syndicate:

738-739,

742-743

Universal Press Syndicate

:

754

Raebum Van

Buren:

485-496

Walt

Disney

Productions:

542-643



Contents

Foreword

by

John

Canaday

7

Acknowledgments 9

Introduction:

The

Comic

Treasures

of the

American Newspaper

Page

11

I

Struwwelpeter,

Pagliacci,

and Puss

in

Boots:

Folklore

Figures in

the

Early

Sunday

Comic Strip,

1896-1916 19

Hogan's

Alley

22

Johnny

Wise

23

Buster

Brown

24

Katzenjammer

Kids 27

Hans und

Fritz 28

Maud

29

Happy

Hooligan 30

Jimmy

31

Little Nemo

in

Slumberland

Nibsy the

Newsboy

36

The

Kin-der-Kids 37

32

The

Newlyweds

40

Mr. Twee Deedle 41

The

Naps of Polly Sleepyhead

Naughty

Pete 43

Mama's

Angel

Child

44

Bear

Creek

Folks

45

School

Days 46

Mutt

and

JefiF

47

Slim

Jim

49

Hawkshaw the

Detective

50

42

II

Mr.

Caudle,

Sherlock

Holmes,

and the Artless

Dodger:

Popular

Images in

the

Early Daily

Comic

Strip,

1907-1927

51

Mr.

E.

Z.

Mark

54

Mr.

Jack

54

Braggo the

Monk

55

The

Hall-Room

Boys

Sherlocko the Monk

Desperate

Desmond

Chantecler

Peck

56

S'MatterPop? 56

Midsummer

Day Dreams

A. Mutt

58



IV

Sunny

Toonenille

and

the

Darkling

World:

Anecdote

and

Narrative

in

the

Daily

Comic

Strip,

1917-19.33 131

Out

Our

Way ia3

Bobby

Thatcher

134

Minute

Movies 136

School

Days

138

Toonerville

Folks

141

Moon

Mullins

144

Barney Google

and

Spark Plug

\A'ash

Tubbs 165

156

\'

Popeye,

the

Skipper,

and

the

Abysses

of

Space

and

Time:

Anecdote

and

Narrative

in the

Sunday

Comic

Strip,

1930-1941 183

Buck

Rogers 185

Tarzan

187

Flash

Gordon

188

Prince

VaUant 189

Alley

Oop

190

Captain Easy

193

Little

Joe

196

White

Boy 197

Toonerville

Folks

198

Thimble Theatre ( Popeye

199

VI

Shadow

Shapes

in

Moving

Rows:

Extended

Narrative

in the

Daily

and

Sunday

Comic

Strip,

1928-1943

231

Secret Agent X-9

233

Bringing Up

Father

233

Abbie

an' Slats 235

Our

Boarding House

237

Bamabv 239

The

Bungle Family 246

Mickey

Mouse 248

Little

Orphan

Annie 265

Terr\- and

the Pirates 274

Dick

Tracy

279

VII

Cats, Dogs,

Possums,

Counts,

and Others: A

Comics

Miscellany,

1928-1950 287

Nize

Baby

289

Count Screwloose

290

Dave's

Delicatessen 291

Felix

the

Cat

292

Li'lAbner

293

Hejji 296

Abie

the

Agent 297

Krazy Kat 298

Pogo 306

Gordo 310

Texas Slim and Dirty Dalton

Casey

Ruggles 312

311

VIII Little People, Wise

Guys,

and

Witches:

The

Return of the Funnies 313

Peanuts

315

King Aroo

316

Tumbleweeds 317

Beetle

Bailey 318

Hagar

the

Horrible 318

Doonesbury

319

B.

C. 320

Miss

Peach

321

The Wizard of

Id

Hi and

Lois

322

Momma 322

Broom

Hilda

323

Sam's

Strip

323

322

A

Selected, Introductory

Bibliography

of

Books

and

Articles on

Newspaper

Comics

324

An

Annotated

Index of the Comics

325



Foreword

You have

to

be

lucky enough

to

have

been

around for a

rather

long

stretch of years

say

seven

decades—

to remember

a

time

when

newspaper

comics

were just

newspaper

comics

rather

than

sociological documents

and

works

of

art

with their

own

set

of inno-

vative

esthetic

principles, which

they

have

become.

If

you

have been

really

lucky,

luckier

than all

but

a

handful

of

people

I

know,

the comics are

tied

to the

time when

you were

a

small boy in a

small town

about

a

hundred miles

from

Kansas

City and

your

weekly reward

for good

behavior in

Sunday

school

was five

cents

for

a

copy

of

the

Sunday

Kansas

City

Star.

Along

with

reports of the

sinking

of

the

Titanic

in

1912,

the

declaration of

war

in Europe

in

1914,

and

other events in

the

fictional area

out-

side a

ten-mile radius

from the

Bourbon

County Court House

in

Fort Scott,

the

Star

kept

you

abreast

of

the

adventures

of

the

Katzenjammer

Kids,

Happy

Hooligan,

Bus-

ter

Brown, and

other familiar

personalities of the

real

world.

The

transmutation of the

old

newspaper

comics from

their

initial

character

as

en-

tertainments

to be

read

lying on your

stomach on

the Hoor before

Sunday

dinner,

into

their current

status

as

sociological

testaments

for

intellectual

evaluation,

as

demon-

strated

by

this book,

pleases

me,

since

it

is

always

reassuring

to

see

that

solid

respect-

ability

may

follow

thoughtless

youth. But

my

own response

to

the comics

reproduced

here is not at

all

intellectual. The

early

ones

reduce me

to

a

quivering jelly

of nostal-

gia,

which

is

the condition

of

remembering

how

sweet

hfe

used

to

be and

forgetting

how terrible it

was. This

holds up

to

about

the time I was eight,

when we

moved from

Kansas

to

Texas.

The years from

eight to twelve

were

my collector's

period, with suit boxes

filled

with

thousands

of strips

clipped

from

daily

papers

and filed b\' date

and subject.

Upon entering

high

school

I

threw

the

collection

out

as

kid

stuff, and

for

the

next

four

years the

comics,

although

assiduously

followed,

occupied

a

residual spot

in

my atten-

tion,

badgered

as

I

was,

as everybody

is

at that time,

by

geysers

of

hormones. The

trouble

with

having

been

lucky

enough to

know newspaper comics

shortly after

1907

and up

to

1919 is

that you

have

to

settle

for

the

1920s

for your

teen-age years,

and

there never

was a

much

more

embarrassing

time for

an

adult to

look back

on.

Teen-

agers

since

then

have

passed

through

more

dangerous,

more

violent,

and

more

tragic

periods,

but

not

more

embarrassing ones.

We

were silly,

let's let it go

at that.

The

point in

mentioning that

period

here

is that

in

spite of so

much

that is

painful

to

recall,

my

early

teens were

marked by

one discovery that

saves

my

self-respect.

This

was

Krazij

Kat.

Krazy

was not

a

general

favorite with

my

contemporaries

adolescent

or

adult.

They

liked Barney

Google

and

Moon Mullins. So did

I. The more

sophisticated

of my

colleagues

went

for Toonerville

Trolley.

So did

I. But they

couldn't

see what

was fimny

about

Krazy Kat.

nor could

they see that

that

was exactly

the

point

—that

Krazy

tcasn't funny.

He/she

was

(is,

and surely

always wall be)

a

combination

of

a lot

of

things,

including

hilarious, but

not

funny.

In

1926

Gilbert

Seldes

in

The

Seven

Lively

Arts

wrote the

famous essay

on

Krazy,

celebrating

Kokonino

Kounty

and

its

inhabitants

on

a philosophical

premise

identify-

ing

Krazy

with

Don

Quixote,

but

this

was

several years

after

I

used to

go

through the

Strouds's

discarded

copies

of the

San

Antonio

Light

to

find Krazy.

My

father

refused

to

have a

Hearst paper

in

the house

and

the

Strouds,

less

fussy,

lived

next

door.



\ATienever

self-doubts

as to

my

intellectual capacit>', my

poetic

sensitivity, my

criti-

cal

acumen,

or my

humanistic

discernment threaten to sink me, I

can always surface

on

my

record

as

a

precocious

member

of

what

was

to

become a

Kult.

Krazy

also saved

me later

in

life:

The

only

explanation I can

see

as

to

why my

mistakes

as a

parent

didn't

scar my

offspring

is

that Krazy,

by

then

collected

in a

book with

another

ap-

preciation

by

e e

cummings, was always at

hand

instead

of

the literary' pap

usually

fed

to

kiddies.

Within

the family we

mastered

Krazy

s

dialect

for use

on

special

occa-

sions, and

could

recite back and

forth

the dialogues

from

favorite

episodes.

It

sounds

precious and

would have been precious if there

had

been anything

self-conscious

or

Kultish

about

it,

but

it

wasn't

like

that.

Krazy

was

a

kind

of

pet,

mascot,

and Keeper

of

the

Peace around

our

house, a benign presence

and good

example even today from

his/her

spot

on

the bookshelf.

Somehow

I

never

managed to

get

really involved

with any of the comics

later than

Krazy

—a loss for me,

I'm sure, which this book

may correct. There

was

a

brief

period

at the

University of

Virginia

when it

was

voguish among the young professors to pre-

tend

to be

fascinated

with

Mary

Worth.

We

would

tell

each other we could hardly

wait

to

find

out

how she would straighten out so-and-so's troubles.

But

it

was all

pretty

phony, a kind of reverse

academicism.

During

those years

I remember also stumbling

over

stacks of comic

books upstairs in

the

boys'

room,

probably Buck Rogers and

Superman operating on different

wave

lengths

from Krazy

's in the

library

downstairs.

But

I never looked into these.

So

I

lost track of

the comics.

The

closest

I

ever

came

to

post-Krazy

involvement

was

in

the

spring

of

1944,

serving

in the Marine

Corps

with Alex Raymond,

who relin-

quished

the

authorship of Flash

Gordon

in order

to

enlist

with

a

group

of officer-

trainees

at

Quantico,

Virginia. Raymond

was

held

in downright veneration

by the

rest

of

the

class; even

the

drill sergeant,

who

was

otherwise

the

meanest

man in the

world,

regarded

him as

a

rare

and

fragile object that might

shatter if commanded to

shoulder

arms

in

too rough a

tone of

voice,

giving

me

some

idea

of the power that

comics

still held

in America

—

and,

I

am

sure,

still

do.

The comics are

ubiquitous.

You

don't

have to

have followed

a strip

for

its identity

to have somehow entered your

consciousness: the

comics affect your way of feeling

about

the

daily

world

whether or not

you

read

them.

So far as I can tell, the effect on

me

has

been

salutary,

and

I

am content

with

the

idea of strengthening

it

with

the aid

of this anthology. The

function

of art,

we

are told,

is to

clarify,

intensify, or enlarge

our

experience,

and the comics are

now

art.

Without

much

expectation

of clarifica-

tion,

or of intensification,

let

me

now

set

about

expanding

my boundaries. In

the

meanwhile,

although

grateful

for

this

book,

I

am also grateful for

the

time-scheme

that

allowed

me

to

know

the comics

when.

John

Canaday

New York,

May

17,

1977



Acknowledgments

The

names of the

many syndicates

and

individual

artists who have

generously

con-

tributed

to

this volume appear on the

comics pages

which

follow.

Here we

would

like

especially

to thank

the

following:

King Features Syndicate and

Charlotte

MacCleary

Field

Newspaper

Syndicate

Mell

Lazarus

The

late

Crockett

Johnson

Selby Kelly

Robert

S.

Reed

and the

Chicago

Tribune-New

York

News

Syndicate

Johnny

Hart

David

Stolberg and the

Scripps-Howard

Newspapers

Charles

V.

McAdam

and the

McNaught

Syndicate

Robert C.

Dille

Jessie

Kahles

Straut

Thomas E. Peoples

and

the

Newspaper

Enterprise

Association

Joan

Crosby

Tibbets

Raeburn Van

Buren

Edgar

Rice

Burroughs,

Inc.,

and Robert

M.

Hodes

The

I.

H.

T.

Corporation

Jack

Kent and

Stanleigh Arnold

William Ravenscroft

and

United

Features

Syndicate

Walt

Disney

Productions

Universal

Press

Syndicate

and,

finally,

Rick

Marschall



Sports

writers

. .

.

are surpassed

in

ingenuity and

success as

diligent coiners of

neologisms

only by the

comic

strip artists,

of

whom Thomas

A,

(Tad) Dorgan, Elzie

Crisler Segar

and Billy De

Beck

are

examples.

Dorgan

...

is said to have

invented

or introduced

drugstore

cowboy

,

nobody home

.

.

.

and to

have

launched

such popular

phrases

as 'You

tell

him,' 'Yes,

we have no

bananas,' and

'You

said

it.'

Segar (creator of Popeye) is

credited

with

goon

,

.jeep

,

and

various

other

teuiis

that, in

the

hands of

others, took

on

wide

extensions

of

meaning,

and with starting

the vogue

for

the

words ending in

burger.

To De

Beck

.

.

.

are ascribed heebie .jeebies

,

hot

mamma

,

hotsy-totsy

,

ajid horse feathers

. . .

.

The comic strip

artist

.

.

.

has

been

a

very diligent maker of

terse

and

dramatic

words. In

his

grim

comments

upon the

horrible

calamities which

befall his characters

he not only

employs many ancients

of English

speech,

e.g.,

slam

,

bang

,

quack

.

mee-ow

,

smash and biMp

,

but also

invents novelties of his own,

e.g.,

zowie

.

bam,

socko

.

yurp

,

plop

,

wow,

wham

,

glug

.

oof

,

ulk

,

whap

,

bing

,

fooie

and

grrr

. .

. .

Their influence

upon

the general

American vocabu-

lary

must

be

very

potent.

. . .

H.

L.

Mencken

The American

Language

.

1919.

and

Supplement One

.

19^5

10



Introduction

a

The

Comic

Treasures

of the

American

Newspaper

Page

The

elements

of the

American comic

strip

were already

there. A succession

of

draw-

ings

expressing

a continuous

action, an

anecdotal

event,

a

narrative

—

they are

as old

as cave paintings

and

had been

vividly rendered in

European

art, in

Greek

temple

reliefs,

and

in

Giotto frescoes.

Talk

balloons,

speeches

oflFered in

encircled,

smoke-

like

wisps

from

the

mouths

of

characters,

were

fairly

common

in eighteenth-centur>'

caricature,

and graphic caricature

was

fairly commonplace

by the mid-nineteenth cen-

tury. And

so, in

the

British

comic

papers,

were

captioned

cartoon

narratives offer-

ing,

usually

in

broad burlesque, farcical

incident

and anecdote

which

largely

derived

from

the conventions

of

circus clowning

and

the

music hall-vaudeville

sketch.

It

remained

for

the United

States,

then

entering

fully

into

its

own

era

of

mass com-

munications,

to

put all these elements together and make something new

of them,

something

new

and

compelling,

and so

irresistible

that

it

spread (along

with our

movies

and

our

music

)

around

the

world.

Only in

the

past

decade

has

the

American

newspaper

comic strip

begun to be

recognized in

its

own

country

as

an

innovative

and creative cultural

accomplishment.

It

has

long

been

hailed in

France and

elsewhere

in Europe

as one of

the important

achievements in the arts of this

century,

and

it

has

been

studiously

examined

there in

a

number

of

journals

exclusively

devoted to

the

subject.

That

is perhaps not so exceptional or extreme

a

cultural default

as

it may

at

first

seem.

Notoriously,

Europeans

—and

particularly

the French

—have

recognized,

re-

searched, praised

(

and sometimes overpraised

)

the American arts

—

our

movies,

our

jazz, our comics—

before

we have. And

it

would

perhaps

not

be

too chauvinistic

to

point out that we have

produced those things, after

all, and loved

them,

and that

scholarship,

art criticism,

and cultural

history

are secondary pursuits.

At

the same time,

many

of

our own

historians

of the arts,

having borrowed their

principles,

procedures, and attitudes

largely

from

European

cultural

historians, have

proceeded

to

apply

those principles

only

to

such

traditional

categories

as we have bor-

rowed directly

from

abroad—

to

literary

history,

to

the

theater,

to

concert

music,

and

the

like, sometimes

pausing

to

scorn

or

reject

those

artistic

genres

that

are particularly

American,

like the movies,

jazz,

and the

comics.

Europeans, meanwhile,

have applied

their

principles of cultural

history and

criticism in

modified

form

to

those American

creations

and transmutations which we

still

think of as

our popular

or even

our

light

artistic

pursuits.

Thus

the

comic

strip

has

been critically

neglected

in the United States,

and

has

even

been

openly

attacked.

But

a

further,

and

perhaps

crucial

reason

for

the

neglect

of the

comics

lay in

the

aversion

of most

well-educated

Americans of

every

political

persuasion

for

the

sensational

press of the turn of the

century

and later.

The

profes-



sors,

teachers,

prelates,

and literati

of the

time

usually did not see

these

newspapers

as colorful

and

amusing but

saw

them instead

as

vicious,

crude, and

frightening in

their instant and

openly

demagogic

appeal

to a mass readership.

And

the

papers

they

most

grimly

eschewed

—

the

Hearst titles

connected

in a

chain from

coast

to

coast,

the

Chicago

Tribune,

the

New

York

World

(until

1920),

the

New York

Daily

News

—

were

precisely

the

papers which carried

the largest

array

of comic

strips

by

the

most

talented artists.

The papers most

respected

and

read

by

these

educators

and

tastemakers

—

the New

York Times, the New

York Herald Tribune, the

Boston

Tran-

script,

the

Baltimore

Sun

—

carried

fewer

strips, and

the

Times carried (

and

carries

none

at

all.

Comics

seemed

to the

elite the

obviously

lowbrow Pied

Piper

which

lured

the inno-

cents to their

journalistic

doom at

the hands

of the

Hearsts,

McCormicks, and Pulit-

zers.

Weren't

Krazy Kat, Little Nemo,

Buster Brown, Happy Hooligan,

and the

Kat-

zenjammer Kids

being paid

for

and

distributed

by

Hearst? They

must therefore

be

tainted

by

his

political

ambitions

and

social

attitudes; any

intrinsic

merit

they

might

possess as works of

art

was

perhaps

accidental,

certainly

irrelevant, and surely

best

ignored.

The majority of those in

authoritative positions in

American literature and art

dur-

ing the

first

half of this

century

simply

may not

have seen

the

more

subtly imagina-

tive,

gorgeously

inventive, and creatively

memorable strips at all

because

these

exciting

works

were being

published in

the wrong

papers.

And

concomitantly, they

overlooked

the

colorfully

bound

strip reprint

volumes

issued

by

minor publishers at

the time,

both

as

entertainment for

themselves

and

as gifts for their

children.

At

the

same time,

even

the

most gifted

and

creatively

involved

comic-strip

artists

tended

to

hold themselves

and

their

work

in a modest and

unpretentious

low

regard.

They made

small

jokes

about their

strips in

public,

surrendered their

original

art to

their

employing

syndicates without

expecting or

wanting

its return,

supplied

funny

anecdotes for

superficial articles about their

careers, sighed

after

serious

art

pur-

suits, and

—

perhaps worst

for the historian

—

maintained virtually no reference

files

of their own

work.

Similarly,

our libraries

have

been

negligent. Many would not

even stock the

New

York

Graphic

or certain

of the

Hearst newspapers.

Only one substantial

book

has ever

been

devoted

to

the

Graphic,

possibly

the

most

iconoclastically

innovative

newspaper

in American

history.

A scant

half dozen

have been

written

about

Hearst's highly

im-

portant

chain

of journals. And none has yet

appeared

on the New

York Daily

News

or

the Chicago

Tribune.

A side

result

was

the

failure

of

the

New

York Public

Library to

maintain

any

comprehensive file of

Hearst's

New

York Journal,

crucial to the study

of

journalism

as well

as to

that

of

the

comic

strip. And indeed the

New

York

Graphic

has apparently

not

survived

at

all;

there

may

be

no

file

of

that

paper,

public or private,

left on

earth.

Had

the

comic-strip

material

which

ran in the shunned

popular

press been pub-

lished

instead

by

Vanity

Fair

or

The

New

Yorker, or

had

it

reached

the

august

pages

of the New

York Times,

there

can

be

little

doubt

that

the

best

example

of

the

strip

form would

have

readily received the critical

accolades

and

appreciative discussion

they

should have had from the outset.

As it is, we have

missed

such

theoretical

re-

wards

as H. L. Mencken's

comments

on E.

C.

Segar's Thimble

Theatre

as

Americana

and sustained

comic

narrative;

Lionel

Trilling's

consideration

of the

renovation of

the

Dickensian

character in

the

literature of

the

comic strip; Kenneth Burke's

analysis of

linguistic

symbol and graphic

leitmotif

in the

popular inythos of

the

strips; and Ed-

mund Wilson's

consideration of the

potential

of Edward

Corey's

working with the

sustained

characters

and narrative of

the

comic

strip.

Still

and

all, there have

been

some

nine

studies of

historical

and

critical substance

dealing with

the

newspaper

strips

published in the

United States since 1897. Perhaps

there

is

some

record

of appreciation of

a

national

art

form

after all.

12



This

collection presents,

in a

single

volume, an

extensive

gallery of

newspaper

comics,

an anthology which the editors

hope

ofiFers

some

memorable

and

amusing art

and

narrative.

The comic

strip is essentially a

narrative

art.

A

well-conceived story,

character, or

incident can make

clumsy or

barely

competent art

work

functionally

acceptable,

much as a

strong story and good

character

actors may

redeem

films

with slipshod

camera and

directorial

work. Indeed,

some

strip

artists

were,

by

strict

standards

of

draftsmanship or graphics, no

artists at all.

What they

had was a

point

of view

(a

sometimes rowdy

point of

view,

to

be

sure

)

on

the

human

animal

and

his attitudes

and

actions,

and a

functional

means to

convey

it.

Still,

the art

of

the

comic

strip

did

provide an

extraordinary'

vehicle

for

inspired

graphic

experimentation

and

accomplishment

by

some

major

comic-strip

artists,

in-

cluding

Winsor McCay, Lyonel

Feininger,

George

Herriman,

ClifiF Sterrett,

Roy

Crane,

Milton

Caniff, and others

whom

the reader

will readily

note

in

the

following

pages.

As we

indicate, however,

it

was as a

challenge

to

the

storytelling

imagination

that

the

comic

strip

stirred its most striking response

among

creative

minds,

and

it

brought to

light

a

number

of

talents who were able

to

use

its

highly

individual

techniques

of

con-

tinuity to often

remarkable

advantage.

Compare, for

example, the

graphic

compe-

tence

of Roy

Crane

in his

Wash Tubbs

stor\'

in

this

volume

with

that

of E.

C.

Segar

in the

Thimble

Theatre

narrative.

Crane's

sensitive

mastery

of

pictorial

composition

and technique is

self-evident (his

panels in

the

Tubbs

whaling

sequences

are as

defdy

evocative

of

the cetacean majesty and

movement as

Rockwell

Kent's

illustrations

for

Moby Dick), and

they

are

in

sharp

contrast

to Segar's

obviously

limited

graphic

con-

cerns.

However,

both

artist-narrators

were

readily

able

to

spin

stories of

arresting

in-

cident,

humor,

strong

characterizations,

and sustained

plot

interest,

and few

readers

can

resist

the

compulsion

to

read

their

narratives

raptly

through

to

the

end.

Thus the

dual

purpose of

this

collection

reflects

the

remarkable

dichotom>-

of the

strip medium

itself,

shared

only with cinema,

in

that

its

best

works

can be

enjoyed

both as

gallery art and

in

continuity as

fiction or

drama.

Indeed,

this

division

of

esthetic

possibihty

is

reflected

in

the

divergent

emphases

of

the

only

two

national

institutions

at

present

devoted in

full or

great part

to

comic-strip

art: the Museum

of

Cartoon

Art

in

Greenwich,

Connecticut,

which

is

largely

con-

cerned

with

rotating

displays

of original

strip

drawings; and

the

San

Francisco

Acad-

emy of

Comic Art,

which

files

all

of the

printed

strips,

so they

can be

studied

in

rela-

tion to

other

printed narrative

arts,

as

story-carrying

material.

The

comic

strip may

functionally be

defined

as

a

serially

published,

episodic,

open-ended

dramatic

narrative

or

series

of linked

anecdotes

about

recurrent,

identi-

fied

characters,

told

in

successive

drawings

regularly enclosing

ballooned

dialogue

or

its

equivalent

and

minimized

narrative

text.

Not all the

features

contained

herein

fit

that

functional

definition,

in

detail,

to

be

sure.

Johnny

Gruelle's

Mr. Twee Deedle,

for

example,

has

no

ballooned

dialogue

and

might

actually

be

considered a

kind of

comic

version

of an

illustrated

children's

book.

Similarly, the

comics page

Tarzan,

in

any

of

its

several

versions over the

years,

is a

condensed-narrative,

fantasy-adventure tale

in

text-and-illustration

form.

The American

comic strip

first

attained

definitive form

in a

Sunday

Yellow Kid

page,

drawn

by

Richard

Felton Outcault

for

William

Randolph

Hearst's

American

Humorist weekly

comic

supplement to his

New

York

Journal,

on

October

18,

1896.

The

immediate

progenitor of the

comic strip

was

probably the

illustrated

novel

of

the

nineteenth

century, which

in

England,

France,

and the

United

States

usually

fea-

tured

caricature

and

cartoon

art

as

intimate

accompaniment

to

the

texts

of

such

popu-

lar authors as

Dickens,

Thackeray,

Balzac, Hugo,

and others.

But the

strip

failed

to



THE

YELLOW

KID

TAKES

A HAND

AT

GOLF.

develop as

an

immediate

outgrowth

of the

reading pubUc's

enormous rehsh for car-

toon-supported

narrative in

the

1830s

and 1840s. A

Pickwick

comic

strip, issued

in

bound

parts

by

the

same

pubHsher

who

originally

hired

Dickens

to

write

text for the

popular

cartoons

of

Robert

Seymour,

thus bringing

Pickwick

Papers

into

being,

might

seem

in

retrospect to

have been

a

likely

event.

With art

by

Phiz (

Hablot Knight

Browne)

and script and

balloon

dialogue

by

Dickens,

such

a

work

might

well

have

had

wide

popularity. But

it

would

have

taken a

prescient imagination

to

conceive

of

a full-fledged fictional

narrative

being

carried

forward

by means of dialogue

within

successive drawings, much

as

drama was

performed

on a

stage,

and

without need

of

extensive

prose explication.

Such

an imagination

did

not

exist

in

Dickens's time,

not

even in

his

own

fertile and

graphically

oriented

mind.

Any

narrative

that was presented

by

means of

short sets of successive

drawings

was

largely limited

to

pantomimic

pratfall

gags and

occasional simplistic political

parables. In

these

forms,

captions

and

dialogue, whether presented

outside

or

within

the

panels,

essentially served as embellishment

to the art. In the Outcault Yellow

Kid

of

October

18,

1896,

however,

the

whole

point of

the

vaudeville

gag

depended

on the

dialogue between

the

Kid

and the

parrot, and that

was

the

first

time this had

occurred

in

a graphic

work which also

met

the

other

prerequisites

of the strip

form.

Both

Outcault's

publisher, Hearst,

and

his fellow cartoonists

on the

staff

of the

American Hunwri.sf

were

quick to perceive

and

to pursue the

broad

possibilities

the

Yellow

Kid's turn

with a comic-dialogue

payoff had

for the comic-character

features

the Humorist

was then

emphasizing.

The

crucial

and relevant effect of

rapidly ex-

changed dialogue

in

a

Weber and Fields

vaudeville

skit

could

now

be

paralleled in

comic

art.

Possibly

Outcault's innovation

struck

the

Humorist

staff

in

something

of the

same

way

that the

direct

addition of

.sound

to film struck most

workers

in the

silent-

movie industry,

startling them

into

a

realization

of expressive

possibilities undreamed

14



of.

Cartoonists

of the

time

had

long

been

wedded to the

notion

that art of

any kind

should

exist well apart

from prose

exposition,

like

a

kind

of

frozen tableau.

Outcault himself

promptly

seized

with

relish

on

the

potential

of

the

art

form

he

had

created, enlarging

on

the

dialogue

and

prose

essentials

of

the

comic

strip with pio-

neering

gusto

and

imagination,

as

did

his

companions

in the

new

field. By

the

turn

of

the

century,

dialogue and art

had

been

commonly

wedded

in

the

newspaper

comics.

And

by

the

1930s

comics

in

which

dialogue

was

minimal or

nonexistent,

such

as

J.

Carver

Pusey's Bennij

and

Carl

Anderson's

Hetny,

were

regarded as

inventive

and

original

in

their

refreshing

departure

from

convention.

Prolonged

graphic

narrative

was an

obvious

step

for

cartoonists

turning

out

weekly

newspaper strips

to

take, and

two of

Outcault's

confreres

on

the

Hearst

Journal,

Ru-

dolph

Dirks

(whose

Katzenjammer Kick had

entertained

readers

since

1896)

and

Fred

Opper

(the creator of

the comic

strip's

own

divine

and

Dostoevskian

Idiot,

Happy

Hooligan)

were

the

first

to carry

thematic

concepts

from

one

week's

strip

episode to

the

next.

Other

early strip artists

to

enlarge

on

narrative

possibilities

and

to

develop

actual

cliff

-hanging

suspense

were

Lyonel

Feininger

in

his

Kin-der-Kids

for

the

Chi-

cago

Tribune

in 1906,

Winsor

McCay

in

Little

Nemo

in

Slumberlaml

for

the

New

York

Herald

in

1905,

and

Charles

W.

Kahles

in

Hairbreadth

Harry

for the

Philadel-

phia

Press in 1906.

Weekday

comic

strips in

black

and

white

were

initiated

in

the

Hearst

morning

and

afternoon papers

across the

country

in

the

early

1900s.

At

first,

these

were

miniatur-

ized versions of the

Sunday

comic

strips,

self-contained

gags

about

reappearing

char-

acters

for whom

the

strips

were

named.

(

Some

early

examples

were

Cus

Mager's

Knocko

the

Monk,

H. A.

McCill's

Padlock

Bones,

the

Dead

Sure

Detective,

and F.

M.

Howarth's

Mr.

E. Z.

Mark.

)

Some

might

appear

for as

many as

ten

successive

weekdays, but

that

was

accidental;

the

average

frequency

was

three

days a

week,

and

the

editorial

purpose

was to

provide

daily

variety

in

strips,

not

daily

duplication

of

the

same

features.

In

1907,

however,

Henry

Conway

Bud

Fisher,

sports-page

cartoonist

for

the

San

Francisco

Chronicle,

introduced a

seven-day-a-week

sports-page

comic

strip

called

A.

Mutt,

which

gave

the

reader

daily,

tongue-in-cheek

horse-racing

tips.

Mr.

Mutt

suf-

fered or

prospered

according to

the

next-day

outcome

of

these

tips.

Fisher had,

in fact,

gotten

his idea

for

the

Chronicle

feature from

an

earlier but

ill-

fated

try for

a

similar

strip

created

by

Clare

Briggs and

Moses

Koenigsberg

for

the

Hearst

Chicago

papers,

the

American

and

Examiner.

Called

A.

Piker Clerk,

the

Briggs-drawn

sports-page

strip,

primarily

an

y\merican

feature,

was

intended

for

daily

pubhcation,

but

was

late

for

many

of

the

paper's

several

daily

editions

and

was

crowded

out

of

others

by

late

sports

news.

Finally

given

the

coup de

disgrace

by

Hearst—

who

found

Briggs's

twitting

of

foreign

dignitaries

(i.e.,

the

Czar

of

Russia)

in

the

strip

vulgar—

A.

Piker

Clerk

remains

a

vital if

premature

experiment

in

devel-

oping

a

daily

comic

strip.

Fisher's

A.

Mutt

(later

Mutt

and

Jeff)

literally

became

an

overnight

sensation

in

San

Francisco

and

materially

increased

the

daily

circulation

of

the

Chronicle.

The

paper's

bitter

local

rival, the

Hearst

Examiner,

sensed

a

good

thing

in

the

strip

and

promptly

hired

Fisher

away

from

the

Chronicle

at a

hefty

boost

in

salary.

The

local

delight

with

Fisher's

daily

episode

continued,

and

the

impressed

Hearst wasted

no

time

in

moving

Fisher

to

New

York and

syndicating

A.

Mutt

nationally.

An

aroused

public's

interest

in daily

character

strips

with

strong

thematic

narrative

was

nurtured

by

a myriad

of other

six-

and

seven-day-a-week

strips

which

quickU'

followed

on

the

sports

pages

of

papers

everywhere,

including

Sidney

Smith's

Buck

Nix

in the

Chicago

American, Russ

Westover's Luke

McGluck

in

the

San

Francisco

Post,

C.

M.

Payne's

Honeybunch's

Hubby in

the

New

York

World,

and

George

Herriman's

Baron

Mooch

in

the

Los

Angeles

Examiner.

On

January

31,

1912,

Hearst

introduced

the

nation's

first

full

daily

comic

page

in

his

New York

Evening Journal,

adding

it

to

his

other

afternoon

papers from

coast

to



m

coast

a

few

days

later.

Initially

made up of

four large daily

strips,

including Herri-

man's Family Upstairs

and

Harry Hershfield's

Desperate Desmond

(a

continuing

cliff-hanger

)

, the

Hearst page expanded

to

five,

then sLx,

and

finall>' nine daily strips

through

the

teens and early

twenties.

Other

papers

emulated

the

Hearst example, and

by

the 1920s the

phenomenon was

to be

found

in hundreds

of

newspapers

around

the

coimtry,

fed

by

dozens of daily strips distributed

by a

multitude of small

syndicates.

From

these early

small svudicates

emerged the giants of the

thirties,

such as

Hearst's

King Features,


Association (NEA),

the Chicago

Tribune-

New York News

Syndicate, the

Associated

Press,

and

United

Features from

United

Press.

By the

1930s,

comic

strips by the daily pageful

and

Sunday color section

collections

were

to be

found in most American

and

Canadian

newspapers.

Vital

to the then wide-

spread urban and rural competition between newspapers,

the

comic

strip

was

given

increasing

space and prominence, with

editors

vying for

the

newest,

strongest,

and

most original. As a

result,

the comic strip was to

be

seen

at its most

varied, inventive,

colorful,

and

exciting plent>' in the

thirties

and

early forties—a

peak

of

creativity

and

popularity

it has

not held since.

As

an introductory

collection,

our volume

has

(

and must

have

)

its

limitations.

Eight

strips are presented here in extensive

continuity'

with

complete

narrative

sequence,

but perhaps

as

many

as

thirty

deserve

that

kind

of representation.

Moreover,

a

num-

ber of fine strips have been crowded out of

even

the

group

of

single-episode examples

to

which

a

large

body

of

the

included strips have been limited. But in order to

estab-

lish

a

functional

basis

for

the selection of representative

material,

the

editors

had

to

set

a

few general rules of

procedure.

First,

we drew

up

two

lists of

comics. One

of

them contained

the editors'

choices

of

the

most accomplished

and

critically memorable

strips,

considered both

as

graphic

and

narrative

works.

The other set

forth the

most generally famed,

popular,

and

typical

strips.

Thus

The

Kin-der-Kids, Mr.

Twee

Deedle,

and

School

Days would be

on the

first

list,

but not

the

second;

while

Tillie the Toiler

and

Joe

Palooka would be

obvi-

ous

choices

for the second.

A number

of

strips, of

com-se,

appeared on

both

lists

(tides

such

as

Polly

and Her Pals, Thimble Theatre,

Katzenjammer

Kids,

Dick

Tracy,

and Mickey

Mouse),

and

clearly

these

were strong

contenders

for

relatively exten-

sive

representation

in the

collection.

The bulk of our

volume is

built around

examples

of those works which combine intrinsic

excellence

and

wide

popularity with

readers

of their

time, while

titles

relegated to

just

one

list

or

the other

were

included as

space

and

the need for reasonable

representation of

both

bodies

of material

seemed

to

dictate.

We

also

took

into

account those strips which

have

recently been

so

widely

re-

printed

to

meet the demands of

their

still-active

aficionados that

inclusion

at

length

in these

pages

might

be

considered

wasteful of

valuable

space—such strips as

Flash

Gordon,

Buck

Rogers,

Tarzan,

and

Prince

Valiant.

Dick Tracy is

included

in a

fairly

long

excerpt

because

of the nearly

exclusive

focus on the

post- 1940 strip in

current

reprints.

Our

selection

is

from

the

mid-thirties,

when

Chester

Gould's

work was

rather

different

in

quality and

tone.

Ultimately,

of

course,

what the editors

have

done

in

this

collection is

make their

own

choices

out

of

their own knowledge

and

their own

tastes. We

may

disagree as

to

whether

every

strip or

every

continuity herein

is art or

even

artistic. We

do

not

claim

that

the

volume

at

hand is

a

definitive comics collection (whatever

that

would

be).

We have put

together

a

selection

of

comics we feel are

interesting,

important,

representative,

funny, curious,

exceptional,

artistic

—and

the

reader, of

course,

will

take his

choice from among

those

descriptions.

Further

comments on

the

selections wdll be

found

in brief prefaces to

each

of the

several

period

divisions

of

the

book.

Extensive

discussion of

all

the

material in

this

collection

will

be found

in

coeditor

Bill

Blackbeard's

forthcoming

book

The

Endless

Art:

The

Literature

of

the Cotnic Strip (Oxford

University

Press).

16



m

On

the

matter

of

authorship',

we

make

no

effort

to

disentangle

some

knotty

prob-

lems

of strip history. A successful strip

illustrator-author

might hire

an

assistant

to

help draw,

an assistant

to help

plot,

or

both,

at

one or more periods

of

his

career

—

or,

in some

cases,

an outright ghost or ghosts

to

take

over for

a

while.

Yet he still

might

retain an artistic control

over

his

creation.

(Or

he

might

not.

Indeed,

the trade

gossip

has

long held that

the

author of one

of the

most

successful strips of

the

1930s

and

1940s

never

drew the

feature at all,

even

in the

beginning, and probably that

gos-

sip

tells

the truth. However, such

matters

are

properly

the province

of other

scholar-

ship and

other books.)

The

pages

that

follow

have their share

of stereotypes

and

some

of those

stereo-

types

are

racial.

Comedy

and

melodrama

are

always based

on

the

manipulation of

stereotypes

of some kind, although

in

such

contexts we

usually call

them

stock char-

acters

or

traditional

types or some

such.

What

remains for

the true

artist,

of course,

is

to

bring

his types

to life

and relate them to

reality.

There

is

a

distinction

between a

simply

careless or

insensitive or even

racist exploi-

tation

of national and racial

types

on the

one

hand

and a quite

legitimate satire or

burlesque on

the other. But

such

distinctions

are

sometimes difficult to

make, and

American

artists

have

not

always

made

them.

The

distinctions

are

important,

to be sure.

And you will find in

these

pages

exam-

ples

of both unthinking racial

exploitation

and,

occasionally, true

satirical

observa-

tion.

In

the

popular culture of this country,

we are

dealing

with

an

art

to

which,

until

fairly recently, nothing

and

nobody was

sacred.

And in

which a

guileless

Irish

bum

(

Happy

Hooligan

)

,

a

confused

black janitor,

or

a

mysterious

Oriental

could

be

made

the

subject

or the butt

of humor or of

melodrama, fairly or

unfairly,

without

any

hesitation.

At

the

same time, we are

also

sometimes

the victims of

our

passing attitudes.

Thus

in

the

1970s we

are apt

to

find

the

conman

Kingfish

(

although

he was

portrayed on

television

by

a

skillful black

comedian,

Tim Moore) disquieting.

But

we

find Redd

Foxx's

Fred

Sanford

of

Sanford

and

Son

comfortably amusing.

And

we

acclaim

Richard

Pryor's

satiric

array

of scatological

black street characters as

examples of bold

and

insightful theatrical art.

Collective

attitudes

change. Perhaps

popular

insight changes as well.

But

comedy

and drama

both

remain, and so,

therefore, do

the

basic

types

that are

a

part of their

substance.

In

any

case, as

presented

here

they

are

a

part of

our

history, a

part

which

it

would

be

pointless for us to

attempt

to

suppress.

The

question

of

content and

meaning

in

these strips is one we

do

not

intend

to

pur-

sue further

in this

introduction.

But

it is a

question

quite

worth

pursuing,

and

one

that

would

encompass

collective

and

archetypical ritual; theatrical, literary, and

graphic

tradition;

and

contemporary

social attitudes,

conscious

and

unconscious.

It would

involve

the

individual

strip

author's intentions

as

well.

Harold Gray's

Lit-

tle

Orphan

Annie

clearly

invites us to admire the

sizable

empire-and-fortune-build-

ing prowess

of Daddy

Warbucks on

the

one

hand, and

the thrifty

and

loyal virtues

the

author

sees

as

encouraged

by

day-to-day

poverty

on

the

other.

Similarly, Dick

Tracy

was

frankly

conceived

by

Chester

Gould as

a

policeman who would save us

from

rampant 1930s

gangsterism

by

shooting

first

and

asking questions afterwards.

As

indicated,

much of the text of

this

volume

represents the collaborative

effort

of both

editors.

As

a

result,

the

stylistic

habits

of

each

writer

have been

set

aside

to

produce

a

harmoniously

unobtrusivebody

of

inf

onnation

to

accompany the

much more

important

graphic

content

of

the book.

Such

opinions and

historical

interpretations

as

are

set

forth

indicate

only that one or the other of us

held them; not necessarily both.

The

current

material

in Section

Eight,

included to

augment

the

general

appeal

of



the

collection

and

necessarUy

limited

in

scope

through

space

considerations,

was

chosen

mainly

for

its

stylistic

or

thematic

relation

to the

older

and

earlier

material

in

the

book

and

does

not

represent, by

any

means,

all of the

current

titles

either or

both

of

us

would

like to

have

included.

By

collecting

and

juxtaposing

our

strips

as

we

have

here, we

do them

some

admit-

ted

injustice.

The

narratives

of

Segar,

Kelly,

and

the

rest

are,

after

all,

intended to

be

read in

daily

episodes,

and

each

such

fragment of

narrative

has

its

own rise

and

fall

and

an

implicit suspense

that

is

supposed to be

relieved

(and

then continued)

twenty-four

hours

later

with the

arrival

of the

next day's

paper.

But

we

have

placed

the

next

day's

episode

further

down

the page.

Read

them

with

that

in

mind.

And

enjoy.

Bill

Blackbeard

Martin

Williams

18



a

Struwwelpeter,

Pagliacci,

and

Puss

in

Boots

Folklore

Figures

in the

Early

Sunday

Comic

Strip,

1896-1916

During

its

first two decades

the

new

comic-strip

medium

appeared

chiefly

on

large,

pulp

paper

pages in

color-printed

Sunday

humor and

magazine sections

of the

more

prosperous metropolitan

newspapers.

(

Tabloid-size

color

comic

pages

first

appeared

when the

Chicago

Tribune,

Portland

Oregonian, and other

papers

introduced

them

as a

paper-saving

measure

in

1918.)

Three

comic figures

of

popular

fiction

domi-

nated

virtually to the

exclusion

of all

others: the

demon

child, the

clownish

innocent,

and the

humanized

animal.

And the

demon

child led all

the

rest.

The character

also

appeared,

in

varying

de-

grees

of

rascality,

throughout

American

fiction

at

the

time

the

first

strips were

being

conceived,

notably

with

such

hellions as

Mark

Twain's

Huckleberry Finn,

George

W.

Peck's Bad

Boy,

and Edward

W.

Townsend's

Chimmie

Fadden.

However,

he was

perhaps

even more

luridly

and

seminally

rendered

in

such

earlier

German

popular

graphic

figures

as

Heinrich

Hoffmann's

Struwwelpeter

(

1845;

but anticipated

by

a

fig-

ure

in

Paul

Gavami's illustrations

for

Les enfants

terribles

of

1843)

and

Wilhelm

Busch's Max

and

Moritz

(1865).

The

premier

figure of juvenile

genius

and

subversion

in

the

comics

was,

of

course,

R. F.

Outcault's

Yellow Kid. He

was

almost

immediately

followed by

Rudolph

Dirks's

longer-lasting Katzenjammer

Kids

team

of

Hans

and Fritz,

which

had

originally

been

copied

directly from

the two

schrecklichkinder

of

Busch.

Subsequent

demon

children

of the

early

Sunday comics were

Outcault's

Buster

Brown,

Winsor

McCay's

Little

Samwy

Sneeze, Nemo's troublesome buddies

in Little

Nemo

in

Slwnherland,

George

McManus's Nibsy

(hero

of

a

short-lived

spoof

on

McCay's

Nemo

page,

Nibsy

the

Newsboy

in

Funny

Fairyland),

James

Swinnerton's

Jimmy,

Penny

Ross's

Esther

(in

Mama's

Angel

Child),

Tad

Dorgan's Johnny

Wise,

George

Herriman's

Bud

Smith.

C.

W. Kahles's Bobby

Bounce

(

continuing

in

the

strip

briefly

done in

1902 by

W.

W.

Denslow,

illustrator of

The

Wizmd

of

Oz, as

Billy Bounce),

A.

C.

Fera's

Elmer

(in



Just

Boy),

Walter

Hoban's

Jerry, Tom

McNamara's

city gang in

Us Kids, Clare

Dwiggins's rural kids

in

School

Days

—

and

many others.

Almost

as

common

on the

early Sunday

comic

page was the

well-meaning,

even

saindy,

fool,

who

ranged

in

nineteenth-century

literature

from

Dickens's Mr. Toots

in

Dotnbey

and

Son to

Dostoevski's

Prince

Mishkin

of

The

Idiot,

but

who

was

per-

haps

most

popularly

rendered

in the sad

clown

hero of

Leoncavallo's later nineteenth-

century

opera,

/

Pagliacci.

Initially

introduced to the

comic

strip

in

Fred

Opper's

1900

Sunday

page,

Happy Hooligan,

drawn

for Hearst's

New

York

Journal,

clownish

inno-

cents

promptly

swarmed across

the

color

strips

in the guise of such characters as

Raymond

Ewer's Slim

Jim,

Billy

Marriner's Sambo,

Norman

R.

Jennette's

Marseleen

(a

clown

in

full

Pagliaccian

regaha), George

McManus's

Lovey

and

Dovey (in

The

Newlyweds),

C. M.

Payne's Pop

(in S'Matter Pop?),

Rube

Goldberg's

Boob

McNutt,

Winsor McCay's Little Nemo,

James

Swinnerton's

Sam

(in Sam

and

His

Laugh),

George

Herriman's Major

Ozone,

Charles

Schultz's

Fo.xy Grandpa,

and

many

another.

Not quite

as

widespread

in

the

early

Sunday

comics

as the two types cited,

but

a

close third in popular

usage and appeal, was the

humanized animal,

found

in

chil-

dren's

tales and

cautionary

parables as

far back

as

Aesop,

most memorably

captured

as a prototypical

image

in

Charles Perrault's

cocky

and adventurous Puss

in

Boots, and

abundantly

present

in

nineteenth-century

fiction,

notably

in Hans

Christian

Ander-

sen's

Fairy

Tales,

the monumental

Scenes in

the

Private atui

Public

Lives

of

Animals

by

Grandville

(J.

L

L

Gerard),

and

Joel

Chandler

Harris's

Uncle

Remus

series.

In

the

new narrative

art

of the comic

strip,

the

humanized

animal

was first

introduced

by

James

Swinnerton

in

the

figure

of

his

philandering

Mr.

Jack,

an initially unnamed

feline

character

who first

began to

emerge

as

a distinct

individual

in 1902 in Swinner-

ton's

popularly named

Little Tigers

feature.

(

Earlier Swinnerton cartoon

work fea-

turing

anthropomorphized animals, such

as

his

Little

Bears

and

Tykes panel of

1893,

and

his On and

Off

the Ark

of

circa

1900 and

later,

did not qualify as definitive comic

strips,

because of the lack of dialogue balloons

and/or individualized

and

regularly

recurrent characters.

At

about

the time

of

Swinnerton's

creation of the nattily

dressed

and highly hu-

manized

Mr.

Jack,

R.

F.

Outcault,

in 1902,

was putting salty and sarcastic

ripostes in

the

mouth

of Buster

Brown's

bulldog,

Tige,

and

casually

granting speech to

other

animals

in the strip. By 1904

Fred

Opper

had introduced

the

demonic,

high-kicking

Maud

the Mule

into

his

cast

of

comic-page

characters

—but by

then,

humanized ani-

mals

were becoming

commonplace

in the

comics.

Among

others

prominent

at the

time

were

Charles

Twelvetrees's

Johnny

Quack

and the

Van Cluck

Twins,

Gus

Mager's

Jungle

Folks,

the

Animal Friends

of Walt

MacDougall's

Hank,

J.

M. Conde's

Uncle

Remus

characters (Br'er

Rabbit et al. in

Uncle Remus

Stories), the

fantastic

animals

in Harry

Grant

Dart's The

Explorigator and

Bob

Dean's

Swots.

Sherlock

Bones

in Lyonel

Feininger's

The

Kin-der-Kids,

Sidney Smith's

Old Doc Yak, George

Herriman's

later

Krazy Kat

(made

a

Sunday-page figure

by 1916),

C.

M.

Payne's

Bear

Creek Folks,

and R. K. Culver's

Roosevelt

Bears.

Several

of

these

humanized animal

features

were

not true

comic

strips;

rather, like

the currently

published

Prince Valiant,

they

were

lavi.shly

illustrated

prose

fiction,

without

balloons

or

linking panels of action,

but

their

frequency

in

comic

sections of

the

time

and

their emphasis

on

animals speaking

intelligently

call for

their

mention

here,

if

not their inclusion

in the

body

of

this anthology itself.

Virtually

ignored

in

the

Sunday

comic

pages

of these

early years was

the

serious

male

hero figure,

fiercely

active in the

popular

fiction of the time,

from

Sherlock

Holmes

to

Tarzan.

When present at

all,

he

was

treated as

a

butt of

.satire,

notably in F.

M. Howarth's

Old

Opie

Dilldock,

H. A.

Mc-CJill's

daily

Hairbreadth

Harold

in

Hearst's

New

York

Journal,

and

C. W.

Kahles's syndicated

Hairbreadth

Harry.

Women,

considered

a.s sympathetic

heroines, received

little concern

until

Gene

Carr's

Lady Bountiful appeared

as a Sunday

page

in early

1920,

although

a

few

ear-

20



lier,

illustrated-story

pages, like

Wallace

Morgan's

Fluffy Ruffles,

ran in

newspapers'

Sunday

magazine

sections,

rather than

with the

comics. Seriously suspenseful narra-

tive

continuity,

too,

was

simply

nonexistent

in

these

two initial

decades

between

1896

and

1916,

when

slapstick humor

was the

bell-capped,

starry-kicked

king.

on

strips

in

this section

The

strip numbers, in

brackets,

accompany individual

comments

as

an

aid

to

easy reference.

That's

the

anticipatory

grinning

face

of

George

B.

Luks

looking

down

on

R.

F.

Out-

cault's

Hogan's

Alley

characters

in

the

opening

selection

[I]:

Luks was

to

take

the

World

feature

over

from

Outcault for

Hearst's

Journal

when

the

latter left, after

drawing this final

page.

Johnny

Wise

[2]

was a

very

early

page

from Tad

Dorgan,

a

cartoonist

chiefly noted

for his

later, daily

sports-page strips. It

appeared

only in the

San Francisco Chronicle.

The

Little

Nemo

in Slumberland episodes

[11-14]

were selected

from McCay's

first version

of

the strip, which ran in

the

New York

Herald

between 1905

and 1911.

(Two subsequent versions

ran

in

other

papers.

The

first

appeared

in the

Hearst

papers between 1911

and

1914,

and the second

in

the

New York Herald Tribune

be-

tween

1924 and

1927.

Examples

of

pages

from

these two

later versions

will

be

found

in

the third section of this book.

The

appearance

of Lyonel Feininger's remarkable

Kin^der-Kids

[16-18]

page

in

the

Chicago

Tribune

in

1906

marked

the

first

occasion

of

a

regularly

appearing

comic

strip being

drawn and

imported from

abroad;

in this

instance, from

Germany. Edito-

rial

difficulties

arising

from

this procedure led to the strip's demise

in less

than

a

year.

Johnny

Gruelle,

creator of the charming

fairyland fantasy Mr.

Twee

Deedle

[20],

later,

of

course,

wrote the

Raggedy

Ann

book

series.

C.

M.

Payne's

Bear Creek

Folks [24-25]

was derived

in part

from Albert Bigelow

Paine's Hollow

Tree

book series

with

their

striking

J.

M.

Conde

illustrations,

and

more

remotely from

Joel

Chandler Harris's Uncle Remus stories,

but

it

often

reads

like

an

anticipation

of

Walt

Kelly's later Pogo.

Clare

Victor

Dwiggins's School

Days

[26-27]

is

notable

(aside

from

its art and

wacky

humor) as

having

been the

first

strip

to feature

the

screwball

devices

or

in-

ventions,

with

which

Rube

Goldberg

later

became

identified.

The Mutt

and

Jeff

Sunday pages reproduced here were among the first to

be

re-

leased in color, but

they are typical of the

earlier Sunday

black

and

white

pages

pub-

lished

in

the

Hearst press circa

1911-1913,

and

reflect the inspired slapstick

qualities

which made

Bud

Fisher's

team

one of

the

great strip

hits

of all time.

[28-29]

Gus Mager's

Hawkshaw the Detective

[31]

was the Sunday-page continuation of

his earlier

daily strip,

Sherlocko

the

Monk.

Originally

supposed to

be

called

Sher-

locko the Detective, the Sunday page was

retitled Hawksliaw

(

borrowing

the name

of the

detective

once

famed in

Tom

Taylor's melodramatic play

of

1863,

The Ticket-

of-Leave

Man)

—

with the name

of

Sherlocko's

associate, Watso,

changed

to

the

Col-

onel

—

because

of

threatened

suit

by

A.

Conan

Doyle's American

representatives for

titular

infringement

of

Doyle's

Sherlock

Holmes

and

Dr.

Watson

characters.



Hogan

s

Alley

R. F.

Outcault 1896

[1]

OPENING

OF

THE

HOGAN'S

ALLEY

ATHLETIC

CLUB.

22



Johnny

Wise

Thomas

Aloysius Tad

E>organ

1902

[21

I

.TOHIS-N '

AVISE

GrP^Ts^

TflK

DOTJBT.K

nROSS.

9

*M6

I»Mrt

JtMr

HIM

N«ME|M A

-VMAUU&T



Buster

Brown

R. F.

Outcault

1904

/

1906

/

1913

[3]

24



New ytxk

H«rold

Co.,

1905



[5]

REJtolA/E

D

That

irr

wad itTo

Do

OVER

asA<H-

0»

WEtt.,

NtVER. MlNP.tVEHYBOPYKUSHfp.

LAUCHTIR.

l5Hffll.TrfY.

HUIHOR

ISSANlTV.

iANE.

HMLTKy

PEOPLE

LAUCH

AS

^ÛCH

ASTMtyMN.

ITKEERJ TmEMWEUL

AND

HAPPY.

You

CAMT

BC

MAIWl/AIUJJ

You

ARE

WCLL./INDYouCANTBE

WELLIFYoUfAKRY

A

GROUCH

flROUNp

ALL

TheTime

• USTS

OF

JiCK PWrtt

Think

ThE>'

HA«

A

CROUCH

BECAWe

THtY««

5ICK.

ITS

TXC

OTHtRWAY'

TuEY

A«

Jlf<

BtCMSt

TNfV

HAVf <

S«OuCM.

CQIiSvO'*

Bo 'S

LETS

LAUSH-

ThaTJoR^Y

^

5Tufr

WoMTCcrVouANrrMiN«.

IFA

MAN

tWESToO^n

IKJURY

LAUCH euWSl.

Y«/W«E

NOT

_

.HE

one

WHO

DID

The

INJUR/

LAUCH

flHYHOV-

DoNf

WORRY

^/.

^m-fS^m,/

,

IJ«v»ipupcf

foaK

26



Katzenjammer

Kids Rudolph Dirks 1911

of

f^

-|

[6]

jsiisiiiiêr's

Revenue,

or—

IWFt

TKIY «t

THt

umt

3«»n<b

, wim

(

_

,

iOME

MORE

W

THEIR

r

I

iiomm' rwusiiNtii;

11 '

The Americon

Exomin«r,



Hans

und Fritz Rudolph

Dirks 1918

Hans

und

F

ritz-A

Vadvester

^

^

^

By

R. Dirks

j^^L^^S;

©

Prea Publishing

L.>

llho

Now

York

World) 1918



Maud Fred Opper

1905

MASTER'S

VOICE.

-+:4»<»»-

GOMIG

5UPPLEMENToFmE

BOSTON

AMERICAN.

«IUI.Y9&

1005

AND

HER

NAME

WAS

MAUD

Americon-Journol-Examincr,

1906



Happy

Hooligan

Fred

Opper

1905

MfK

^'^

KtSC-i^lSg*

.liiuriJgra

COMIC

5UPPUMENT

o''

«

^

«of7RlGMT1^5

p/Tut

AMERICAN-

JOURNAL-EXAMINEff-

-^ ^

.>^-'-' -^

AIL

BRITAIN KtanTS

RXitRVE^

if

Happy

Hooligan

Dropped

Into

the

House

of

Lords

Among

the

GWiering

Throng

Were

N

tontmofency

and Clo

oniy

Gus

t9J

^

•

Ani«lcon-Jouri>ol-tKamin«r.

1905

30



Jimmy

James

Swinnerton

1915

JIMMY

Pinkey

Gives

Him

a Clear

Explanation

oi

What

a

Symphony

Concert

Is

[10]

Slor

Comporty,

1915



utile

Nemo

in

Slumberiana

Winsor

McCay

1908

Cll]

Ig.

WHAT

ARt

fitT

OCT

Of

.

WE

GOINC MERE.

A5

Wfl^

Now

Voik

Iteiold

Co..

1908

32



[12]

New

York

Herald

Co..

1908



[13]

£

Now

Vwk

H«rold

Co.,

1908

34



[14]

N.;.-. v^-k

Herold

Co.,

1908



Nibsy

the

Newsboy

George McManus

1906

[15]

SAN

FRANCISCO.

CAL.

I

.^..^.i

^

t

fttii.'iiwiigîiWiiaarttfiiîjji^^

p

.

i

Publishing

Compony



The Kin-der-Kids Lyonel FeininKrr

1906

tI6

(2

Tribun*

Componv.

ChicOQO,

III.,

1906



[17]

i,

I„bun.

Compony,

Chicago.

'»

>'<>*

38



©

Tribune

Cooipony, Chicogo,

IN.,

1906



The

Newlyweds

George

McManus

1909

[19]

I

THE

NEWLYWEDS—

THEIR

BABY

^

By

Geo.

iVlcManus



Mr.

Twee

Deedle

Johnny

Cruelle

1914

P^

^^vj7(S(S

—After

their

escape

from

the

tngry owTier

of

the

lake,

the friends

came

upon

s

queer

looking

luft

of gnat

with e^ht

flowsn

groift-ing

from it

It

looks hke

a

porcupine.

»aid

Mr. Twm

Deedle;

we'd

better not

disturb it

>^*^îa



The

Naps

of

Polly

Sleepyhead

Peter Newell

1906

[21]

'gV'

|._Peiiy

wa*

aiiiinQ

out

ey

ih« rabbtt^

c*g*

watchlAi

ni«s

niCbl*

carrou.

The day

«M»a

warm

and

It

^wa*

aJ

Id

do lo

kcvp

f

rorn go.r.9 to kl««p.

No.

fi.—

AU

at

onc«

aha

hcare

the

ehii

chit,

cMt

Of an

autO«

mobila, and aoon

vea aurpr.^Ml

to a««

nar

(ri«rtd

tha

Jokar,

aaatcd

la

a

b>«nd

nav/

macnma.

Ha

tock

ott

bia

&M,

aod,

bowing

profoundly,

aald

to

nor;—

-

—

—

r.

toSnaitow Land,

tha

fair.

naiyrvAa

bo rankly

inar«.

1

ma. my da<

unny pfant

No. 3.—

Polly

raadliy*.

In baalda tha

JoKar

Stia

ihan

noticad a

abcut

tha

driver.

TTia

amok* ^waa pufTtng

pipa

hati

Tha

Jokap

obaarvad

tha iniarM

10

akcita

in

the liuia girl and

aaldr—

*'A

vary

able

ehauFTaur, ha.

Kara,

Chlt-ehi

Miaa Polly,

vho

to

Sh»apw Land

>Mth

ub

rantbling

vary

peculiar inlng

oui

or

hiatail aiova*

ind.

lurnina,

bowad

vary

low

ici

I

bow ihal Via aMvaplpa

hai

v>aa

lib

ina

ocfupanta

of

tha

raar aaat and

tha

• of

iha

drauflht

from Ihr

crcwn

atnt

tham

nyino out

of

rar

Pontjna<«ly thay

w.ra not hurt Bui

tha Jokar

waa

«i»4 t^t

ha

Boundly

baraiM) Chil-chat

tor

hia

carclvia-

No S

—

Onca again Ihay look

Utair

placaa In ih

aoon

ihry wara

m*rriiy

l>owlinp aton'j tha

lana t

Shadow

Land, cnuraly

totvalttiT

a*

lately befallt

lof III*

mtahap ihai

had

i

IS

-In

an

the Joker

moiionad

in tha dlr

directly

balora

tham

and

aalc

-

'•

the

Dunny Plania.

my

daar;

go

pull

ona.

aAt

tha

root

You'll find.

If I

an

_.

...

.a

thay

arrived

B-

the

automobile. Thau

of

pt>^nm

Odd

looking plajita

•M>« at

fault,

lurky

rabblt*a foot.

[

i^^^wB



Naughty

Pete Charles

Forbell

1913

®

New

Yofk

Hofold,

1913



Mamas

Angel

Child

Penny

Ross

1916

[23]



Bear

Creek Folks

Charles

M. Payne

1911

BEAR

CREEK

FOLKS,

neg'lar

election

[24]

BEAR CREEK

FOLKS

off

the

track.

[25]



School

Days

Clare

Victor

Dwiggins

1909

[26]

'Sf*

%

SCHOOLDAYS

Going

Dpi

Be

Good and

Maybe

Pip

Will

Let Yon Side io

Hia

Elevator.

and

Ophelia.

%

[27]

-*

SCHOOL-DAYS

r^'i^rîVK%'^\^:sX^tU^.'^^

I

and

Ophelia

^

ÔK

OVT

PiP.'



Mutt and

Jeff

II.

C.

Bud

Fisher 1918/1919

^

CICtRoJ

'I

[28]

MRi.

ttOiTi

MOTHtH.

_>^

MUTT

AND

JEFF

—

Eight

Dollars

Is Some

Money—

By

BUD

FISHER

i,

H. C.

f.sher. 1918



[29]

©

H.

C.

Fiihc-r,

1919



slim

Jim Raymond Crawford

Ewer 1911

[30]



Hawkshaw

the

Detective Gus

Mager 1914

[31]

Hawkshaw

the Detective—The

Colonel

Is

a

Little

Too

Hasty



m

Mr.

Caudle,

Sherlock

Holmes,

and

the

Artless

Dodger

Popular

Images

in

the

Early

Daily

Comic

Strip,

1907-1927

Comic

strips in

their definitive

form

did not

appear

in

weekday

newspapers

until

the

turn

of the

century,

when the

Hearst

daihes

began

to

feature recurrent

cartoon char-

acters

in black and

white,

multipanel

gag

sequences.

Some

were

in an illustrated

text

format,

but

most

were in

true

comic

strip

style

of

four

to

six

panels per sequence.

At

first they

were

drawn

by

Hearst

staflF

cartoonists

in

New

York

and

mailed to

the other

papers;

later,

some

were created

locally.

None, however,

appeared

regularly every

day,

Monday

through

Saturday,

until

Bud Fisher

began

his

A.

Mutt

strip

in

1907.

These early and irregular

Hearst weekday strips,

a

group

of

which

are reproduced

on the first page of this section,

were aimed

more at

adult

readers

than

were

most of

the early

Sunday comics, and their characters

and

attitudes

were therefore different

from

those

of the

weekend

color

pages.

This relatively

sophisticated

orientation was

retained

for

the

daily

strip

as

its

use spread

among

newspapers

and

the

strips

added

three

additional

figures of

popular lore

—

the henpecked

father,

the

omniscient

detec-

tive,

and the

luckless, therefore lovable, scalawag.

Married

figures

had

already

appeared

in

the color

strips, of

course,

but

virtually

all

of

these

fell into

the innocent

fool

category

{The Netchjweds,

Their

Only

Child,

S'Matter Pop?

and so forth),

while the

prototypical

image

of the

henpecked

husband

(with

its

countervailing

image of

the

domineering

wife),

which was

to

be

so

widely

utilized

in

the

early

weekday

strips,

appeared

only

indirectly in

the

early

Sunday

pages,

in

the form of the rolling-pin-belabored Captain in

Dirks's

Katzenjammer

Kids,

who

was not

married

to

the

Kids'

often irate

mother,

but was

her star

boarder.

The

classic

figure of the wife-beset,

but

cynically

struggling, husband

was

portrayed

often

and

well

by

Dickens, particularly

in

his rendition of

the

paterfamilial

worm

in

Mr.

Snagsby of Bleak House and the

foredoomed

Captain

Cuttle of

Domhetj and

Son,

but

he

was perhaps most memorably

set

forth in

popular

nineteenth-century

fiction



as

Douglas

Jerrold's

vocalK'

berated hero

of

Mrs. Caudle's

Curtain Lectures

in

1865.

He

appeared

notably

for the

first

time in

strips

as

Gus Mager's Henpecko

the

Monk,

in

the weekday

strip

of the

same

name,

circa

1908.

Two

years later,

George Herriman

introduced

E.

Pluribus Dingbat

in his

Dingbat Family, followed

in the

strips

by

a

number

of

similarly browbeaten breadwinners.

George McManus combined

the

hapless

husband image

with that of the socially

rising

family (a theme long treated satirically in popular American literature

and

drama) in his daily

Bringing

Up

Father

strip

of

1914

in

the

Hearst

papers. Mc-

Manus's

Jiggs

was an Irish

bricklayer-become-millionaire, Maggie was

an

ambitious

virago of

a

wife,

and after

their

appearance,

henpecker\' became

a

stock

subject in

the daily strips

(

broadening

later

into

the

Sunday

pages )

: Sidney Smith's

The

Gumps,

Billy

De

Beck's

Barney

Google,

Gene

Ahem's

Our

Boarding

House,

Harry

Tuthill's

Home,

Sweet Home

(later

The Bungle

Family),

A. D.

Condo's

The

Out-

bursts

of

Everett

True,

Cliff

Sterrett's

Polly

and Her Pals, Bud

Fisher's

Mutt and

Jeff,

W.

R.

Allman's Doings

of

the

Duffs,

and many

more.

The all

-perceptive

detective,

a

mythic

figure

essentially developed

in nineteenth-

century

fiction

and drama

(the term itself

only

dates

from

1843,

when

Sir

James

Graham,

British

Home Secretary',

coined

it

in forming his

Detecti%'e Police,

a body

made up

of the

most

intelligent

London

police

officers

of

the time),

was

first

effectively

introduced

to popular hterature

as a

figure

of detached, analytical intellect

in Edgar

Allan

Foe's

C.

Auguste

Dupin

of

The

Murders

in

the

Rue Morgue

(

1841

)

and

as

an

image

of dogged strength and

hard-boiled

professionalism

in

Charles

Dickens's

In-

spector Bucket

of

Bleak

House

(

1853

)

.

But

it

was A.

Conan

Doyle who, in his A

Study

In

Scarlet

of 1887,

combined

brain

with cold

professionalism

and

strong

per-

sonality

in

a classic

version

of the fictional sleuth Sherlock Holmes.

The

Holmes

con-

cept spread

like

paper-fed

fire

through

popular

literature

during

the following

de-

cades

and

reached

the comic strip in

a

short-lived

Hearst

weekday

spoof

of

1904

called Padlock Bones,

by

H.

A.

McGill.

Burlesques

of

Holmes followed

in

other

strips, both

daily

and

Sunday,

but

the de-

tective's

most

famous

early

strip

avatar was

Gus Mager's

weekday

Sherlocko the

Monk,

who

first

appeared

in

the strip of that

name

in

Hearst's

New

York

Journal

for

December

9,

1910, later

to become even better

known

as

Hawkshaw the Detective.

The

Holmes

character

was

burlesqued

further

in Sidney Smith's

early

Sunday

Sher-

lock Holmes,

Jr.

for

the

Chicago Tribune,

and

as a

comic figure

in such

established

strips

as Dirks's Katzenjamtner

Kids, which

featured an

Eskimo detective

named

Sherlock

Gunk,

and Segar's

in

Thimble

Theatre,

which

involved

a

Gimlet

the Detec-

tive

and

a

Shamrock

Jones

in its

daily

continuity.

More

generalized

detective figures

appeared elsewhere,

as in Harry Hershfield's weekday

Dauntless

Durham

of

the

U. S.

A.

and

Sidney

Smith's

daily

Buck Nix.

The

third

and

perhaps

most

widespread

new figure

in

the

daily

comic strip

was

the

inept

but

charming rogue.

He

had

long

been

a

figure in

popular literature,

of

course,

notably

as Falstaff, or

(

more

recently

) as

Dickens's Seth

Pecksniff

in

Martin

Chuzzlewit,

or

Mark Twain's

King and the

Duke

in

Huckleberry

Finn, or in the

more

heroically

presented

Tom

and

Jerry

of

Pierce

Egan's

Life

in

London

and

Sut

Lovin-

good

of George W.

Harris's

American fables.

This image had appeared

in

the early

Sunday

pages,

but almost always

as

either a

subsidiary character (i.e.,

Long

John

Silver

in

Dirks's

Katzenjammer

Kids, or Rudolph

Rassendale in

Kahles's

Hairbreadth

Harry),

or

as one or more

titular

figures whose roguery

was

implicit, in

dress

and

manner,

rather

than expUct in behavior

(i.e.,

Alphonse and Gaston, in

Opper's strip

of

that

name,

or Tom and

Jerry

in Rube

Goldberg's early The

Look-a-Like

Boys).

The one

notable exception was Svvinnerton's

married

flirt in

Mr.

Jack

(

whose

weekly

strip

behavior

in

pages

read

by

children

upset

many

readers and led to the

strip's

being

relegated

to infrequent

daily

appearance

in the safe,

smoking-room atmosphere

of

the

sports

and

editorial

pages after 1904).

But

in the daily

strips,

with

their

essen-

tially

adult

audience

at the

time,

scurvy

vagal)()ndage

prospered.

Artless

Dodgers



were

memorable

in such

early daily

strips as Bud Fisher's

Mutt

and

Jeff.

Clare

Briggs's

A. Piker

Clerk,

Gus

Mager's various conniving

Monks

(excepting

Sherlocko,

of

course),

George

Herriman's Baron Bean, Dok Hager's

Dippy

Duck,

Sidney Smith's

Buck

Nix

and

Old

Doc

Yak, Billy

De

Beck's

Barney Google,

Frank

Willard's

Moon

MuUins,

E.

C.

Segar's

Thimble

Theatre,

Harry Hershfield's

Desperate

Desmond and

Abie

the Agent,

and

many,

many

more.

The order

of

the

day in

daily

strips

between 1907 and 1927

was satire, cheerful

cyn-

icism,

and

subdued slapstick,

centered

on

helpless husbands,

burlesque

detectives,

and

inept

scoundrels. But

new

kinds of

strips

and

heroes did enter the

scene in the

1920s

and shape

the

character

of

all

strips

in

the

following

decade.

For instance,

the image of

the

self-reliant

working

girl in

an

office

background

enjoyed

its

most

extensive

use in

the

daily

strips,

and developed

in

the

1920s

in

such

strips

as Tillie the Toiler

and

Somebody's

Stenog;

it

was not

a

part

of the group of

prototypical

figures which

shaped

much of the

content

of the

initial daily strip

work.

on

strips

in this

section Gus

Mager's

Monk

strips

[34,

36]

ran

initially

under a number

of

alternative

tides,

reflecting

the

name

of the

character

featured

in

a

given episode:

Tightwaddo

the

Monk.

Knocko

the Monk,

Nervo

the

Monk,

and

so on.

Their

popularity inspired the

stage

names

given

to

four of

the Marx Brothers during

a

poker game,

and the team

used

them

during the

rest

of

their

career.

The

Desperate

Desmond

[37]

strip

was

named

for its

top-hatted

villain

protago-

nist;

the

opposing

hero was named

Claude

Eclair,

and

the heroine

Fair

Rosamond.

The

prose

narrative

under

each panel

was auxiliary

rather than explanatory,

making

the

feature

an

odd

combination

of

illustrated fiction and

comic strip.

Midsummer

Day

Dreams

[40],

the

Winsor

McCay work,

is

typical

of

a

large

number

of

daily

graphic

anecdotes

he

drew

at

this time.

Few,

if

any,

involved re-

peated

characters,

and no

comic strip

developed out of them.

The

A. Mutt

episodes

included

here

[41-46]

ran only

in

the

San

Francisco

Exam-

iner

of the time (Bud

Fisher having

been

hired

away

from

the Chronicle

by

that

paper

in

1907 )

and involve

the

first

appearance of Mutt's

later

partner,

Jeff.

The

cas-

ual

comic

use

of a

lunatic

asylum

as the

setting

is

typical

of the irreverent, freewheel-

ing

content of

the

early

daily

strips.

The

Family

Upstairs

[48-53],

first

named

The Dingbat Family, and

later

given

that

name

again, carried

the

earliest

exploits

of Herriman's Krazy

Kat

krew,

at first around

the feet of the human

cast of

the strip,

and

then

in a

separate

row of

panels

below

them.

The

family upstairs of the title

refers

to

a

mysterious menage living

in

the

apartment

above

that

of the

Dingbats,

none

of whose

members are ever

seen

in

the

strip, and whose

weird

doings drive

the Dingbats

to

a

frenzy

of

curiosity

and

animosity.

Baron

Bean

[54-77]

featured a pretentious, ragtag

bum

of similar

mien

to

Dicken's

Montague

Tigg/Tigg Montague of

Martin Chtizzlewit,

who was

often

at

fanciful

war

with his

strangely loyal

manservant. Grimes.

Stumble

Inn

[78-83]

was an extraordinarily lavish

daily

strip of the dimensions in-

dicated

in

the selections

here.

Short-lived

as

a

daily,

it

ran

for

several

years

as

a

Sun-

day

page

and

exhibited Herriman's fancy

in

a

somewhat

more restrained

context than

usual.

Dok's

Dippy

Duck

[84-91]

was the

strip-in-residence

of the Seattle

Times,

appear-

ing

only

in

that paper

and running seven

days

a week, either

on

the front

page

or just

inside. The

resemblance of the cocky

Dippy

to the

later

Disney

Donald

Duck is

self-

evident, reflecting a

common

human perception

of

the

nature

of ducks.

Buck

Nix

[92-95]

first

appeared

as a strip

outgrowth of

the

sidelines

master

of cer-

emonies to

Sidney Smith's

Chicago

American sports-page cartoons,

which

displayed

Smith's

comic

genius as

an

absorbing

storyteller. An audience

quickly developed

which

preferred

Buck

Nix

to

more formal

sports art. Hired

away

by the

Chicago

Tri-



bune.

Smith

continued

Buck

as

Old Doc Yak

[103-107],

first

as

a

Sunday

page, then

briefly

as

a

daily in

order to

introduce

Smith's

new

strip

concept.

The

Gumps [96-

102].

The

second

group

of Bud

Fisher episodes

selected

are a

random

potpourri of

Muti

and

Jeff

[108-125]

from its

best period

in

the

late

1920s

and

earl\- 1930s.

The

reader

will

note the

descriptive

phrases

and

subheads

assigned

to the

early

strips in

this

section.

As

strips

became more

and

more

popular, and

more

and

more

widely

syndicated,

the

composition

and

addition of

a

daily

descriptive

subhead

grad-

ually

became the

prerogative of the

comics

editor of

each

subscribing local

paper, not

that

of the

author or the

syndicate's

own

editor. Accordingly,

we

have

dropped

the

subheads from

most of

the

daily episodes

which

follow

in

this

volume.

Mr. E. Z.

Mark

F. M.

Howarth

1907

E.

Z.

Mark

Makes

Protest

1.

MH.

E. Z.—

Look

h«r«.

ilr:

whit

doca Ihia

mMnT

Voy

K»v«

boon

fOllowl«o

mo

owof

•mco

I

loft

th«

train.

THC tHAOOWCn—Mr.

Mark. Vm

a

prUaU

do-

tactiwa

hirod

ky

Mro.

Mark

lo

follow

ai^

protact

jrow

ffo*

iKa

wtiao

o* th,

bwnke-otatm and

2.

MR.

E.

Z^Thla

la

on

owtraga An

Inaultl I'll

to

rtghl Into thia ato *

and 'phono

Mrs.

Mark

for

tho

mooning of

har inoo'ant and

uncallod

for

In-

to

rf<ran

eo.

THE

t^/AOOWER—Yaa,

olr;

aalloty

yowroatf

that

what I oaj

la trvo.

Lat mo

hold your

bog

until

yov

com« owl.

L

MRS.

HARKS

VOICE

OVER PHONE—

Vaa.

iti

ma.

What

la

tha

mattar

with

row,

onjrwajrT

No,

No, No.

No I

hlrad

n«

man

to ahadow

you. Car>

Ulnly

not.

Now. for

goodnaao

aaka.

E.

Z,

dont

tali

ma

yow

ara

akoui to

bo

buntiead

again,

Thara'a

oonMthing

wrong. Watch youroalf.

Oood-by.

4. MR.

E.

Z.

(ruohing Owt

of otoro)

—Vowr oUto-

mont Is

faloa. Vow

an an

Whjr,

whara

la

that

fallow

Vi

godal

OONB'

And

with

my

bag

con-

Ulnlng

ont

thousand dollars'

worth

of

nogotlabla

oocurltloo. WtOWl

DONE AOAINI

DONE

AOAINl

'

Mr.

Jack James

Swinneiton 1904

rVTR.

JACK.

ÂSARAAftAA

)

Amoricon-Jowrnol-Exomlner,

1907



ine Monk ous Mager

lyvi

rue

Hall-Koom

Boys

M. A.

Mcuiii

is*u/

Braggo

the

Monk.

The

tiall-Room

Boys.

THEY DO

IT

ON

S9.SO

PER.

[351

They

Steal a

March

on

the

Star

Boarder.

He

Can't

Keep

From Bragging.

Even

in

His

Sleep.

©

Americon-Journal-Exominer,

1907

©

Americon-Journal-Exominer,

1907

funny paper has

.

.

.

become

not only a

faithful

reflection of the

tastes

and

ethical

principles

the

country

at

large;

it

is

also

manifestly an

extremely

powerful

organ of social

satire. The

block of

cinema-squares

is the

medium

through

which the

vices

of man

are

held

up

for all to

....

The

few cardinal

virtues that

we

sometimes

venture apologetically to

call

our

own are

dis-

by

the funnies

as

comparatively

uninteresting

to the non-church-goer,

and as 'old stuff

to

veteran

of

the

Sunday-school

bench

or

the

straight-backed

pew.

All

of

them,

it

is

true,

draw

on

contemporary

mainners

for

their

subject

matter, but

the

genuine

masterpieces

of

the art use

merely

as

machinery

for

the display

of

the

essential

Satan,

the

unquenchable

'Peck's

Bad Boy,'

all

of us.

Brennecke

Real

Mission of

the

Funny

Paper,

Century

Magazine

,

March

192^1



Sherlocko the

MonJc Gus

Mager 1911

Desperate Desmond

Harry

Hershfield

1910

[36]

Sherlocko

the

Monk

By

Gxts

Mtger

Despe;

VafA riAeiAnn<1

^

Picture

Drama

of

Love

and

Hate,

^

I

ale

LieSniOna

with a

nmU in Every

Picture

'0

[37]

;

N'olionol New*

Associolion,

191

©

New

York

Evening

Journal Publishing

Compony,

1910

Chantecler

Peck

F. G. Long

191

S'MatterPop?

Charles M.

Payne

1911

[38]

S'Matter.

Pop?

|K

|g

By C.

M.

Payne

(C

Pr«»

Publlthing

Co.

(The New York World).

1911

[39)1

IS

Preu

Publiihing

Co.

(The

New York

World).

1911

56



iici ûv

i^rcuni>

>vin>iur

JMCvây laii

Midsummer

Day

Dreams

[40]

t'oiijr'''

}••

•

'-

^-

'• v....,

\,,„,|

Bv

WINSOR

M'CAY

I

THINK

I'LL

RE-

TIRt FKOr^

THE

smoe.

UNLESS

OF

C0UR5E

THEY

PAT.

Ka

G OFFERED

ME

Five

HUM:u



A.

Mutt H.

C.

Bud Fisher 1908

[41]

A.

MUTT

IS

SUMMONED BEFORE THE INSANITY COMMISSION

FOR

EXAMINATION

)

iijKW^n;

rffcrti

in rtgari fo .Un.'f

J

ment-Al

Itait

TO

aâron

«WTT*5 -^htbi

ConD<T>on,SA«^—

•(

I

?^P'*Cr

Wtio

»*0

T*«r rV

lb

^-«.

'^^

P^tOnE^BhPOf

'I

S«

I^^rr

DC*-**,*.*

p:

—

^^•*T

-^S

St^te

t*M)

Alt

bmîScsmthB

booby

1*1^

^riO

TB*T Tl*

eOC>B&

»**U:

OF

f«S

FATMnt

MBl-

•

I

lîN,

Txe

0U>

AVtn A

[42]

DIVERS

OPINIONS AMONG BOOB

INSPECTORS

MUTT ASKS

POSTPONEMENT

TILL

TO-MORROW

y

Boob ,'if.-elor d{datet that ilatl

u

«•-,

wlif'tufci

Bcoîr

tnakei

ta<rt

at

the

Do.

««.*«caTricNOM^

^ ^

•ooenaêToe,

*•» -

^TTT

I*

HOT

^•»

»>%rrT

»w«

r

9ooe

e<f»%T

-

Sk*««T

c-

A«

0&TftiCk«

«»«o

ret

TUC

^r^

I'/

CCICO

-J-TT ..»•«

I

n«

p«pc««0 »<'»

[43]

THE

LOON

COMMISSIONERS.

AT

DEFENDANT'S

REQUEST.

SEND

HIM

TO

THE

BOOBY

CAGE

r

kaf trir4 nrrgtHnf Hit

•tf m-amlt

la

fa

tki

rn(r.

TS1>«0#IH«T

tVftCTAOM*

tO^'M

ON

[44]

MUTT

SPENDS HIS FIRST

DAY

IN

THE

BUGHOUSE AND

IS

WELCOMED BY ALL THE

BUGS

[45]

THE

RUDYARD

KIPLING

OF

THE

BUGHOUSE GIVES

MUTT A

LIVE TIP ON LEE

ROSE

A .Suf it*

J

taidîvl

k'tit:i Iht

firfl

litft

tKi flma^fr ^

tif

tw ikt f*tlry

fOmU

•^S^KCMV

on

A

nnD

V,

(MKK&on

TH*

too*

tmx

Afc

^

con

«•»

Th«^ flMMT

58



EFFORT

BEING

MADE

TO

HAVE

CITY

PAY

FUTURE

EXPENSES

OF

GREAT

MUTT

CASEi

[46]

U«..

)*..( ]t,

rt<i

»'••«

*<• .«

•CLl wit

rtxtnicovt

V>^Mt.

«I

^*

'^''*'' '

^^ 'Ô

a« TkT

»To*

1

Oftrt'T

f^tr

WHO

»Yr-

»-f

A. Piker

Clerk

Clare Briggs

1904

[47]

A.

PIKER CLERK

COMES

TO

THE RESCUE

OF CHICAGO WITH

A TIP

ON

THE RACES—KITTY

CLYDE

TO

WIN.

-•+•+•+•

A. Ptlicr u

iTovcdlr k rcneroo* mm. Be he&n

ot

IU70T Hutuod'*

won?

ora

tbi Uck ot

fl»nce* to ran

the city

prvpcrly.

He plsafu inio tbe brcAcL

Xttty

Clrd*

to

wis.

be

wbiapcn.

Tbc Haror

i«et

a ray of

bvpc

Take

tbu,

be

wn

u

b«

iuidi tbc

mnuapttl

btf

to

A.

Fikcr. OS to the bookmaker

(oe«

our b«ro.

Set to-d«r'i nc«

raolti.

The

Family

Upstairs George

Herriman

1911

[481

'iii&i

st«*.

louBi *yi ?^

'

»£V/^

^

^1-

-_:.-

<

f

'-

Hottona\

N«ws

Atiociolion,

1911



[49]

>

XVT

*

ilTIt» **tm

»

A^

#-

^€.

r

e^

^*rf?^

J

©

Notional

News Associotion, 191

I

[50]

©

hJotionol

N«ws Association,

1911

152]

I

Nalionot Nttws Associotion,

1911

60



[53]

©

Naf'onal

News Aisoc.alion, i9ii

Baron

Bean

George

Herriman

1917

[S4J

©

tnternafional

News Service, 1917

HOLE

/*J

ctft

SHifi.

<s^^CHly,

t c«us

C*AJVA6t COM-M(Y>e£ Dft-t'MS

TWt.

CflJwflL.

tvMifw

iÂves

cue

-swif

hi6n-aa;d

Dey.

1^^

we

Ptr4

CCitn-

/a;

the

wtt

,

> =''ce

wwrcw

~IJE. CC'M'MrrTtfi OF

ilQt'DS

Tl/«A-^

(7to

&(?*r

cwjCE

'Wofte ftois

^>

[55]

®

Internotiortot

News Service,

I9I7

[56]

[57]



[58]

[59]

[60]

[61]

[62]

I Internotionol News

Service.

1917

62



[63]

[65]

[66]

[67]

©

Inlernationol

News Service,

1917



[68]

[69]

(Fl

International

News

Service, 1917

[70]

M- tW*T Nt

Ootsvr

MA^t

70

*j«&

TiiEy

Si,PHy

Alt.

To You^

-i^jb

y^

'

Cam

5MATH6

JuCT

ciffE

y-w«;

^27A

©

Internotionot

N«wj Service,

I9I7

[71]

r

[72]

inl«rnatlonot Newt Service, )9I7

64



ie«^JlNaTo ST/^y uM>e* ivA ^ft

&o*^

Om'Aff

>tXJ

?

-

*WtetL.

»*E

HlktD

A

c

FlW/

.»

OtEf

JE«

FlSM

. TD

Tl>0<

(OV

tue

wac

Fish

/iitmco

cf

S7-«v/\6

(UOEIL

ht

VMS

SUCH

A

6M0 PVNC

7XOT1

IN

WOliuc

HE. HAB

OUtFONtp l>t

I

^lAVEO So

UNS

UTOtt «AT»ft.

VjlM

IE

PoOK FiSN'

DMwMDtD

I

f73)

©

Internorionol

Newi

Service,

1917

(74)

[75]

[76]

[77]

Internolionol

New»

Service, 1917



Stumble

Inn

George

Hemman

lyzz

[78]

r

King

frotur«»

Syndicate,

Inc.

1922

(£i

King

F«atur«i

Syndicate.

Inc..

1922

66



[83]

©

King Features Syndicote,

Inc., 1922

King Feolurcs Syndicote, Inc., 192

King

Feolures

Syndicote. Inc..

1922

[82]



Dok's Dippy Duck

John

Dok Hager

1917

[88] [891

[901

[91]

68



iîx

oiuiiey

oiniui

ivii

[93]

BOtK

WAD

Btf

M

W*rrMi«r^

THE QOOf)

Sujp'NevPR

S'WX

AROm

T*iC

little tV'NDOW

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[95]



The

Cumps Sidney

Smith 1917

[96]

INTRODUCING THE GUMPS.

Hope-

Gump

TWE-rAWVO

CAT-

OVbT/V

PLAIN

ORDINARY

_.

AMD

Klkl^^

CHESTER

GiUlAP

WHOSE

P6T

STONT

1%

VoRNiNft

IN

FALSE

ALA«tlA5>

ON Z.ERO

NKjHTS

to

iEE

THE

Fl?E

ENtilNt^

ftOBV.

WS

tATS

PICKLES

\N1TH

HI

^

ice

CREAsAS

.^

^NOREVJ

GUMP

VIHO

/

NVlENTECi

THE

FLOWER

POT.

H6A.LS0

INTROOOCED

TXE-

POLKADQT

TIE-

IN

T>1l5COONTR-<.

hE-HAS

SEEN

WORKlNli

ON

PERPETUAL

/MOTION

'=OR. 30

YEAeS

AND

I^^TftLKjH

—

XE

^MS

THEY'LL

KA'Jt

To

SHOOT

M|ÂON

OUOCaMtNT

DAV.

t?^

T>te

QUK*^

HAKE

IMCOLLCÊ

yCKs&UMp

--^>^

THE

BOl/LE-VARD

VAÂf»IRE-

rî,

VilNOHAS

NEvEf?

MAO

A

KNOCK

OOT

SCORE-P

A<3Anl%T

HIÂ»

HIS

PET

TRAINIftd

^tuNT

ISLl(.KIN(j

PLATED

EVEM

KÔRNrNU

TO KEEP

IN

TR(N\

NiNtm

GOMP

^N^ô

is

reaily

The

BSHiNScf

TXf

FAWllll

dtNTVE.LtXINll

AHB

tNOUR^Nti.

\NI1>I

A

oT^CWir

euTA

TERRAIN

The

Gumps new

mqnve-

ThEREARE

(AANT

STRANfat

RUIWRS

ABOOT

THl^

HOUSE-

SOTAt

iAY

TMEPtAtE

14 MAONTEO-

OTHERS

RoisiA^

^PT

THt

l*Ot.lCE

T>«INK

Tli

^

A

*ÊNCE-

FOR

STOLEN

AvVOW\OSH.F-S.

we

SMALL

[97]

[98]

THf

Â/WLT

rnKT

UKtD

ftHE

BEfOW

WERE\buNUI

Of

«OU<»H HtCR.

HEWUSTKAilt

WtflT'T'lNTO

oCaHTMiS PlPt

f>N

THAT.

OH

VI

ELU

IXL

MA

TXAT

Mil

is

confusion

mTUEStlf

M0y4t

MOLb-

THEIR

PolhllTUI

AHR\>ltD

LAST

NI(»M»-

AT

IX

O

tkOC>C-^ N0»T»l«i^lM

THE

PIAHO WERE B«0(Clf4

AH^

^

VK.TROIA

RECORDS

AW\ASH10

LITTUCMtVIft

llfHn*E«1^RE

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A

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DRAWED.

HtVl

MI5IW\

I ÔTT*.

BLOW

\

[

out

LEMNiE

\

•

îbNfT

awiiTji^

70



[09]

[100]

'

—

^H^NEH,HBORÂ

UTTifrCLA^^,—

T»tY

HAVE-

OUST

aOUbHTA,NEW

PAR

1.0ft UAfV\P

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tif\\

DKlOEB TOUVWBEB

OWM NAT FROWyîW.

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STILL

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TWef

THINK.

THt

OOti

tATCWtR\

tion



[102]

Old

Doc

Yak Sidney Smith

1917 (precedes

The

Gumps

in

date)

[103)

[104]

[105]

^ntîe^'Jf^S^

HAS

RCCClveO

NOTltt

FWOfA

HIS

LANDLOftD

TWAT

IP

•n*»

BtNT

PORTHi^

SPACE

1^ hOT PAID

By

ÂTuRCAf

HSAHD HIS UTTLeCOM

YUTtM

WlLU HAVe

ro

leAWE

TmiS

PA6E

ANO

tr

WILL

BC

RENTED

TO

ANOTmEU

PAATT

—

Doc

MA^

But

•<*^

in

T>4C

BANK.

AWO

HA^ POOMlUO

TO

PAY

A

<«ft(KCR

ati-L

OF

TXtUt

1^

ONt

MOPt

—

IT

l^LlKt

PyiLlNti

TttTU.

HE

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AT

ANY

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[106]

[107]

Mutt

and

Jeff

H. C.

Bud

Fisher

1927

/

1928

/

1932

[108

®

H.

C.

Fiilwf. 1927



[112]

[113]

^

li.

M. C. F.ih.r.

1928

74



IN

BUYIM&

TOU

TUG

FTtOWV

•an

tfbNty

»

I

[1141

[115

[11

[i

£

H.



[1211

M\iTT

THtMMS

1%

&»l*A&

THG:

ICCMAW

STlU -

CALL

OU

MRU

GlwBATTte

wHCM

MR.

GlttBATTL*

LASr

MftMTM?**

HA

-HA-

ha:

OOWAH.'

THAT'S

THt CTOFF-'

[120]

H.

C.

Fiiher.

1932

76



has

mt.

-reuju

UIITM

Hit

CYHOia

C01.UMW-

[122]

[123)

[124]

[125]

©

H.

C.

fisher.

1932

have

that

fallacious

feeling of

absolute

knowledge

that

a

first

edition

of

Theodore Dreiser will

only the

value

of

its covers

for

a

quaint

period chocolate box

in

2000 A.D., whereas

the

copy

known of three

famous

comic

strips, say

'Mutt and

Jeff,'

'Andy Gump,' and 'Krazy

Kat,'

from their

beginnings,

cut out

and

pasted

in

endless

oilcloth-covered

volumes

by

an

invalid

of

the epoch

on

an

isolated

fann,

will

have

something

like the

value

of

the

original

manu-

say,

of the Book of

the

Dead.

Bolitho

Strip,

Camera

Obscura

, 1930



**No

No,

t-APV

NOT HIM

?

THE LITTLE

BITTY

FELLER WITH

THE

DERBY

HAT? THAT'S

MICKEY

McdUIRE

TOONERVILLE

FOLKS

B^

FONTAINE

FOX

SUNDAY. DECEMBER

21,

1930

TOONERVILLE FOLKS

Seaaonable

Trials

fontaine

Fox

« -•

U% IM OU

THERE'S

THAT

KtP

NOW

IT'S

eONNA

BE

DARK

IN A

MINUTB

AND

MAY»E

I

CAN

NAB

HIM

?

I

WONPen

IP

M«

PHONEP

THE WIFE TO eCT

THE

KID/

AWAY

?

HE'S

STILL Â



m

Old

Cunning

Stagers

Long-Lived

Stars

of

the

Comic

Strip's

Second

Two

Decades

1916-1936

This

section

of

Sunday

pages

is devoted

to

famous

and

long-surviving

characters

brought

to

hfe

in

the

multitude

of

comic

strips which

packed

the color

comic

sections

of

the

1920s and

early

1930s.

That

was

the

period

in which

weekend

comic

sections

went

from four

to eight

and

then

to

sixteen

pages,

with

the

Hearst

papers

initiating

a fantastic

thirty-two-page

tabloid

section

in

1935.

And

that

encouraged

the

proliferation

of

new

strips

from

the

dozen

or

more

syndicates

which

were

by

then

supplying

an

insatiable

newspaper

market.

The

old

and

established

strips

seemed to

retain

their

earlier

places

through

the

floodtide

of

new

titles,

and

a

few

of

the new

strips

(Moon

MuUins

and

others)

displayed

the

qualities necessary

to

match

the

audiences

for

the

classic

works,

and

to

continue

through

the

subsequent

decades

with them.

We

have

included

a

short-lived

but

very

typical

new strip

of

the

period, The

Smythes.

This

was also

the last

great

period of

full

Sunda\'

pages

for

each and

ever\'

strip. In

the

1940s

half

pages and

even

one-third

pages for

major

strips

gradually

became

a

common

and

accepted thing.

The galaxy of

the

comic strip

never again

was

to

glow

so brightly

as during

these

last

marvelous

years of

its

springtide.

on

strips

in

this

section

The

Smythes

[126-127]

represents

one

of

the

few

occasions

(but not

the only)

in

which

one

of

the circle

of Neic

Yorker

magazine

panel

cartoonists

ventured

into

the

comic

strip.

Rea Irvin,

the strip's

creator,

did

these

Sunday

pages for

the New

York

Herald

Tribune,

whose comic

section

was

marked

by

a special

sophistication

and

restraint.

The

Gumps

pages

included

[128-129]

are

typical

of this immensely popular

strip

of the

1920s,

whose

saucy

familial

banter and

obsession

with

cars

suited

the

pubhc's

fancy.

The

Old

348,

Andy

Gump's

large-licensed

auto,

was

inherited

by

him

from

Sidney

Smith's

previous

Sunday-page

hero.

Old

Doc

Yak.

Cliff

Sterrett

was,

after

George

Herriman,

the

unbridled

and

unflagging

graphic

master

of

the comic

Sunday

page. In

fact,

Sterrett

took

his

popular

strip of family life

so

far

from

formal graphic

reality

that his

syndicate

became

alarmed

and

ordered

him

to

restore

some

measure

of

comprehensive

nonnality

before

his

readership

abandoned

him

in

the same

perplexity

with

which

they

reacted

to

Herriman's

Krazy Kat.

The



pages

of

Polly

and

Her

Pals

reproduced

here

only

suggest

the extent of Sterrett's bril-

hant

graphic work

in

the

late

1920s

[130-135].

These later

Moon Mullins

Sunday

pages

[138-139] are

concerned

with

the

first

ap-

pearance

in the

strip

of

Moon's

earthy Uncle

Willie,

an event roughly similar to the

first

tentative

introduction

of Mrs. Gamp into Dickens's Martin Chuzzlewit.

This

second group

of McCay's Nemo pages

[140-142] combines examples from

the

strip's

second Hearst

period

(the

first

two

selections

of

1912)

and

its

third and final

period with

the

Herald

Tribune

( the

last

selection

of

1925

)

.

As

can be

seen,

McCay's

imagination

did

not

flag,

although

his

graphic

verve was

hampered

by

the

Herald

Tribune's

policy

of

a

standard

twelve-panel

format

for

most

of

his later

work.

The unforgettable

images

of C.

W.

Kahles's

delightful

cast

of

melodramatic

char-

acters

are

showoi

to

advantage

in this

example

of

Hairbreadth Harry

[143]

from

Kahles's

last

decade

as a cartoonist.

In

the mastery

of

strip graphics,

few

cartoonists have

equaled George

McManus,

as

these

two

selections

of his

Bringing Up

Father will demonstrate [144-145]. The

humor

he sustained

over

the years in developing the

familial

conflict between

Jiggs

and Maggie

is

also well

evidenced.

Included

here

are

the

Katzenjammer

Kids

pages of Harold

H.

Knerr

[146-148],

drawn

for

the

Hearst

papers from the

mid-1910s on, after

Rudolph

Dirks

left

Hearst

to

continue

his

strip

elsewhere, and

now

called The

Captain

and

the Kids. Both

Dirks

and

Knerr

have

their

partisans, but they

were

both

ingenious

in handling

the Katzen-

jammer menage.

Barney

Google

[149-150], the

rogue

and

vagabond

strip

ne

plus

ultra,

along

with

Frank

Willard's

equally

perceptive

Moon Mullins

[138-139],

caught the

raffish, des-

perate,

yet

raucously

colorful

quality of lower-class,

pool-hall-and-race-track life of

the

twenties.

Billy

De Beck

even extended

the

scope of his strip to the

expatriate

Paris

of

Hemingway

and Fitzgerald,

as

will be

noted

in

one

of

the

selections

included here.

De

Beck's

later

turn to

backwoods

hillbilly

life with

the

introduction of

Snuffy Smith

in the early

thirties

probably

resulted from

his own

distaste

for

the

grim

decade

which

replaced

the

roisterous twenties,

and

his attempt

to

find

an idyllic

world

to

re-

place

it.

Frank

King had

a

highly fanciful

way

with

his

Sunday-page work

which

is often

overlooked

in

discussions

of

his

cradle-to-maturity family

saga,

Casoline

Alley, fea-

turing

Uncle

Walt

and

Skeezix. Here

we have

reproduced some

of

King's finest pages

[151-156], including

one

which

mildly

parodies German

expressionism,

one which

brings

the look of

woodcuts to

the comic

strip, and others which

startlingly follow

the

twelve-panel

progress

of

the

characters across

a

full-page field of static

back-

ground.

Rube

Goldberg's

Booh

McNutt

[157-158]

was

one of the few

major narrative and

suspense

strips

which never

appeared in a

daily format,

running from start to

finish

as

a

Sunday

page only.

The

two

examples

shown

here are from

the strip's

earlier, anec-

dotal

phase.

Merely

Margy

[161]

was

the comic

strip of

John

Held,

Jr.,

renowned artist

for

College

Humor and

other

youthfully oriented

publications

of the period.

Like most of

Held's

popular work,

Margy reflected

the view of college and

flapper life held

by

most

collegiate

youths

of

the

time, from coonskin

coats to hip

flasks.

Somebody's

Stenog

[

162]

was a Sunday

page

of fine graphic verve,

a

point

which

has

sadly

been lost

because of the feature's

later

reputation

as a kind of

second-string

Tillie

the Toiler.

Harry Tuthill

was

the Louis-Ferdinand Celine of the comic

page,

and his

bleakly

jaundiced

view of lower-middle-class family life ( happily offset by a

wild sense of

humor

and

a

fancy which filled

the

later

strips

with

gnomes,

enchanted

mice, fairies,

magicians, and

time-travel

)

is well

reflected in the group of early 1930s Bungle

Family

pages

reprinted

here

[

163-169].

George Herriman's

Krazy

Kat, the apogee of comic-strip art

and

narrative to date,

puzzled

so

much

of

the readership

of

its

time

that

many

Hearst

chain

editors

pub-

80



lished

the Sunday

pages only

under

direct orders

from

Hearst

himself,

who

recog-

nized

and appreciated

Herriman's fey

genius.

However,

Hearst had it

printed

in

the

weekly

drama

and

arts

section

of his

papers,

where

it

had

to

run

in

black and white,

rather

than

in

the

full

panoply of color which

Herriman could

put to the

stunning

use

demonstrated

in Section

Seven

of this

collection.

Virtually all of

Herriman's Sunday-

page work between

1916 and 1934

accordingly

ran in black

and white

(except for a

brief

group

of pages

published in the New

Yor^

Journal

in

1922)

and the

preponder-

ance is reflected in the selection reproduced

here [170-172].

The Blondie

page is

typical

of the

early strips

[173].

Our

Skippy

selection

demonstrates

Percy

Crosby's

early

unfettered

strip

humor

and mobile line

[174].



The

Smythes Kea

Irvin

1»30

[126]

82



[127J



[128]

<&

Ih«

Chicago

Tribune.

1924

84



HAND »V \

^V\RtVJ

^5^

^

^

[129)

drama

oP

idvenlure

and

Uirilh

^

'M»0

\\

POURlMCi

OUT

«>»

VKKT

fÔKVUIte

VvKW&N*

0>R«i\OlE

SKVXOON

KVlD .CROVVM*-

s\\^

vrn\.t

tviPT<

ôotA

/

CAMT

WEVP

£»CS«Ces

KMtEIRS

roef

EvE>»

TMCBE

MMUb

OE

HI

MiH

n>

(w^.

1

<,u ihp

Chicago

Ir.bune

1926



PoUy

and

Her

Pals

Cliff

Sterrett

1926

/

1927

/

1930

[130]

Polly

and

Her

Pals

86



[131]

Polly

and

Her Pals

i:

Nr-w.cacor

r.-otv-f

k .

<o

St.. 1927





[133]

©

Newipapcf

Feoturc

Service.

Inc.,

1927



[134]

i^

h4«<w<popwr

ftiOtuic

ScfîCu. Inc., 1927



I

l:J.5)

Polly

and Her Pals

fe)

Newspopcr

Feature Service.

Inc.,

1930



Mutt and

Jeff H. C.

Bud

Fisher

1925

/

1928

[136]

MUTT

AND

JEFF

-:-

They

Fire

Off

Seventy-Five

Poands

of

Giant

Powder

-:-

By

BUD

FISHER



[137]

FAT?

AND

JEFF

Mutt

Needed

a

Blow-Out

Patch

By BUD

FISHER



Moon

Mullins

Frank

WiUard

1927

[138]

Moon

Mullins



ri39]

iicogo

Tnbun*,

1927



Uttle

Nemo

in

the

Land

of

Wonderful

Dreams

WinsorMcCay

1912/1925



[1



[142]

<5

N«w Yo<k Tribune.

Inc.

192J



Hairbreadth

Harry C. W,

Kahles 1924

=^3^

[143]

nîXUQ-l

C.W.

KAHLES

iSNT IT

wonderful

ITA

WONDEKÛL

A(£

WE'RE

1.IVIN6

to$Mie

*NP

evERrmiN<s,You

know'

LOVE

TO

MEET

ONE

OF

THOSE

',

WHOSE

SOUi

VIBRATES

)te

AMOIUTE

ANP

YtW

IS

IN

COMMUWIO*

;

IWVISIBLE.J

WELl.OFAUreRSONfi

PEL16HTED,

I'M SOKE.

LAW

INNE2-VI22

HOW

LOVELY

AND

ETHEREAL

YOU'RE

i,

LOOKINg.MY

PEAg

'J

AMO

SO

T«15

15

LITTLE KNOTT

THEYCK'

WELI'WHAT

ASTUEff

LITTLE

OW

HE6

OETTINfi

TD

BE'

lAST

TIME

I

SAW HIM

Ht

WAS

UsrH

A

jPKfTE

Of

A

i:XllD

I

'

HOW

iNTn?EsriN<;.

RUDOtPH

IS

ONEOFTWSE

PilCHIC

PERSONS

ME,

BUT

THOiE

WEBE

FRiENOS OC

f

OF THE

INVIS4BLE

yvOELD.'OFCOUtSE

I

iArfT

SEE

T>fEM

IJUCESS TOU ARE

TUMED

VIBRATE

^

FklENO.

BELINDA

BUNKS

/

I

WEIL.IF THIS

»4N'T

THECOONTFiS

iNorri-Nirril

i

never

a<w

you

I

LOOK

30

CHAPHAHOUS;

THIS

ji

A

TREAT,

IM

SURE

PARDON The

INTEI^KUPTlON, MY

PEAR OXJNTESS.'

THAT

LOW u

VUL<jARIAN

has no manners.'

ALLOW

ME

TO INTKOOUteMTj



Bringing

Up

Father

George

McManus

1918 /1920

[144]

BringngUplather

It's

Too Bad

Mo-'iahan

Didn't

Get There Earlier

and Have

Some

Fun

p^^t-^^^*

Star

Cuiripony.



[145]

COMIC SECTION

or

THE

SAN FRANQSCO

EXAMINER

November 14,

1920

Bringing

Up

FatLer

WONT

>kUI_Ow

VOO'bE

Ifl

TOO

V/C <.OTT*kCIT

TO

e*** ^^

*>N>r

ci<.*^Q*)

12

em

in

tiOMenow

INTO

•ô*-t' -^

—

^ mB^YOO

COi-ie'vjlTH

COT

A

r^^J^_NE

Dl^4TV.'

,^^B



Katzenjammer

Kids

Harold

H.

Knerr 1925

/

1926

/

1932

[146]

The

Katzenjamiiicr

Kids

VCKJ

»u\^

f^ ''< '^'i*'

RicvAT

^v^r ojwe^l'iEN

ot*?

vjn

l>

8l*WK

1

Tou

\V> Soi^t

UNO

I'M

J

IS^

OF ?

ffVPTL^

-

—

®

Inlornolional

F»otufd

Servic*. Inc.,

1925



„

l^rtA, MWE

TO

\*/a.\T,£AlD

MR

OoRStT.

l^tWuTjÂS

(O

(MWT.fAlOMR DO«V*.T.

YouXV

H^Vt

To

VNft'T.5ft>a

fV\

,Don5tT_-

j

I

^^SV

VAll.CO>.M<ZMe

)

.

RUBBtR

COR&ET

'.

[147]

Internoiionol

feature

Service,

Inc.,

IW6



[148]

King Footurei

Syndicate.

Inc.,

1937



Barney

Google

and

Spark Plug

Bill\

Do Beck

1929

Z

A'M-r

ACT

youst

Tb

0« muTwm

*«eT.

u*vt

1

(

y-

pew

K«ei»

v€«t

^ ^

»* '^«SS't

V

,

X

Teix'*otj&*

WOT

X

vnr

tl49J

uAvK

you

^j«Ne«.

wtAôo^

C*^zeM '-

AND

'^

^y

Vi«»*t:vmi«

&OVT

vow

I

Barney

Google and Spark

Plug

CAKTE POSTAlye_

SAO

efcêoô'^

/

FeLLER

OET

lo

ste

I

Tme

S»GmT^

here

^

\

ANJO,

SO

FAR..

TmS

OCT

ANvTmpSJG

rVE

A

van

ofAKEwcwi toubists

1

V

IHr C/wP^

LtJ

THE

MclNTMftBni.

m-

tiTn:

AVftb BEKwe

THe.V>OUC€/

vHHIVeu.UUT

THeWOMGN

IN TVO,

mRrf

cJAve

A

<5cc»

DeSCRVPTioM

C*

HIM

•

Tf^&C

SftY H€,

Y#V£

TT«/

PlBRCti

1.0<K1 «

-AW-ri-Hr-OdUINT,

KUN AND

IMSTBADQF

THBCllSTDCIfiW

sefiET

HavtfsS yjwRiNG

a

shiny

J^

King

Features Syndicoto,

inc.

1929



[150]

Barney Google

and Spark

Plug



CasoUne Alley

Frank

King

1929-1931

[151]

'^

^\



[152]

Ih«

OilcoBO

Trlbuiw.

19



GB&iAmeAlley

[153]

Ky

ine v_nicago

i



£154]

£)

Tho

Chkogo

Tribune,

19



(155)

Th« Chicago

Tribune.

1931



i,

Ihc

Cli,.jao

Iiibu.K-

1931



Boob

McNutt

Rube

Goldberg

1919

/

1920



\ <cAM

Ler

you

i.

\0^

1

Ap'\RTMexx

For.

30,000,000

'

IS

FtFTY

oe>JTS

I

MOKiey.

I

THiiOfc

I

I'lL

Moye

V

VJP

TO

MACS

COMIC

SECTION

THB

SAN

RANQSCO

EXAMINER

April

18,

1920

R((iii><xi t:

e

r«t*M

ncM*

Boob

McNutt

C

Slor Compony.

1920



Happy

Hooligan

Fred

Opper

1925

[159]



S'Matter Pop?

Charles

M.

Payne 1929

~|

l.i<it1TNiky',

IT

Mt

bo

MUCrt, /

I'm

too

mJ

TiETvweehj

Tf+A

KiTÊW

..':~mrT

_._«_ -

,

A

I

-Tt-R^ÔT

To'Pt?OTeCT

'

''/ilMSi€L-F Sufficient

.--V*

8

Ball

SvndlwH,

Inc..

1959



Merely Margy

John

Held,

Jr.

1930

[161]

King

Feoturej

Syndrcote,

Inc., 1V30



Somebody's Stenog

A.

H.

Hayward

1931

The Back'Seat

Driver



The

Bungle

Family

Hany

Tuthill

1931

/

1932

/

1930

[163]

BUNGLE

FAMILY

ONE

MORE

FRIENDLY

LESSON

By H.

J.

TUTHILL

a*rs, GeoRise

I

JU3T

SAWV

THOSE

,

\fl*'^NGLeS

V«*£XXJNG

WAJ_K

AND 1

TWCVRf

AND

i

TWI9

LOOKS

J

n-l

J

I

SEE

aOMCTMrNO

MOVIMS.,..

MOVIN9.

VDU KJCK ON

TMC

OOOR, HAROOI..

WW4IU£

I

WNO

H.

J.

Tuihill and ÂcNaught

Syndicate. Inc.. 1931



>^^^

THE

BUNGLE

FAMILY

TROUBLE

ALWAYS

MEETS

CEORCE HALF

WAY

AT

LEAST

By

H. J.

TUTHILL



[165]

BUNGLE

FAMILY

TUTHIU.





[167]



[168]



[169]



Krazy

Kat George

Hemman

1922-1923

THIS MOST AMUSINa COMIC

KRAZY

KAT

APPEARS

EVERY

DAY

IN

THE

NEW

YORK EVENING JOURNAL

C«fftnr»t. IKS.

tv

lalw>klt«^

Fwiw Svrw.

\uHicfc

*e

To*i.«i-n;s

Hat, î cHUcik

6«£>we;^.

To m>AtV

5

P»3«>A

,

ÔU-S -V

IT W6At

/V

'THt

fetLATwes ey 6t»'Aj&

His

'HAiett

CD

Inrvrnotional

Faotur*

Sffrvics,

Inc.,

1922



Krazy

Kat

[171]

By

H

erriman





Blondie

Murat

Chic

Young

1933

[173]

©

King

Feofures

Syndicote,

Inc., 1933



Skippy Percy

Crosby

1930

I

S1CII»I»

Iêrey

Qrogiby^

|

M«YMAP. But

to

cowfiNuf:

WHICJ

r

AM

WOT

AT

5UJ0RDS

POiNTi

uiTM

TMS

Cosmic

MCSiACC

OF

A

SHftLtV

*S

MANIFEJT60

iN'PBOMfTHfUS

OWeOON0, wf

MOST

TAKE

C06K>lZANCe

Of

rut

pANTMflSTIC

P0CT«IN£S

of

UOOOSu'oerH

YfH,

r

BfMfMSfR

rwe

SIXTH

T/ME

I

KAp'TRfAJoee

IJ£.AND I

LtHtD

THAT

pABTWttflif

W

Got

his

arm

X.MOST

SHOT

OFF

VP

on

TH6

MAST

IT

Slim

TO

Mt,

MY

FBiCnD, that

VOO HAVf

A

PeoCLlViTY

TO

CO

IN

fOff

Th6

SANGUINARY

Sort

of

thiws.

this

roietc.

/•wouch

for

a

-flMf

i

IVf

P

OOnjN,

MAY

PR0V4

RttRoOtSCfNT

U)£tt,

UIHAT

I0K.L

YOW;

THf

ON0«AT0P0«IC

VACUfS

OF'COtePlOCt,

OR,

iHAtC Ult SAY THOJC

OF

A

CONTEMPORARY

SOCH

AS

CMfSTfRTON

IN

HIS

if

PANTO,.

OR

IINOSAV

IN HIS

CON

60

?

m

THfY'S

A

PART

IN

TRtASoRE

IJtANP

<<jHeB£

JIM

t

Hioes

IN

A I

BARREL

p

•iiir

M

MY

ONS0tlCIT£0

ADV1C6

IS

THAT

YOU C(XT)V/ITT

TASTES

THAT

CAN

M

PUSSOEO

WITH IMPUNITY,

SOMCTHINC

MORE COMPATiece U/fTH

THf

/

ADOLESCENT

Mind,

cood

pay.

my

friend.

©

Percy

L.

Croiby

ond King Features Syndicole.

Inc.,

1930



m

Sunny

Toonerville

and

the

Darkling

World

Anecdote

and

Narrative

in

the Daily

Comic

Strip,

1917-1933

The

reality

of

death,

and the recurrent

threat

of it, on which

adventure and

detective

fiction

are based, came to

the

comic

strip

in

the

winter

of

1925,

quietly,

unexpectedly,

and somewhat obscurely. There had

been

hints

earlier:

a

few

men

had

been

brought

low

as

part of

the

plot

mechanics

in

the

movie

satires of Ed

Wheelan's

Minute Movies

and Chester Gould's

Fillum

Fables,

but

only

as

jests

poked

at

the

mayhem of some

silent

film melodramas.

And

a

cold-blooded

murder plot,

which

had

been

hatched

against

Oliver

Warbucks in

Harold Gray's

Orphan Annie

in

mid-1925, built some

brief suspense but

ended

farcically,

with

the

plotters

booted

offstage. Roy Crane's

Wash

Tubhs,

which

had

begun in early

1924

and

was to become

the

greatest

adven-

ture strip of the

1920s,

had

not

yet

moved

beyond

comic

melodrama

and

village

ro-

mance, with

an

early

seafaring

treasure

hunt

handled

largely as

knockabout farce.

In Phil

Hardy,

however,

a

new,

short-lived

daily

strip of late 1925,

and

in

Out Our

Way, an

established

daily

panel

anecdote strip

with

recurring

characters

and settings

by

J.

R.

Williams,

a

good

deal of

realistic

blood was often

shed in

full view

of

the

reader.

Out Our

Way

was

distributed largely

to

rural

papers

and

second-string

urban

afternoon

dailies, so

that

the

impact of

realistic

death

in

the

comics was

somewhat

muted. But

the

opening

note for

serious

action and

adventure had

been

struck, and

the monopoly

of

humor

on

newsprint

space

began

slowly

but

with an

accelerating

pace

to

yield

to

suspense

and

melodrama.

A

few

established

strips

moved

to

suspenseful

adventure,

notably

Crane's

Wash

Tuhhs,

Gray's

Orphan Annie, and

Smith's

Sunday

Gumps. But most

of the

new

em-

phasis

came

with

new,

largely

daily,

strips such as

George Storm's

Bohhy

Thatcher

(1927),

Gus

Mager's

Oliver's

Adventures (1927),

Hal

Forrest's

Taihpin

Tommy

(

1928),

Lyinan

Young's

Tim Tylers

Flying

Luck

(

1928),

Monte Barrett's Jane

Arden

(

1929),

Rex

Maxon's and

Harold

Foster's

Tarzan

(

1929),

and

Phil

Nowlan's

and

Dick

Calkins's

Buck

Rogers

(1929).

After

1930

came

the deluge,

permanently

altering

the

content of

the comics

pages with

crime

and

adventure

strips

Skyroads, Jack Sicift.

Dick Tracy,

Scorchy

Smith,

Dickie

Dare,

Patsy

Ming Foo,

Little

Joe,

Dan

Dunn,

Donnie,

On The

Wing, Broncho

Bill,

Brick

Bradford,

and

others, endless.



The

major

humorous strips

held their

own, retaining

the static shape of

yesterday

and

the da>^ before, much

as

^^

. C. Fields

and Laurel

and

Hardy

brought

their

earlier

comic trappings securely and successfully into

the

sound

films

of the thirties.

The

daily panels

of Toonerville Folks

and

School

Days

illuminated the

pages of

the

daily papers.

Moon MuUins

and

Minute

Movies continued

to

spin

irreverent narrative

of a

high

order.

There were

as

many laughs

as

ever

to be

had.

The

comic

strip

had

grown and performed

an

amoebic split

into

two

spheres of appeal,

but almost

noth-

ing

was lost

in

the

act,

and a great deal

was

gained.

Notes

on

strips in

this

section

Out Our Way

was

a

curious

strip

in

that

it

alternated

among

as

many

as

four

separate

anecdotal

series,

involving

four

separate

sets

of characters

and

settings,

devoting

one

or

two

days

per

week

to

each continuity [175-178].

Moon MuUins

and

Barney

Google

were two

of the

great

daily

narrative

strips

of

the

1920s

and 1930s, as the

selections

included here will attest [221-319], (Dover

Books

has

repubUshed

two erratically

condensed

but

still

delightfully

roguish Mullins

narratives from 1929

and

1931 respectively.

Another

stor\-

strip of the

period,

which

held

readers

for

several decades, was

Frank King's Gasoline

Alley,

but

this work,

extraordinary

as it

was in some ways

as a

chronicle

of

an

American

family,

and

unassuming

as

it

was

in

its

stance

and

tone,

does

not excerpt well:

it

depends heavily on

the

reader's intimate knowledge of what

has

happened

before

in the strip, and to

whom.

The

same

is true

of the

daily

episodes

of

Sidney

Smith's

The Gumps,

which were

remarkable

in

that they

gripped

millions

of

readers with continuity on two disparate

levels: that

of

a

straightforward,

bathetic,

and

deadly

serious melodrama

and

that of a

hilarious

and

deeph'

engaging takeoff

on

their own

outward

content. There is

httle doubt

but

that

Smith, a

Rabelaisian and

ir-

reverent man

of

comic

wit

and imagination,

knew what

he

was doing to

his

readers

on both levels, and as a

greatly gifted

storyteller

was able

simultaneously

to

satisfy the

expectations

of the two

groups. But

the story

line

is so

complex

and

extensively de-

veloped

that

any

excerpt of less than

eight

or nine

months would fail

to be

self-

explanatory

as

a

unit.

Regrettably,

therefore,

the

daily

Gumps,

as

well

as

the

daily

Gasoline Alley, have

been passed

over in

this collection. Both

surely

deserve ex-

tended,

carefully

edited, anthologies.

Roy

Crane's

Wash

Tubbs

(published in

a

companion

Sunday

page

as

Captain

Easy)

is

reputedly the finest adventiire

strip

of

its

time,

surpassed

only after

1934

by

the work of

a

man who

had

self-admittedly

been Crane's

devoted student: Milton

Caniff and his Terry and

the

Pirates.

The

Wash Tubbs sequence reprinted

here

is re-

garded

by

its devotees

as

the

graphic

and

narrative

apogee of

the

strip [320-426].



Out

Our Way

J.

R.

WilUams

1925

/

1927

/

1932

/

1935

[176]

[178]

©

NEA

Services, Inc., 1932

) NEA S<rvices,

Inc., 193S



Bobby

Thatcher

George

Storai

1932

Wev6R

HACT

NOeOOV UKS

T«E

PROFESSCR

CHARGE

BEFORE

WB

KMOW

SOiwEBOCV

HBLPED

HIM

DOWN

WI-TH

TMATT

SIGN,

BUT

HE

WOh'T

SAV

who

HE

JUST

SET3

M

THE

CALABOOSS

AND

WOHT

TALX

AMO

WOhV

eat

HI

©

Bell

Syndicale.

Inc.,

1932

©

Bell SyndicoK

1

UE

PROCESSOR

WAS esGM

IM

TME

CALASQOSe

reHES

OAVS,

Al«0 STia_

ME

WOMT

TBLL.

how he

OOT

THAT

SICM

DOW>J

NOR

WHAT

HE

DID

WITH

THE

COLD

FILLIMCS

HE

HOOKED

FRO*

THE

OEMTISTS

OFFKie

HE

WOnV

TAKE

THE

MOHE/

HE

PlAlO

US

EITHER.

•••

^

like

TO

DO

-/ SO-STHIM'

TO

MeiJ».HlM^

BUT

1

OOnY

vV.__r_—

r

KHOW

WHAT

?AuT

DARK

FORCES ARE

jy

MOVIMC

TO

FURTHER

,

CCXPLIOTE

THE

SCrE«TlSTS

TROUBLED

AFFAl*2S---

THE

DREADED

COVE

GAMO

IS

EHTERINC

THE

VULLAOE

TO

EFFECT

HIS

RESCUE

IM

TWE

eCUEF

THAT

THEY

ARE

AIOIMC

A

PARTMEFi

IN

Crime

THE

SILEMT

VILLAGE

IS

WRAPPED

IH SLUAHSER

AHD

THE

Clock

im

the steeple

STRIKES

otte'.'.

ell Svndico

lO'FF

TOLl.y

-'

AMD

THE

MOST

RESOLUTE

MEMBERS

OF

TME

DREADED

COVE

C^XC

ABE

GROUPED

AROUND THE

CALAaOOSE,,.,

THE

OnlV

SOUNDS

TO

BE

HEARD

IM

THE

SLUMBERIHC

village 'S

the

distaht

BavihC

of

a

watch

ooc--

JUST

THE

SAME weos

CONNA.

Tai

you

OUTA

TUBOS

FOR

rOUH.

OWK

GOOD---

' V

OLD

RAP

ALWAVS

SAO

'A

BIRD

OH

A

LIMB

S'NCS

SWEETER

THAW

OME

IN

A

If'

Bell Syndicate,

Inc.. 19321

[ XIhe

stout

bars

of

the

calaboose

WINDOW

DIO

NOT

LONG

RESIST

THE

MIGHT/ Blows

Of

a

sixteeM

pound

spike

aaaul

wrapped

in

burlap.

WIELDED

By

biff

toll/

Himself...

l-^^



[184]

[185]

[186]

[187]

idicaie.

Int., 1932

—1

[188]

ALBeRX

PETTIBOHE'.

BEWARE

'.'.

THE OUTIAW

CHiEP

IS

A

v«lC<EO

AMO

desperate

mam'

mo

cooo

cam

COME

OF

T14e

FRlGWOSHIP

VJHlCX

ME

TMRUSTS

UPOM

vou'

S

B«ll

Syndicate, Inc..

1732



O

S

WAVIH' no

BORROW

A

CC^

86CAUSE

THE

PROFESSOR

WAMTS

A

CLASS

OF

MILK

FlRS-r

THIUC

rt3u

KWOW

Bin=Ll.

WAVE

VOO

1M A

KITCHEN

AP»e?0>4

BAKIW

ANCeU

CAKES

>

FOB

»

tJ

MUT JP

amo

oowt

LCX

THIS

SCOW

SWIWC

»

THE

r-',_,»^

CuBtaeMT...

I

^^

^MEBBE

THE

PROFESSOR.

DO»T

V/AKTA

PUT

IM

WitM

US

BECAUSG

HE

TMIMKS

WEtJE

POUCH-WSCXS-

...

WS'ul-

ALl_ SLICK

UP

Fo«

MtM

AWHILE

>

WHEN

HE

GETS

A

LOAO

OP

THIS

OUTFIT

HEVl

KUOW/

TH6RES

OMS

CEMTLEMAH

1

the:

PACK

II

5»nd)coi8.

Inc..

1932

Minute

Movies Edgar

Wheelan

1929

ED

WHEEL

AH

prcscorff

m?

COMEDIANS

IN *

fcURLESQUF

OF

•DTW

OOlltOTE:

DOW

K,

IlONG

ACO

IN A

CERTAIN

SBON

•îSg

\;iLLAfiE IN

LA

UOOCWA

IMERE

LWED

AN OLr>

<JEmT

UMO

HAD

REiiD

«3

MANy

-n?UE

STO»eS

IN

TWE MAGAZWES

njfcr

WE

WAS

AiuiAVs

see

INCr

WIN&?

.

IN SPiTe

OP

THE

FACT

TVIca WE

AJEVCl?

TonCUFD

A

PROP

—



[193]

[194]

UWEELbH'S

SlAPSTiCK

PART

d)

(aJftcr

being,

-meoujN

fob

A

LOSS

By

TUE

WlNDMliL

WUICH

HE

MISTOOK

FDR

A

'GIN MIU.

,

DON K.

UiAlGV^y.

THE AJUTT/

KMISUT,

«/AS

PRETT/ UIEIL

BUNCrED

UP.BUT/loT

D)S-

HEARTENEO

„.-

SlieNOE.POOl,'.'

UIUAT

AM

I

A CRAVEN,

A

COUIAfsP,

tWAT

I

SHOULD

CEASE

MV

EFRORTJ

To

MAkTEJJE

MOJLOJ

SAPC

FiSR'-

TUftN

H

OF

1

NO-NO-ATWOU-

Si>ND

TiMCS

I

SHOUiDn

-SAV

NOT-

OTTMSfoiriT

OUFS

THEME.

50N(1, C CIN

k.

UAuewTy

I

LOVE VOO*

IS

softlv

INTRODUCED

ON

THE OBOE

[195]

faithful

STAN2A

SUCCEEDED

DOH

HS

STKED

,

AND

so.

THEy

KODE

For

TeouBiE

-

UJUEEIAN'S

K.

coNie

ON. Fellers.

UTS

K>40CK

TVllS

SOOFy

eOV

FOfe

A

Row

OF

ASH

'

CANS

;:

;

'~Âl

/iND

now

A

GREAT

CROWD

OF

RUNMEtSS.

EN&A&ED

IN

A

I

CI?0SS-COUNTtey

MAKATHOM,

APPROACWCP

DON

k. -

_ui.

o.

[196]

IHFUBIATED

D(2A<WEC

SELF-

APPOINT-

P(?OHlE>niON

OFF

HIS

Moi?se

Gave

MiM

WORKS

'-

[aJfTer

it

uas

/'

All

OWER.TWE

V

ll

FAITHFUL

FKlNCHO

STANZA

GATHERED

OP

THE

REMAIN?

And

off

the/

SIABTED

for'

MOMC

-

COME

TD

think:

OF

(T.

Good

Rxncuo,

MAyse aj

LiTTiE

di?ink

noui and then

/ÊVEG

HueT/

^

AMVBOD^^

/

svsrW 4.AA

iSj

-i*

ysA

AGAIN



^cuuui

iây5 »--iare

v

icror L/\\iggms lyiii

/

lyzo

/

lyzo

/

lii'^b

/

lyzY

Vtemoxl

tVoW

C0I«

AIL

-^

T

-

^--

.^

[

®

McClure

Syndicoia.

1723

1 McClure

Syndicate, 1953



®

McClur. Syndicole.

IM7

©

McClure

Syndicole,

1926



vm

IM

McClure Syndicate, 1927



ToonerviUe

Folks

Fontaine

Fox,

Jr.

1917

/

1924

/

1928

vjHe.H

HE

DOESN'T

GET

A

Good

running

stakt

THE

SKIPPER

HAS TO

USE

A

•SPCCIAU

EMERGENCY

POWER*

To

GET

THe

CAR

UP HOMAn'S

}\IUU.



fl\f.

AÂTlVfeS

ALWAYS iAYÂSKTMe

SMPffk

WHfH

Att-iohle.

ASKS

WMY

THC

TRAdKS

WSRE

UAIP oUT

Zld

ZAd

oN

MAIhl

S-r(Ê6T

,

Mov^

Lof/a

MP IT

-TAKf

2 iii

To

FiaoKP

OUT

THIS

MYSTiei^Y

?

frit £)<i)JJV

i-rfTlt

couucee

BoV

wjho

6-fooO

RiCrt-t'

Ov/fe«

rne.

SH6».t PlPt torW/sce

v<1*.aRiiJ6

A PAIR of-

rnose.

wiofc

fAAWa-

(C»fr i' -

1***

*y

^' ^* Srnd-«tt.

iiK)

YSTaRS

ArJp YPARS Aao, WMChi TMC

SKlfffR

WAS

iTlUL

A

YoUPJai MAf^,

MIS AMSlTloM

WAS

T

»*<iOMt

A

l.oCOMOTl>/^

0ti^lf4eeK .

^fU^'t

^^^^:^^

—

Aiô

fVeKi

oricf ifJ

A WHILE

\fji\t.r4

Hc

thikIk;*

no

oNC wilu sre HirA

hc

ri-AYS

A SArAP

OF

t-ET'S

rReTfr>/P.*'



[21

[220

3Cfj

1684

v/Hehi

-THF

sKirreK

col/ld

LICK ANIY MAhi

llJ

-THC

CoUaJTY, ME

HAP

TrtE

TffACKS

1-AIP

OUT

TMAT

Way

eecAose

ne

was

aiô

villasf

LAMfi.icHTe'/^.



Moon

Mullins Frank Willard 1928

[224]

«

Th«

Chlraso

Tribunt.

I93(.t



[225

[226]

[227]

[228]

fcl

The

Chicopo Tribune.

1928



232

The Chicago

\r.bune.

1928

/ MOOm^WlwE'.

CAM

NtXJ

N

/

IMA.CilNt

tUCM

A

NiWNV?

/

EivPT

MA^

FLEW OFF

TH^

I HAMDUE

BECAUIt

MAJCX9

SLOEPOINT

CjlVE

I HER

THAT

EV-EtiAtJT

\ ORAV40 P\AM0

when

\

SHE

WA'S

EXPECT(KJ'

/

A

AuTVMoeiii

Foa

/

HEB BIRTHOAV

\PACK

OP

AHO

CO AWXW

[233]



TtStlN.

l/7_

^

__H

EMMV-.

GET NOU

*.

OUTSIDE

BOOM

EICiHT

OOUUJIS

AT

h»V

BETTEO 6eT

ME A

IMSlOe ROOM

ECiVPX-

rr LOOKS

KINOA LIKS

[234]

MlJt

HGa

,

.

I

V/CALTWV

BLUEPOINT,

COOO-evE .

HAVING

LEFT VN

A

HUFF, A*40

SCHMALT2.

NOT

SEINCi

ABLETO

Hlh^

.

—

AMD

IN

THE

0LOAMIN6

WHEN

HE

CALLED WITH

A

PEACE OFFEPINO.

LITTLE

DID

THE OALANT

MAJOR

SDSPECT -THAT

THE OIRLOF

HIS

DREAMS

WAS FAR,

FAR

AW«<

^

ANJO

AT

THAT

VERV

-^^

MOMENT FiaUBlN<,

OHjJ

Puttimcj him

BAS>*^'5>

INTO

ClRCUljiKgO^

•

^\

The

Chicago

Tribune,

1928

HtAVENUY

OAVs

>

[235]

HOW

COULO THAT

WOMAN

THINK

I

MEANT

THOSE

FOQ HER?

DID

I UUN

LIKE

A

WHEN

SHE

REÔINO

THOT

OF SENTIMEMTAL

.

I WROTE

TO

ÎHW

MUST

EyPLAIM

THIS

H«cr

V^HO

STICK

UNCLE WILLIES BACH A

IN

TOWM—

WHAT-LL

\

HE

SAV IF

HE

FINDS

.

OUT

-you're

GET-nN'

I

,

FLOWERS

FROM

ANOTHEW

I

^

ODV, MAMIE?

1^

,

OHt

I

M16HTA

KNOWEO

HFD COME

BOTTIMO

IW

JUST

THE

MINOTE

THE

FIRST

MAW

VJITH MONEV

EVER TOOK

A

FANCY

-to

ME

Orr

VOOR

U6Uf

FACE

AWW

FROM MEVJEl

ciTAW*«<-

The

CHicogo Tribune,

1928

[236]

£; The

Chicago Tribune.

1928

[237

The

Chicogo Tribune,

)928

Hcoe

.oocToa-

vou

TAKE

CHWICE

OF

THE

hAAJOQS

VALUAB\.ES--rHtV'n£

5APE

ENOUCiH

KEQE

SO

FAO

AS IM

LCOh4CEC NED

OF

COURSE,

eoT

\

THEOEi

OUST

Me

AhJD

KtocMSKOlE

I

HEOE

AND

L DOMT

WANT

KiO

S*_>SPiOOKtS

CAST

MN-

WAV

W

CASE

AKiVTWlMOS

M>SS\M'

VJHEN

•

OET3 BACK

HIS

rAEMORY.

[238]



OH

-THEtre VOU

ABE

EGVPT-IVE

BEEN

UOOKIMO

HIGH

AND

IJDW

FOR

VOU

TO R6AO >OU

HIS

LETTER

I 005T

FROM

AOONSHINC

.

•••V.vi3-

/*7

FOB PIXV SAKES

'

r

ave

too

to

unoerstano

I

VOUTÔ

MAN.

THKT

X

WOULDMT

PAt TWEhTTX

FIVE

CE»^TS

tO

SET

OKI THE THROME

WITH

THE

KINO OF

EMOLAMO,

HISSELF'

TWEKTTV-Flve

CEKT5-

POO-noOH

—

«UCM

CRUST.

''fev..'

VJELL

TOCONTINUE

WITH

THIS

EPISU-E

MOONSHINE

SAVJj

XUf

Atr»~^-

L

NOW ISNT

THAT

J05T k*Y

UJCK.EOVPT-THE

WEAtTHy

fAAJOR BLUePOIHT HEU>LESS

IN MY

VEPY.

OWN

HOUSE ANO

ME

AWAV^

TSK-tSV<

fca

V^*^. CM;

l^*r<»^

»

£:

The

Chicogo

Tnbune.

19J8

MOW,

Mr

OEaA

nephew-

VOOSE

SHOUUONT

TDIN

/

WE

dOWN

UKETHAT

WHEN

I

AST FERA

3UOHT

LOAN-

,

ONE

RELATIVE

SHOULD

AUWAVS

BE

HAPPV TO

HELP

TCHE

OTHER

.

(

HELLO.

VUkMlE-

I

OUST

SEEN

VOOR

DEVOTED

HOSaANO

DOWN

'

I

THE

STREET.

T

The Chicago

Tribune,

1928

[241]

rr

/weu.>«eoeAB

'

LITTLE

WOMA^

PCTST

I

BOU6HT

ME

SELF ANEW

. DINNER

SUIT-

ITHEN

AOINNCP

WHKT?

YOU

BACK

HERE ae^/attÂCAJM,

WlLLIAMt

MOONSHIHE

SMD

HE

<yve

NOU

A

QUARTER

VtSTEOOaf.

,„^,,

„^„r^

BWMATO

NOJ OO

WTTM

Tt?

1

ANO

TO

THE

-r—l

—

»r

IT-,

^THEATER

AHO

A

r^

^|»

/

/

jOLC^<

NJOHT

CLUB

AFTER

^jJ^T /

WHICH I

REMTEO

MtiELF

Jî>5o

VARooM»A^THeom.

I

'^^\

rr

COME

ON WTTM

ME.

BUM

tM

OONMA

HUNMOO

IN

WHAT

FOR?

f

W *.

FOR

BEIN

A

aOKA

THAra

WHIT,

f

OFFICER

-

--OAWN

N-OU AINT &Crr._/

HOWCAN

AMY

VISIBLE

MEANS

OF

/

\OUSe

SAY

SUPPORT

-

lîZ^

HCV.MAMIC

'

POKE

VER

HEAD

OOTTH'WWBtR

AND

LET

TH'

OFFICER

TAKV

A

LOOK

AT

The Chicago Ir.bore.

1928

[242]

WHAT

nJTHB

WOILD

15

EATING

,

ON

-yOUSE.WN OEAH?

you

COT

A

LOOK

ON

NOUR FACE LIKE

A

CAT

CAUtjHT

IN

CHICKEN HOUSE

--_

XI

M.

WILLIE,

HOW WOLn.O

VOU

LIKE

TO

OO

FOR A

Nice

LON6

WALK IM

THE MOONLIOHT?

/^WHy,tAV

^

DEAH

fAAMIE-

THAT

WOULD

SUIT

ME

_

JUSTQ^NOY.,

^-y WK

tr n. O*—

^

A

8UMP

ON

Hit

i

eEAKl.

EH?

I

W«LL..H«R«hAMOTWeR

1

TO

KEEP IT

COMFAmy

kj \

3NAKC

t4TX

CRASSI

:^^^^



[2141

[245]

POINT

BEeKJ

BEFORE,

TIMES

6V

CEOQOE.MR MULLINS-

IT NA/A-S WIMO

OF

VOL)

TO

COKAE, SIR*

VOU

UMOEB

STAND

THAT

t

AM A

^TRANCjEC

\m\our.

CITV

AMO THEV

REFUSE

TO

ACCEPT

MY

CHECK

IMPA/MENT

A

S1UV.V

JlOfiE-FiME-

l

VJOMDER

iF

I.

COULD

TftOOBLE

VOO

TO

OET

IT

CACHED

FOR.

ME

SO

t

CAM 6ET

OLJT

OF THIS

/

BEA-STLN-

^

TTrTT

TnTm

BUODV

VOU'BE

r

^

-c^

FADED

J^/jl\\

[246]

The

CKicogo

Tnbune,

1928

weiXOME HOMe

-rwiS-NOTASOLn-^

STATION TO

MEET J

JM

JAvlL.

VVMBRI IS

/

-THANK

A

heaven

[247]

[248]





©

The

Chicago Tribune.

1928

MV

CjOOO

WOMAl-i

t

AÂ

VMIU\_1M<*

TO

TESTIFY »N

COURT

IF

NECe.55AflV

THAT

THE

MAJOQ

WAS

EMTIOEtN' OUT

OP

W(5

'HEAO OUUVMC

THE.

-TBM

DAVS

I

TREAXED

UlfA

MERE-ME

DlOMTl

EVEN

KNOW

VJHER&

^

He

WAS.DUETO

A

ma vjeh.

MA><ê

VOU

CAN

EH-P^JkIN

TH\S NOTE

HE

VJROTE

BEFORE

HE COT

THAT

BUN^P

ON

H\-S

BEAN,

OOC

TO

THE

SWEE «'EST

THE

CEQTA1NI.V.

I

ALWAVS

VJOlTE

THAT

TOMVSSECVPT.

I

WAS

NOTAWAQE

THAT

5HE AND

MISS

SCHfAAin^X

WEU-VJEHAve

AUU

OF

THE

MAJOR'S

TROUBLES

WITH

TOUR

VAMPlNO

COOK

SETTLtq

MISS

SCHMACrZ.

AND

t

KNOV^

YOU

VsflUL BE

HAPPY

TO

KNOW

-THAT

THE

DOCTOR HAS

VINDICATED

ME.

OH

SOU

POOR

OOVl^

OONT

NEED

TO

TCU.

THE

DOCTOR

I

TO Put

a oooo I

BAMDAtiE OMVOUR

/

A.BNA

ANO

UEAVE J

VT

TIUC

TVtE

( ^

S\WEU\_lN4i

<*oe5

'

[



,

NOW-

SIR

—

I

-nwcr

I

HAVE

TMOoouomv

EXPUAtfJEO

HOW

UTTEOli^

BASELESS ABE

VOUO

ClAIMS

F0O»S0,00O'«

FOfJ

VOUCl V>'lFrt

AFFtCnONS-

I

HAVE

HAD

KAV

LAMvTVED

CQAW UP TX\S

STATEMENT

1

COMPUETEi:*'

exONOOATIMO

'

—WHICH

VOO

WILL

StCN

OH

THl

DOTTED

Llh4e

BEFORt

THREE

MINUTES ELAPSE

am A

PCH-ICEMAM

WlTM

WAOBAINTT

FO«

BLACKMAIL

WHOM

1

HAVE

ITATtONEO

OOTSlOt

WH4.

COME

W

VîHEâ

I

WHISTLE

TVJiCE

OUT

TMAT

VN/IMOOW.

K*E-

©

The Chicogo Tribune.

1«8

IM

Ft

\tvw

I

HOOT 3MOKE

LOCH AT

UNCLE

WILLIE

WXkLKVsf

0\CKr

tW

FCONT OF

TMATCAW

WILLIAM,

V.MEPE

IS

YOUR

Buimcss

SAOICITV

—

LA.T

DOWN

THEWt

A*JD

CDCAN

umE

A

PIPE

COClA^J-

TWAT1

MAJOff

BlUEPOihtS

CAR

Af>*0 WE

OUGrtTA

liET

BIG

DAMAGE*

FOB

THIS

-I

WOULOtJT Be

5LIRPRI6EO

IF HEDIO^rr

-TVAT

OH

^

T~

PV^^POSE

71

OW

©

Th«

Chicogo

Tribune. 1928

I

HATE

TO

BOTHEO

'*OUSE

AT

THIS HOoa

OF

THE MIGHT,

MISS

SCHMVAUTl

BUT

ME

AMO

MAMIt

MAO

AMOTHEO

ONE

OF

Oun BOAJS AMO

WHEM

t

LEFT

SHE

WA'S

THOEAT-BNIN'

TO

OO JUMP IM

TME PIVER

AND

I JUST

\A/ANT

TO

tOMOW

>F

SHE'S O.H

t

OOKTT

KMOVSf

WHEnE

SHE'S

WEKT^

VWILL16

TME LAST I

ISEEN

OF

HER

SHB

V/AS HEAOEO

FOR

TME

HIVEO

.

I

The Chicago

Tribvne,

1938

K

VOU

MEAN

-TO

SAN/

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1928

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1928

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1928



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1930

pr

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Feotures

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1930

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Features Svndicatfl,

Inc., 1930

.

.

.

Ihe

comic

strip,

especially

after

you

leave

the domestic-

relations type which is itself realistic ajid

unsentimental,

is

specifically

more

violent, more dishonest, more

triclcy

and

roguish,

than America usually

permits its

serious

arts

to

be.

. .

.

Mutt

and

Jiggs and Abie the

Agent,

and Barney Google, and

Eddie's

Friends

have

so

little respect for

law, order,

the

ri^ts of

property, the sanctity of

money,

the romance of

marriage, and

all

the other

foundations

of

Americaji life,

that

if

they

were put

into

(popular)

fiction

the

Society

for

the

Suppression

of

Every-

thing

would

hale

them incontinently to

court

and

our

morals

would

be

saved cigain,

Gilbert

Seldes

The 'Vulgar'

Comic Strip,

The

Seven

Lively Arts

,

1924



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Tubbs Roy

Crane

1933

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[368]

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[403]

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[408]



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Popeye,

the

Skipper,

and the Abysses

of

Space

and

Time

Anecdote

and

Narrative

in

the

Sunday

Comic

Strip,

1930-1941

Adventure, crime,

and comedy

were as

mixed in

the

Sunday

comic

pages

after 1930

as they

were

in

the daily

strips, but a

new

narrative genre,

science

fiction,

entered the

serious

comic strip at

the turn

of the

decade.

It

had

already

been

touched

on

humor-

ously in such

strips as

Segar's

Thimble

Theatre and Kahles's

Hairbreadth

Harry.

With

the

daily

and

Sunday Buck

Rogers,

the

concept

of

time

and

space

as

a

realistic, full-

scale

playground was

transferred from

contemporary

pulp

magazines into

the

comics,

and

almost

immediately

accepted by

the

public

and

by

other

comic-strip

artists

and

writers.

An

eariy close

follower

of

Buck Rogers

was

the daily

Jack Swift

of

Cliff Farrell

and

Hal Colson

(1930).

Another

daily,

Brick Bradford,

by

William Ritt and

Clarence

Gray

(1933),

followed a

litde

later.

And the

celebrated

Flash Gordon

of Alex Ray-

mond

appeared

in the

Hearst

Sunday

pages

in the

first week of

1934.

Science fiction

themes

also appeared

on

other

and

sometimes

unlikely narrative

strips such

as

Frank

Godwin's Connie,

Harry

Tuthill's

The

Bungle

Family, Chester Gould's

Dick Tracy,

Norman

Marsh's

Dan

Dunn,

Lyman Young's

Tim Tyler's Luck, Lee

Falk's

Mandrake

the

Magician

and

The

Phantom,

and

others.

A

most

successful

and

well sustained

comic

treatment of

science

was in

E.

C.

Segar's

Sunday Sappo,

where

the

brilliantly

cracked

Professor O.

G.

Wottasnozzle

came up

with

continually

ingenious

and

highly

risible

inventions.

The great

old-timers

in the

strips

continued

as

before,

often

untouched

by

the

furor

of

action,

adventure, and

horror

on

the

pages

about

them.

McManus's

Maggie

and

Jiggs

went

their

bickering

and

battling

way

through the

thirties as

they

had

the

twenties and teens

before.

The bucolic

populace of

Toonerville

meandered

as ever

be-

tween

the

architectural

bulk of Aunt

Eppie

Hogg

and the

mobile

clatter

of the

Skip-

per's

trolley.

New

humor

strips were introduced,

such

as

Rube

Goldberg's

Lala

Talooza

and Ed

Wheelan's

Big

Top,

but

there

were few

real

successes

in

the

thirties

against the bi-

zarre

and

exciting

competition

of

the

fantastic, criminal,

and

adventurous

strips, al-

though

Lank

Leonard's

Mickey

Finn

and Al Capp's Li'l

Abner

survived

the era

handily, as

did

V.

T.

Hamlin's

Alley Oop.



Notes on

strips in this section

Dick

Calkins

drew

only

the

daily

Buck

Rogers.

Despite

his

signature

on

the

Sunda

pages of the

early thirties,

Russell Keaton

was

responsible

for the

striking

artistry

the

two

pages

which

open

this

section

[427-428].

The

realistic or

illustrative beaux arts

style

of drawings entered the

comic

str

with the

advent of

realistic

adventure,

although it

was foreshadowed

in the work

\\'insor

McCay. Probably

its

most effective

use

was

in

the

work

of Alex

Ra\inond

his

early

(1934-36)

Flash Gordon

[430];

and in

that

of

Harold

Foster in

his

Tarza

period (1931-36)

[429].

Foster's figures are

often

particularly notable

for

their

move

ment

and

force.

Almost

universally

published at

the

time

in

full-page size, with

ade

quate space for the presentation

of

varying

spatial

concepts

from

panel to

panel,

t

skillfully

free-flowing and open style of both

artists permitted

the full integration

visually

compulsive, multipanel

movement

and necessary

narrative development

vital

to

the

creation

of effective comic-strip color pages.

Subsequent realistic

work in

the

comic-strip

vein, additionally hampered

by the

r

duced reproductive space available in

later

years,

has

tended

to

be

increasingly

d

tailed,

with

an

almost obsessive need

to fill every

part

of

every panel

with

blac

shadow

and

complex linework.

Such

visual

weight

can slow down a

reader's ey

movement across

the

narrative

panels,

and even

draw his attention

to

irreleva

detail.

Like

Buck

Rogers, Tarzan, Flash

Gordon,

and

Prince

Valiant

[431]

are

frequentl

reprinted

here

and abroad, and

are

(or

soon

will

be) accessible

to

collectors

in

si

able editions.

One man

who offered

a

highly

fanciful

Sunday

page

was V.

T.

Hamlin

with h

Alley Oop [432-434].

He

was

also

the

first

major comic-strip artist

to take the

reade

back into

prehistoric time

for his narrative

setting,

thereby reversing the direction

Buck Rogers

and

Flash

Gordon.

With

Cliff

Sterrett,

George

Herriman,

and

Winsor

McCay, Roy Crane was one

the

great technical masters

of the

Sunday-page

layout.

In addition

to

his

graphic dex

terity

with

page space,

Crane told a rattling,

tongue-in-cheek

adventure

tale,

whic

made

his

Sunday

Captain Easy

[435-437]

the

equal

of his

daily

Wash

Tubbs

strip.

Little

Joe

[438-439],

nominally

bylined

for

Ed Leffingwell, Harold Gray's back

ground

artist

for Orphan Annie,

was

in

fact scripted

by

Gray

through the thirties an

early forties,

and its characters were

drawn

by

him

for

a number

of

years.

This littl

known

Sunday

half page

was an

entertaining and gripping strip. Replete with a

sa

donic

and often

bloody

humor. Little

Joe

was

a thoroughly adult strip.

At

the

time

was relished

by

a few

cognoscenti,

but

was

apparently

of little interest

to

the

gen

eral

public

of

the

thirties,

which still thought

of

western fiction

in

terms

of

Zane

Grey

Richard

Dix,

and

Tom

Mix,

and preferred

western

strip work of a

similar

nature.

White

Boy

[440-441]

was another imaginative,

nonderivative

western strip of t

time,

drawn

by

New Yorker

artist

Garrett Price in

an

often

stunning graphic

styl

and

told

by

him

with

many

skillful

touches

of

the

fantastic

and

unexpected.

It

wa

caviar

to

the

average

reader, had little

circulation, and expired in

the

late thirties.

The

extended

Thimble

Theatre

Sunday

sequence with

which we

close

this secti

is

not

only

the

comic and

narrative

apogee of E. C. Segar's work,

it

may

be

the

fine

example of pure

comic-strip

narration

[443-474]. Segar is

almost

unknown

to

an

reader under fifty

who

has not

encountered

the

only

extensive

reprint of

his

wor

since

1940 (the Nostalgia

Press Popeye

the

Sailor collection

of

1971).

He based

h

humor

on

the

interaction

of

one

of

the

most

inspired casts of comic characters

this

si

of Dickens.

{ The inherent

conceptual

strength

of

many

of

his Thimble Theatre

fi

ures is perhaps demonstrated

by their

continued popularity

in

the

hands

of

sever

successor

writers and illustrators since Segar's early death in 1938.) But

introducto

words

are

unnecessary with

Segar: the

great

sequence

awaits

only

the

turn

of

t

reader's eye

to

the

first

episode to speak for

itself

in

the

salty,

epic

speech

of

Popeye

the

propitiative

murmur of

J.

Wellington

Wimpy,

or the cursing

cackle

of the

Sea Hag



Buck

Rogers

Phil

Nowlan

and|Dick

Calkins

1932

/

1933

1

[427]

John

D;lle

Co.,

1932



[428]

w

><oj

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Tarzan

Edgar

Rice

Burroughs and

Harold R.

Foster

1933

[429]



Flash

Gordon Alex

Raymond

1935

PH

I

SEE

FLASH-OFiOER

TVt

FIRST

COMPAMV

OF

L/WCERS

TO

CHARGE.

COLOJEl-/

J

\r-^

ALEX

RAYMOND

l^*-*

:*

Da

?ARKCV

AMD

A

RECWEWT

:

OF

HAVWKMEW

MARCH

TO RESCUE

r-^

FLASH,

NK3T KKJOWIKJG

THAT

HE,

UNDER

THE

WITCH

QUEEN'S

DRUG,

IS

LEADING

THEIR EMEMIE5

The

FIRST

LANCERS.THE

GREATEST

FLIERS

IW

Tl-e

HAWMMEN

ARMY,

CIRCLE

TO

A

DIZ^y

HEIGHT

AND,

AT

A

SIGNAL

FROM

THEIR

LEADER,

FOLD

THEIR WINGS

AND DIVE

ON

AZURA'S

ARMV/

\

Flash

is quick

to

see

them-

HE

raises

mis

sworo—

-

THE

GUNS

OF

THE

>

COMeuSTlOM-RAV

MACHINE

SWING

INTO ACTION

/



Prince

Valiant Harold

R.

Foster

1938

mm

L,

IN

THE DAYS

OF

^

KING ARTHUR

[431]

SYNOPSIS-VAL

APPEALS

TO

MERLIN.

THE

GREAT

MAGICIAN. FOR

AID

IN

RES-

CUING

SIR

GAWAIN

FROM

THE

POWER

OF

MORGAN

L£

FEY,

THE

SORCERESS .

MERLIN

ASK.5

FOR

SOME

PERSONAL

POSSESSION

OF

LE

FEY'S WITH

WHICH

TO

WORK HIS MAGIC AND

VAL STEALS

HER

PET FALCON,

BUT

SO

SWIFT IS THE

PURSUIT

THAT

HE

IS

CORNERED

AT

MERLIN^



Alley

Oop

V.

T.

Hamlin

1935 /1940

[432]

M



[433]

: NEA Service,

Inc..

1935



[434]

®

NEA

S-



Captain

Easy

Roy

Crane

1935

/

1941

501DU

R

Of

ÔRTUME

k«

»•«•««

[435]

ni^JO Ta.NKETS

OP

SRA-îS

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JADE.

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Tviceow

80K£

NECKLACES

ACOU*C MIS

MECK.

THtrKE

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MIWOIMG

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Li>l60

THAT

SOUM05

UK>

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BV

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H£ia«£6K

TROOP

TRAINS.

9

NEA

S<rvlc«,

Inc..

1935



^PTAIN

dWCE

A6A\U,

FATE

DRAWS

EASVS

MOBTAL

BNEMy

MEAR. ON

AWOTHER

OF HIS

(OEFABWUS

M1S610WS,

DAWSOM

DISEMBARKS

FROM

THE:

«CHOONE«

'OUEEW

OF

THE

MAY



Little

Joe

Ed

Leffingwell

1938

/1941

[438]

^^^^^^

TftKE IT EASY

|



White Boy

Garrett Price 1933

[440]

New

York Ne

[441]

(£- New

York

Newi

Synd'cote Company, Inc.,

1933



Toonerville

Folks

Fontaine Fox,

Jr.

1930

oh

vâs

that

-rwe

TRoi-Ley

car

X

TMOOCMT

THAT

WAS

A

t-UNCH

WAgON

TOONERVILLE

FOLKS

^r

FONTAINE

FOX

SUNDAY,

OCTOBER

5,

1930

TOONERVILLE

FOLKS

A

Bad

Risk

Fontaine

Fox

©

Fontaine

Fox,

193



Thimble Theatre

Ebae Crisler

Segar

1933-1934

[443]

©

King Features

Syndicote, Inc.,

1933



[444]

.^Sids^ti^

/

I

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EITHER

VTOP

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IS

NOT

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[445]

/'rvE GOT

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^

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SHOW

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UDEtK.,

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MOVIES

^

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King

Feaiucei

Syndicate,

Inc.. 1933



[446]

<S)

King

fvalvtvi $ynd>COl«,

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[447]



King

Ftolum

Syndlcolt.

Inc.,

1934



TO

SHIP

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[449]

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next

week

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©

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Feofurei Synd-cate,

Inc., 1934



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[451]

Thimble

Theatre

1^

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to the

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King

Features Syndicate, Inc.,

1934



[452]

SCPPO

ESCOPtO

CROM

JVX.

SP'OERS

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HES

FftH FROM

DOST

PRBTicLE^

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[473]

<S>

King

Feorures

Syndicate, Inc.,

1934



King

Feoiursi

Synd'COte,

Inc.



m

Shadow

Shapes

in

Moving

Rows

Extended

Narrative

in the

Daily

and

Sunday

Comic

Strip,

1928-1943

There

is

little

doubt

that a

day-to-day

narrative

continuity was

attractive

to

the

reading

public

in the comic

strips of

the

thirties

and

forties. It was

hard to find

a

sim-

ple anecdotal strip

among

the

daily comics.

Such

strips

as

adhered to

a

daily gag

pat-

tern

—Carl

Anderson's Henry, or the

Disney-produced Donald

Duck,

by

Al Talia-

ferro,

or

J.

Millar

Watt's

English

import, Pop

—

stood out

oddly

among the

multitude

of

story strips. Even the

humorous

strips

from

the

twenties

and before,

such

as

Bring-

ing

Up

Father

and

The Captain

and the

Kids,

turned

in the

course of

these

two

de-

cades

to

story

lines with

carry-over

subsidiary

characters.

New

daily

narrative

strips, with the

most

graphic

pretension

to

realism,

included

Ritt's

Brick

Bradford;

Falk's The

Phantom

and

Mandrake the Magician;

Briggs's

daily

version of Flash

Gordon; Young's

Tim Tyler's

Luck;

Forrest's

Tailspin

Tommy; God-

win's

Roy

Powers, Eagle

Scout;

Fanny Cory's

Babe

Bunting;

Zane

Grey's

King

of

the

Royal

Mounted and

Tex Thorne,

with their

various artists; and a

number

of others.

Characterizations,

plots, and dialogue

tended to

be

stereot>'ped;

the

aim of

the

new

narrative

strips was

at the

audience

for boys'

adventure stories

(

although the

leggy

girls

who

paraded

through

Mandrake,

Flash

Gordon,

and

The

Phantom

probably

drew some

interested

glances from

adult readers

too

)

.

There

was

a good

deal of

genuinely

inventive,

sharply original,

and

often

captiva-

ting

narrative,

serious and

comic, among

other

daily

strips

of

the

period, and a

num-

ber of

examples

have

been selected

for

inclusion

in

this

story-oriented

section.

on strips in

this

section

Alex

Raymond's

Secret Agent

X-9

of

1934-.35, based

in

part

on

scripts

by

Dashiell

Hammett,

reads as

freshly

and forcefully

today

as

it

did

at

the

time

it

was

published.

For

a

long

period

in

the

middle

of 1934,

when

Hammett's

script

seems

to

have

been

adapted

in

unadulterated

form

by

Raymond,

X-.9 was

so

superbly

executed

and nar-

rated

that

it seems

one of the

finest

achievements of

the

story

strip.

The

selection

here

[475-478]

hints at

the

quality

of

the

whole.

Nostalgia

Press

has

published

much

of

X-.9

for

1934 and 1935

in one

volume.

The

Abbie

an

Slats pages

selected

here

inc-orporate

the

opening

weeks

of this



Hardcover

anthologies

which

draw

on Little Orphan Annie

(daily episodes only), Dick

Tracy

(again

dailies only),

ToonerviUc

Folks. The

Gumps, Bringing

Up

Father,

and

Buck

Rogers

have ap-

peared

recently

enough still to

be

found

in

remainder bookshops

and

on

bargain

tables.

beautifully drawn strip, for which Raebum

Van Buren

maintained a high level of

nar-

rative and

humor

[485-496].

In Barnaby, illustrator Crockett

Johnson

brought

a memorable whimsical fantasy

(or

itas

the

fairy godfather fantasy?) to

the

comics

pages,

one which

appealed

to

both adults and children. Our episode

reflects

its

World

\\'ar

Il-period

origins

[505-

539].

(Dover Books has

reprinted the

Barnaby

and Barnaby

and

Mr. O'Malley

col-

lections

in

current paperback.

The

Mickey

Mouse

narrative

chosen

here

[542-643]

is

dehghtfully

topical

of those

drawn by

Floyd

Gottfredson

between

1930

and

1950.

It

is

full

of

colorful

incident

and

character and demonstrates

the kind of

absorbing,

ingenious,

risible comic-strip

story

often

overlooked at the

time

by

strip

readers,

who

thought

of the Mouse

feature

as in-

tended

solely

to entertain cliildren. The

qualit>'

of

these

early

Mickey

Mouse

narra-

tives

has recently

been

recognized

by the

Disney interests,

and

one,

in

a

papercovered

volume

by

Gold

Key Mickey

Mouse and the Bat Bandit

—

has

already

been released.

With

the

last

strip

selections

in

this

section.

Little

Orphan Annie,

Terry

and the

Pirates,

and

Dick

Tracy,

we

encounter

the

sequential

linking

of

daily

and Sunday

strip

episodes

through

continuous

narrative,

standard

practice

of the Chicago

Tri-

bune-New

York

Daily News Syndicate through which these three

strips

were

distrib-

uted. These fine Tribune-News

Syndicate

strips

have

been

widely

reprinted

in recent

years

in

various

formats.

And

Little

Orphan

Annie

was

reissued

in

the

1970s (with

some

minor

but

pervasive

changes

)

in

episodes

that

originated in

the thirties. Terry

and

the

Pirates

is

being

reprinted

from

the

beginning

by

Nostalgia Press and the first

three volumes

are available. Vintage

Dick

Tracy

has recently

appeared in

a

number

of forms, including

a

paperback

series

from Fawcett

Gold

Medal Books.

The

Orphan

Annie selection

included

here

may

surprise many individuals who had

assumed

that

the

Harold

Gray

strip

was

an

exercise

in

sentimentalit>'

and

political

conservatism.

It

was

a

work

of a much

higher

order

of

narrative

imagination than

most strips.

Gray

devoted

the

majority of

his waking

hours

to

researching,

writing,

and

drawing

Annie, and

he told

an

often

gripping

story

with

a

variety of

strong char-

acters. This one,

the end of a much

longer

narrative,

is one

of his best [644-672].

(

Dover

Books

has

republished

two Annie

narratives

from

1926

and from

1933, as orig-

inally collected

—and

somewhat

condensed—

by

the Cupples

and Leon

Company.

)

Most

of the

reprinting

in recent

years

of

Chester

Gould's

detective

strip,

Dick

Tracy,

has

emphasized Gould's relatively

fanciful work

of the forties, with

its

amus-

ing

galaxy

of grotesque

villains ( Flattop,

Pruneface,

and the rest

)

.

Here we draw

on

his

often savagely realistic material of the

middle

thirties,

the

pursuit and dispatching

of

Boris

Arson. Gould's

delineation

of

the character and

the

environment

of

a type

of

midwestern

desperado of the period (for

example,

Cutie

Diamond)

is

exceptional,

as

is his handling of

the

Indian

officer working

with

Tracy,

unusual and

interesting

in

the

context of

the

time

[688-715].



Secret

Agent

X-9

Dashiell

Hanunett

and Alex

Raymond 1934

[475]

[476]

[477]

[478]

King

Feoiures

Syndicate,

Inc., 1934

Bringing Up Father

George

McManus

1936

I

WRCTTE

THE

OEAN

OC

THE

COU-ESE

THAT

OUR

SOKI

WAKPTED

TO

QUTT

SO-OCH.

ANO

THAT

WE

WERE

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iil?

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IS

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TO

SEE

LTS-

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TO

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TO

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CA.M'T

[479]

(^

George

McMonui

ond

King

feoiufei

Syndicate,

Inc., 1936



WE

MUST FIX

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King

Features Syndicate,

Inc..

1936

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kWJST

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SOKL

AS t KKOW

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SOME

1-El.P

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King

Feoturct Syndicot*, Inc., 1936



Abbie an' Slats

Raebum

Van

Buren 1937

[485]

[486]

[487]

[488]

[489]

i.

United Feature

Syndicate,

Inc., 1937



[490]

{-HE

AINT

FOOLIN'ME.'

HE

HATES

IT

HEPIE,

ALREADY—BUT HE

WONT

LETO/V.

SO-/

GUESS

—

l-l

BETTER

NOT

LET ON

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TEmiBLE

MUCH- I WANT TH- BOY

TO

trAY.'-)

[491]

[492]

[493]

[494]

Ci United

Fwtyrt

Syndicat*,

Inc.,

1937



[495]

[496]

©

United

Fealore Syndicate.

Inc., 1937

Our

Boarding

House

Gene

Ahem 1929

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HOUR,

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To

see

Aki

EXHiaiTioKj

ot=

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MoDERti Asr.'—

Ttl'

MAJOR

HAS

ekiTeRED

A

sfArue

hs

MABe

OF -PLmV,

tMat

looks

LIKS

Me

BID

if

U)HI1.E •FAaiJa

TJOWkJ

STAIRS

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Atl^

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PtAVlJa

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in

His MAklASER

,

ms

Work:

is usrei>

Jusf

DoiJ' (f

foR

A

LAUSH,

£H

?

WELt,

TH''

Bcflfl

<*^

Vol)

MaV

WIVlD

UP -TbVkJ' To

LA1I614

A

peSK

SERSEAjf

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ibJ-Piir

iJT>

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o-/

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ru

so

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<X^

TMoie

ARTisTic

TRAJCES,

All'

START

-RAOlOS

0\)ER

TH'

'STATUE

UliflL

THeV

TtN

To

SELL

iT

Tb

MS,

~vixeu

I'll

BESAltl

MV

COMPOSURE

'.

GREAT

HEAJEtJS; MAlJ,

J

14IS

MASTERPieCE,

tVlE

STATuc

//_

„Vol)

HAVE

IT

TAClJS

TiJE

IDEST,

—

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IT

SHoUlT>

Face

-*£

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east

/

—

(7UICK,

TURkJ'iT

ARoU>lr>,

3EfoRE

vou caJFiise

IT'S

ART

vJlBRAtiokls/

— aJd

The sTaTue

MJST

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o4

AiJTiqJue RoJe

vJEUVET/

•

oHiTHiy

IS

Au)T=UL

[498]

®

NEA Service.

Inc

,

1929

©

NEA

Service.

Inc..

1929



[499]

NEA

Se.-..ce.

^nc

, 1929

[501]

yes

siR,->>-rriE

ouRvar

M01>eRJ

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Tirst

pbize

oJ mV S-TaTuE,—

AdD

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—

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,

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said

MV

STaTuE

WAS

fte

utiMlsrAK-ABuE

lOoOlf

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it's

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AS BEST

WAkI

OV

ALL

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MilChl

MERlT

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what

AT?e V'gOkJJA

pa^

him

off.

\k1,—

cash,'

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®

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Inc

.

1929

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SATURDAY

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ibd

Talked

ikl

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Sleep

about

<seTTiKjG

$85. Top

(^^

A

STaTuE,

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y(J|,

v/oj

hem-mw-p

wiTh

sJopes,

twat

I

SMouirij'T

TiiJd

out

about

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luckV

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AUTWE

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SET

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;,/

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,

s

Ikl

youH

, V

'•

W^

//-

TilTeRiJg

I

A

MALI'S

Pocket

WHILE

'

HE

SLUMBERS,

IS

llJPEEP

THE

SlU <*

SiklS',

lb

MW WAW

OF

ThiiJkiJg.'

—

AvJd

were

I

A

JJDGE,

With

a

Wife

ARRAieoED

BEfoRE ME Okl

TMAT

MOkJSTeoUS

TELOklV,

—

E6AD,

I

WOULD

IMPOSE

A

SEllTEklCE

OF SilEllTV

WEARS //



Barnaby

Crockett

Johnson

1943

N«//o,

Bomoby.

Hwett

again

tonight Thai light*

I

saw ft

01 /

fitwwf hfm

Ôo»h,Mr.O'Mall9y

I

Nobody

ffvti in

fhot

aki

ruined

hovt«.

Intriguing

. . .

Gloomy old

mantton

.

Dork

night

.

. .

i»tl»

lightt

fiathing

in th9 window

.

.

.

Wind howling

.

.

.

Jtj$t tht sort

o'

thing

your

fairy

Godlalhtr

findi

itfuttibh

...til

hav to

tolvt

lhi$ mysttry,

m'boy.

[505]

5

Field

Publicationv

1943

Mom

...U

it

all

right

for

me

fo

kind oi look

around

in

that

hauntod

house vp

the

road?

II

v^

ss:

The

Joeksoft

pôce? If$

nof

hounfed,

Bornoby.

Peop/e

soy

fhor

obout

of/

o/d

deserted

bvtfding*.

^

Svf

yov

stoy

owtry

from it .

.

.

ffs too

far,

for one

thing, ond H you

prowl

around in a

ramthackh

building

by

yourtoH.

you'll

tall

and

got

hurl

.

.

.

II \\

Thof

«

right

. .

.

ff you're

curious obout

if

yov

con invettigato

H

when

some

o/der, responsible

person

it with

you.

is:

1

[506]

Olmy.Mr.O'MaHcy.

Mom

tayt

I con

90

wrfh

yov.

H^lloJai-.

My

f

oiir

eedfarlwi

I

or*

<Mi

ovr

way to a

hauntud

fiovM'

>rand

M

lovte'

^^

Of

course / don't wort of fraunting

houses, littlo girl

. . .

f

don't work

of

onything.

Fm,

or.

rotirod.

Not

thof

ail

my

humanitarian

ond

scienffAc

infereefs don't heep

me occupied

.

.

.

And at

present

I am engoged

in

o

mission fraughtwith

danger—

an

irrvestigotion

of

a curious psychic

phenomenon

in

a

haunted

house.

Mr. CMalley is

aduatly

going

right

up

to the

front door

and

gain...







f

m torrf

I

<oul<in'l

ptnvode

Mom

to

fix up

th«

9u«lt

room

tor

you

. .

.

Did

yov

^—p

wcfJ

h«re

in

rh«

ce/lor?

V#iy

wtH,

»/»onii

yo«

And

(

hod

fh«

iov«(i*sf

dfoami.

Do yo«

ntod

onyf

hing? Pop'i

foofhbfusli.

Of

No.

And I

won't

have

you

going

toalolot

froub/e.

Your

Foiry

Godfothtr

is

geffing

my bag

from

tho

hauntod

hous*.

Ihavt

ovo/ything

in

H

fU

n«od

—

chains,

c/*an

sheers

O'Moffey

Air

f

xpress

Compony.'

Here's

your

bog, Gus

. .

.

'Morning,

Sornoby.

r

Field

Publi

Ah.'

Af

/osf o

break

in

fhi$

baling

COM

of

rhe

havntod

house.'

A

cfew.'

[

This b*g

bog o<

coWee?

IX

1

Certainty,

Bornoby.

Now

we

know

ihe

fype o*

evi(

creofure

your

old

fairy

Godfather

hoi

pitied

his

w'rtt

agamsf

.

A

diabolicai

opponenf.'

But I

ahalt

vanquiih

rhe

Ihnd . .

.

This

communiry

will

fee/

secure

once

more.

. . .

Chifdren

will

go

peace*u//y

fo fheir

/ittiebeds

. . AndGus

wi/f beobfefogo

bock fo

his

haunted house,

vnairaid . .

.

ShouMn'f

wt

»•(/ Itn

copi

oboirt

rfiof

Co*m

H»n6

in

rt.

<Jd

(lountW

txwim,

Mi.

CXMoMty?

rll b*

glod to

inok>

Q

formo/

cortiploinf

onrf—

MTtiof? CoW

In

tfit poDo?

TfioM

burtfhnlt

When /ovr

f

oiry

Codtof»«f

Uonlhm tom7

Hon—n—,

toinabyl

My

âlhlkt, baM<< on

my

9xhovsthf

ttudy ol trlm»

/fforofuro,

show

rfiof rh«

mystoWM Miv«d b)r

coppora can

b*

cminrod

pra<ficaffy on

fovr

fjfno flngor

. .

.

H

Gvt

is

very

onidoui

for you

to

anafy>*

what

the

fiend

il

doing

in hit

hauntod

house,

Mr.

aMof/ey

...

Did

yov

find out?

J_

OhgosK'ooA

...Hele/iosêepogoin.

rve thought of a hidJrtg p/oce

for that

important

eviderKe f

unearthed

. .

.

fn

cose

the

Fiend

in

desperotion, attempts

to rogain H...

brittg the bag

upstotrt

. .

.

White

we're

fn

the

Aifthen,

omofcy,

/ t/iink

o

bit

of bodi/y

nourishweni

mighf

aid

my

ar>alyti<ai

thinUng

on

that

hounfed

hovae

myifeof

•

•

Whot

Ivckl

TufM

nthi Iralii

feorff

^

^^Îr

AiSfcorfocANofmeeof

fmtt

Fairy God

father,

'Allmentory,

ory

dear

WotMn' . . . Get H.

m'boy?

A

devef

pun

. .

.

Ho/met

said,

AUmentary,

my

—

^^

C»»,.f»

l»«3>.»Mîtli

n

Obviously,m'boy.

A

coffee

fiend

J

^c)

Field

Publicotions.

If

(ve ore fo

flr*d out what tha fiend

h

vptawe can't have

any cfumsy

pofJcemon

vnwHtingty

Informing

him

of our intent.

. . . No, m'boy. A

problem like this

caffs

for

the

brilliant

anafyticat

brain

of

on

Augusfe Dx/pin,

an Hercule Poirot,

o

Doctor

Ihorndyke,

a Nero Wolle, or

o

fhifo

VorKO . . . iucUcy I'm

here,

aren't we?

Field

Publicafion?,

ff he

searches the

house

for

H,

naturally

he'll

rip down all

the

woodwork

firti,

looking

far

secret

panels

. .

.

Then

he'll

s/osh

rhe

upholstered chairs

artd

pry

-jp

rhe

Aoor

boards . .

.

So

I

shall put il where he'll

never

expect

ir

ro

be

hidden.

Who

would expect

ro

find

a

twenty-pound bag

of

Coffee

on

a

pantry theW?

^

Field

Publlcaiions.

w9e

tttavght tt wrot

itty Aome,

o*

course

.

«

He

dedwcod

ft ...

If

was dork

in the (order

at hh

Baker

Stroet flot. Tou see

mv

good

frfertd

Professor Moriority, who

ofwoys

ota

there,

forgot his fontern

tfiat night

arid

oitfy

the

light of my

Arte Havaf*a wond

Mr.

(y/MoOeyf

I

know how

yov

con

fir>d

out whor

the fiend

Is

doing in

the haunted

houtet

hold

Publicolioni.



Yt.

d

eouf«»,

my

faiiy

Godfath*/*

Handy

Pocfcaf

GuM*

tWf*

how to

VQnqulth

fiundt

...rll

look In thm

ind9X

. .

. anqviMhing

of:

Demons;

tvil

Spirit* —

tfs

an

o/p/»ab«f

Jcof

IhHng

.

. .

H»n —''fi*ndt, pag*

2$.

Th*n

you

tan

90

righf Info

ffw

haunted hou$m and find

out

what rh* fitnd it doing

th^fl

Jvtt

wova

yout magk won</

of

him

and

mofc* him

CONFfSS.'

.

. .

And

C«or9«'i

insurants

company and

rh«

po/ic«

think

if* vry

probob/*

fhot

thoM

gongiferi

who hav« b««n

ho/ding

vp

fh«

coffe*

tiueks

hove

headquorfsn

tight

in

this

vicinity

.

.

.

And that fh»M

ton*

of

stolen

coff«e

may

b«

stored

in a

house

right

in this very

neighborhood .

.

.

Cif,.l»lil

IMl rmU •^•bic«fkwM

Yot/ro,

mr.

conHdent,

aron't you,

O'Malley,

that

nothing

can

powbfy

go

awry? Doarmo

.

.

.

What

a

thing

to think of now,

bvf

I

keop

focallirtg

yovr sura fhJng of

BWnfonf

whan

^

h, THAT . . .

Stop worrying,

Gus .

.

.1

have

my fine Hovono

warni in

roadiness

and my thumb

at

the

page

of

my Good

fairy

Godfather's

HarKiy Pocket Guidebook

on which

ora

rha magic words for

vanquishing

alt

type*

of

fiends

.

.

--JP



Ws a vBPf

good

thtng Mr.

0'A1o//ey, my

Foiiy

Godfafher,couM

grvt

such

a ffn«

dneriptlon

of

o

Fiend

.

. .

Green,

wrf

o

fong

foi/ with o

hooic on

it and red

fining eye*

. . .

Otherwise

/

wouldn't

Juiow

whot

fo

focJi for

in

this

house.

fm

looking

for o

Wend

He's

goto

long

tail

and

my

Foiry

Codfother

it

going

to

vanquish

him

wifh

his mogic

wand.

.

.

What

will

w do

with

Ihit

Krewy

brot.

Boss?

He

$*0n

all

them bag*.

M

M

Field

Pi.'blicQiions, 194

See,

fcJd. IVe

got

to

fceep you

down

here

in

the

cellar 'til

tomorrow

when

we

move

all the

coffee we got

hid in this

spooky

old

joint ...

So you

won't

tell the cops.

1



[535]

[536]

[537]

[538]

[539]

®

Field Publicolions. 1943



The

Bungle

Family

Harry

Tuthill

1936

^



[541]

®

McNouohl Syndicote, Inc.,

NY.,

1934



Mickey

Mouse Floyd Gottfredson for

Walt

Disney 1935

©

Wolt

Disney

Enterprlsei,

935

^

VtS,

INDEED, Miss

COW,

^^

^sOÊRE

AlNTA

aAL

MERE

\

Wy

^

pi

CAN

TDUCM

VEl

ONLV

J

/

,^

JV

WlSHT

I

WAS

M3LJNG

^

//^'

y\

ENOUtSM

TO

STEP

/



{0UINCH5

lONSTD

SOT

WMOLB

-TOWN

FRIENDS

TMCREiS

CATCH

IN

IT

THEV

CONVINCE

10U

SHOULD H*iVft

KNOWN

BETTER

THAN

TO

TELU

CLARABELI.E THAT

SOUINCH

IS

CROOKECl^

IP

ONLY

\t)U

KNEW

ANVTMINa

ABOUT

women

[548]

[549]

[550]

[551]

[552]

CAN'T

vfe

\^BLn:

ELI

T

rr^ .such

a

>

[553]

(ty

Wolt

Disney

Enterprises.

1935



ICKBV

TWcT

S«(jiNC«

o^ vAiAjm

AMOHa

XKE

RBUCS

OP

c.Anâeu.b

e«ANOm<TMER.

WHEN

e^lNCH

WOnV

OPKN

IN

MlCKmV%

He I*

auvs

OP IT

I

BUTT>.I ?e\

COULO

BE

soMe<>V< IN

TH«T

-nnjNK

/

-THAT

ttouV

>VOUlONY

KNOW

HAD

ANY

VALUE,



SOU

INCH

INSISTS

ME

UOOK

HER

TMINSS,

[560]

(



J

I

tMOOSKT

WE

BentR

TALK

OVW?

SOMfc

WAY

IbSET HOLD

OF VDUR

SRAN'DAOS

solo

OM,

MERCIFUL

SOODNeSS

.

, ,

MERC MS

VBS,

ITS

MSUF?

MOirtBAaE

—

I

OOUfiHT

IT F??UM

,

TM«

bank

now

WILL

Va

TALK

.TURKEY?/

^

Wolt Disney

Enterprises,

1935

@g

QUINCH

HAS

aoucvfr

uc>

CLAKABELLlk

MorraAsi

ANO

THRCATEN*

HBK

wiTM

UNUBSft

SHE

MARRIES

HIMl

HAVBItJU

rhally

sen-

PL

AN?

^^

I'm

ooiN'visn'

TO oia

ui»

iwin

aRAN'ChAIJ's

OOLOl

WHEN

I

SET

BACK

V CAN

USB

rr-ro

Pixt'

OFPTHAT

wsaobl

>t'

Wolf Disney

Enterprises.

1935

TrtJlCKBY

TWUL.S

HORACa.

ABOLTT

60UtNCH

ouvit^ta

CLARAOELLES

MORTisAae

IN OROERTO

K>RCH

HBR

-TO

atvk

MlM

TME

treasure

map

''what

1

^



[572]

[573]

[574]

[575]

[576]

[577]

Uisnev

Enterpriiei,

1935



IT

LU

TAKE

A

COUP-wE

O' DATs

TO

Put THAT CAN

<?UNNiM'OROEl?.'

Y

HAD

AN

^

lyA>CVDENT?i



AND

AND

OUT

V^HAT

A

THB

S'

1

Several

HOURS

LATER

^HAVE V

Y^

SEEN

An K

. AIRPLANE

/

2P\

OVER

'

fY\ÊRE?|;



)ICKBV

AMO

HORACm

ARKPORCED

TO

USE

me

STOLEN

POU&E.

MOTORCVCLE,

AJSTEH

PHTt AND

QPUINCM

«o

oft: in

HORACe'S

car



the

fRUM

THE

PO

LEECH

T

YDU

ainT TME

FBLLER5

WHAT

i

TME

MOTOR-

,

CYCLE

?

^^^^r





P^BTB

AND

SQUlNCH X

ARC

aOlNTO

&e

AWFUL

DISAPPOINTED

TMAT

DIDN^

FALL

FOR/



MICKEt'

AND

HORACe

TRV

TO

t=lNO

THEIR. v*\-l'

OUT

OT=

A

MAZE

OF

TORTUOUS

CAMVbNS^

PETE

ANO

SQUINCH

ARRIVE

AT

THE.

PUACE

THE

BURIED

GOLD

IS

suPPoseo

Tt>

BE

,

uocated;

''

HURR^

Uf»'

WHERE DO

WE

J

Dl©?^

rTME

MAP

S/Vr-STHERElS \

'

A

SMALLEI* TREE

'



and

HUMORCq

S&CAuSE.

-TMSIR

FAILURE

FINP

BURIED

SOLD.

AND

SPUINCH

START

A

BATTLE

MICKEY

HORACE

PETB

AT bat;

MICKEV

-TRIES

-TD

as-r

HIH

Woll Diincy Enli'.prno-.,

1935

*\1 [621]

[620]

®

Walt

DisneY

Enterprises,

1935





[632]

[633]

[634]

[635]

[636]

[637]



'NOWTHEN, MISS HIGH^/

OH V

AND

Mier&Y,

I

w^NT

J

INDEED')

My

MONEY

-mAT

THIS

YVl ^

MERE.

MOfTTSASE

jy

// vT^

»



Little

Orphan Annie

Harold Cray 1938

HM-M--GUC>CES

PLACE SURE

LOOKS

DESERTED

-

BL\NDS

ALL

DRAWN-

CRASS

IN

THE

YARD

A FOOT

HIGH--

FUNNY

WHERE

HE

COOLD HAVE

GONE

OR

WHY-

^Jhree

weeks

have supped bv

j

since

tvwt

fateful

hight oh

which

uriah cudge,

the

town's

citizen.

put

on

his

hat.

a

loaded

pistol.

and

out

for a

little walk'-

out

sight.

out

of

mind:

thevsaf

true-

already

pubuc interest

his

whereabouts

is

almost nil

[644]

Chicago Tribune-New York

Newi Syndicor©,

Int.,

1938



[645]

AND. 'CEPT

FOR

HIM.

GUOGE

MOULOK BURNED

DOWN

TK

HOUSE

WTTH

US

IN rr TH/rr -hme-

HE1S SURE

A REAL FRIEND-

ANO ALWIWS DOW SOMETWIK

I

THAT

NEEDS

DOIN-

LIKE

RLLIN'

THAT

OCO

WELL.

FORE SOME KID

Fax

INTO

rr

-

too hard

WORK

FOR

ANYBOOV

ELSE

-

BUT

NOT FOR SHANGHAI

-

WORKED

AS

IF

HIS LIFE

DEPENDED

ON

fT-

f

/fsrtri

-

J

Chicago

Tnbune-New

York

News

Syndicole,

Inc.,

1938

[646]

WELL.

DRAG

MY

KEEL

FER

A

SCUPPER-

SUJPP1N'

SON

OF

A SEA-WTTCH

SHANGHA\

I

^

-SHARK . IVE

GOT

A CARGO OF RKXT

PRIVATE

BUSINESS

-

I

WONDER

COULD

WE

HfJS

A

UTTLE

BUSINESS

SESSION

OUST YOU AND ME

-

'

I

SHANGHAI.

I

WE GOTT

I

PLACES

I

HERE

OUST

I

MADE

FBJ

I

SECH-COME

•

WHERE

DID ^TXJ

LEM/E

SHANGHW?

I*

GOT OFF DOWN

T

AT

THE

WATERFRONT

1

AND

HEADED

INTO

)

TW

TOUGHEST.

MOST I

ORNERTV

DIVE 1

\

EVER

StEN- HOPE I

HE KMEW

WHAT

HE WAS

t>0»*'-

HAt

HAI 1

GUESS

1

WE

D

ONT

HO/B TD

i)

WORBY

ABOUT

THAT

OLD

iEA-

GOING

',

WILD-<AT- HE^

DOE

-

FOR

A

VACATION

AND

MEANS

TO

HAVE

ONE.

IMAGINE-

t£

Chicogo Tnbwne-Ne/^

York

News

Syndicate, Inc., 1938

1647]

f.

%.

/ VES-HTS

THE

CEE.

I

V

SORT

OF

VITAL

SURE

MISS

PERSONALITY

HMnN'

WHO

MAKES

HIS

SHAHQHAt

PRESENCE

FELT-

AROOND- YV

WQJ..

HE'LL

SOON

OOKT

VOU?kl

BE

BACK-

FRIOAV.

HE

SAIO-

HES

EARNED A

\*«:AT10N

MY,

MY-

ALL THE

THINGS

HE'S

DONE-- HE

SEEMED

SO

CHEERFUL

L«TEi:<-

HE'S

BEEN

SO

SORT OF TAOTURH.

UP UNTIL

OUST

THE

PAST THREE

WEEKS

OR

SO-

V

E'S

^H

TURH.^H

BUT

LATEL-Y HE'S

ACTED

AS

THOUGH

HET>

FINISHED

SOME BIG

OOB-

IN

FACT HE

SAID THE

OTHER

DAY

HE

FELT

UKE

A

MAN

WHO'D

DONE

HIS

BIG

TASK

AND COOLO

RETIRE

-f

HMM

'WHOrO

DONE

HIS BIG

TASK AND CCXXJJ

RETIRE

THATS

SC3RT

OF A

FUNNV REMARK

TO

COME FROM HIM,

ALL

THINGS

I

C0NSI06REO

-

THAT COULD

MEAN---HM-MM--

[648]

[649]

[650]



MIDNIGHT-

UITTLE

ANN\E,

BLESS

HER

HEART.

SLEEPING

AS ONLY TVTOSE

WITH

THE

CLEAR

CONSOENCE

OF

A

CHILD

CAM

SLEEP- BRAVE.

LCrtAL LITTLE

SOUL-

,

1

HOPE

sHen.L

Ntrr

think too

lu.

I

OF

ME

GOOD-BYE.

MY

CHIUD--

'OUR

WEEKS

HAVE ROLLED

BY

USTLESSLV

STNCE

OUR DEIAR

FTirErND.

URIAH

GUDGE,

PUT

ON

total

obscurity.

OR

WHAT-

ErVER

HE DID TO

DISAPPEAR- ALREADY

HE

IS

UTTLE

MORE

THAN A

MEMORY

MOST-

WHERE

DID HE

GO?

WHY?

HOW?

NOBODY

KhWWS

AHU

AFTER

OKE

NOBODY SEEMS

TO

CARE— SH-H-H—

[651]

©

Chicago

Tribune-Now

Vofl:

N«ws

Syndicols,

Inc.. 1938



[652]

«fE.

rro

BE

RX<

-TO ST»C

ft

BTT-

BUT I

NEVER WAS Or« TO

TARRY

W»«^

MY

*Joe WAS

CX)NE

-

CAP>*

ALDB1.

SUEEP1NG

ON T>C

HIU.-

HA',

j

HEX)

ENJOY

THK-

HE

WAS ALWm^

ONE FOR

A

GOOD

JOKE

-

PERHAPS

j

SOMEWHERE,

SOMEHOW,

HE

KNOWS-]

A

JOB WELL

DONE

-

AS

POR

MIS

MISSUS. FOR

ROSE

AND

JACK,

OR

LTTTLE

ANMIE--THEY

CX3N~T

NEED

OLD SHANGHAI

-

NO

-

PTS

TIME

TO

GO.

AND

I'M OFF

WHO

CARES

WHB«E?

ffT LAST

I'M

FRffi

AiGAlN

AND

OFF

TO

SEA-

•ROU.

DOWN- ROLL

OOWH TO

RIO-^

i

ROLL

REALLY

DOWN

TO

RlOl

*»

OH.

I'D

LCWE

TO ROLL TO R»

J^

SOME

OM BEFORE

I'M

0LD1' ^S

AHOy,

THE'f^'

SCHOONER*

[653]

_

1

TK

PUCE

GOT A W

LOOK IN

NOMYMOOS

lETTtH- I

THE

BorTOM

rr

SAID -LOOK

IN

I

OF

THE

TME

BOTTOM

OF

THE

I

OLD WELL?

OLD

WEU---

GEE.

A

WHY.

HOW

rrs

GOT

EM

QOIN'

n

CAN

THEY?

ABOUT

CRAZY-

/

1

SHANGHAI

ha Ha( I'LL

SAY

HE

DID-

WTTM

ROCKS

AND

OLD IRON

AND

A FEW

BAGS

O' CEMENT

WHEN NO

ONE WAS

LOOKIN , AND

TONS

TONS

O' DIRT-

CLEAR

. TO TH'

TOP

KS ^

lENT

I

ANO

f

:ar

f I

©

Chicago

Tribune-New

York

News

Syndicole,

Inc.,

1938

YES.

AND

HE

EVEN

SODDED

IT

ir

YEAH

-

SAID THAT 1

WAS

SO

FOLKS

WOULD

FORGET

IT. -STEAD

1

O

REMEMBERIN

IT-

(

OH.

BOY'

THEYT?e

I

MEMBERIN LOTS O'

TKJ

THINGS

SHANGHAI

SAID

NOW-

BLTT

WHY

LOOK

IN THE

BOTTOM OF

THE

OLD

WELL? WHAT

COOLD

BE

THERE ?

ir

EH? HWE

VOL)

FORGOTTEN?

I

rr

WAS THPT

Niorr

when

ACE GOT

KILLED,

TK

NIGHT

,

JOST BEFORE

TM'

MORNIN'

,''

„

Tl-WT

SHANGHAI STARTED

{

EH

'.

FILLIN

THAT

WELL,

THAT

1

MR.

FOLKS

SAW

THEIR

LAST i

GUOGE?

I

O'

MR.

GUDGE

-

[654]

Ji Chicago

Tribune-Nev.

[655]

WE

BROADCAST

•THE ALARM

ALL

OWER

TVC

COUNTRY

WITH

THAT

PEG LEG

HE

CANT

GET

FAR

BEFORE

HE'S

PICKED UP

\ THEORY

RY-

I

IS RIGHT

M

FG

I

lAlF-l 1 I

IP

MY

THEORY

IS RIGHT

WTLL

HA»/E

HIM

I

THE

NEXT

TEN

MINUTES

THIS

IS

THKT

WATERFRONT

DIVE

THE

TRUCK L

DRIVER

TOLD

OS

TOUGM

LOOKING PLACE

ALL RIGHT-

WE'VE

BEEN

SEEN- COME

SHANGHAI? SHANGHAI

,

PEG?

ONE-LEGGED

BIRC

I

NOPE.

NEVER HEARD O'

NO SUCH SWAa- BUT

LOOK

AROUND

-

YOO

DONT

NEED

NO

SEARCH

I

WARRANT- MY

BUSINESS

1

IS A

OPEN

BOOK-

1

HEY—

STINGER-

SHOW THESE

^M

aye

this

HERE

GENTS

^

WAtY-

WATCH

AROUND.STINGER-' YER STEP- GOT

AND BE

SURE

I A MITE

O

DEEP

THEY

OQnT Wirz\ WATER

UNDER

NO

ACCIDENT

^

HERE

-

HATTE T

HAVE

YE

STEP

ON

A

LOOSE

BOARD

MEeee-

t£

Chicago

Tribune-New YofW Newi

Syndicote.

Inc., 1938

[656]

WELL.

WELL- BEEN

ALL

Ov/ER EVERY INCH

C

MY

PLACE.

EH?

M4D

VOU AINT

FOUND

HIDE

NER

HAIR O'

TH'

SCOL»«>REL YER

LOOKIN'

I

A WEEK

FER?

CHKl CHK

I

,A

^

BUT

1

>4

H

WE

I

9 KNOW

I

ND

S

HE WAS

I

•H'

I

HERE

r

iKIN'

I

A WEEK

*'

HO' ho

YOO

COOLO BE

RIGKT, FRIEND- I

GCTT

A

SHORT MEM'RY-

FERGIT

ME

OWN NAME.

ONLY

IT'S

TATTOOED

ON ME

STUMM»CK

WHAT

WAS TH'

SWAB'S

NAME

AGAIN?

PEKING

7

COME

ON-

WE'RE NOT

GET-TING

ANY.

\

WHERE HERE-

SHANGHAI'S

NOT HERE OR

|

WE'D HAN^

FOUND

HIM-

WELL.

SO

LONG. MATES-

SORRY YOO

GOTTA PUSH OFF-

1

DROP

IN AGAIN

ANY

TIME

-

IT

AINT

ALW«YS

OUtl.-HEftE-;

whew

I'M

SWEATIN' ICE

WOTER-THAT

PLACE

GAVE

ME THE

CREEPS-

)

WHY,

A MAy

COULD

DISAPPEAR

IN

THERE

AND

/

YES-

RIGHT

YOO

ARE-BLrr

LET'S

GET

BACK

AND

ea

HOW

THE

DIGGING IS

COM*NG ON-

[657]



[658]

Maw

Green

Chicago

Tribune-New

York

Newj Syndicate, Inc..

1936



[659]

EH?

VOO

SPTf

YOO DONX

BELIEVE

GUCGE

IS IM

THE

BcrrroM of

that

OLD

WELL-TVe<

WHSiE

IS

HE?

[660]

[661]

[662]

[663]

[664]



[665]

Maw

Green

Chicago

Tribune-h4ew Vofk

News Syndicate. Inc..

1938



[666]

BOTTOM

OF

THEWELL.m

UiST AND

THi3 E---ONLY A

MET?1. CftH. SEALED,

AECRESSED

TO JUDCE SILAS BUTTON

-

VEAH-

•KXTRE JUST

TYPeT>«rl

WOULD

BE

FOR

f

THAt

e»iqTVB?

-

[667]

YES-

I AM

FAIRLY

FAMILIAR

WTTM

THE

CASE

,

AS

EVERYONE

KCREABOUTS

IS. I

BEUEVE--HA\

HA'.

NO

CORPUS

OB.ICT1-

QOITE

A

DSAPPOINTMBfT

TO

THE

MORBID

DARE SAY

BUT WE

I

FOOND

I

FOR

YOO.

I

JUDGE 8

BUTTOM-

EH''

THAT

METAL

COMTAIMER?

MMM-M---

MY NAME, ALL

RIGHT—

COO

OOO INDEED-

/

SHANGHAI.THE

OLD PEG-LEG

PRINTED THAT

ADDRESS

-WETJE

CERTAIN

O'

THAT--

I'D

BE

CAREFUL

WHEN

rrS

OPENED

?1

nonsense

rrS

NOT

HEAVY

1

AT

AU.---HERE-

I SEE

YOU

HAVE

\

TOOLS THERE

READY---OPEN

rr

UP AND WEU.

I

HAVE

1^

LOOK-

O.K.--Y0U

HOLD

IT.

CHIEF

WHILE 1

CUT

THROUGH THIS

TOP

END-

AH-H-H--

I

THOUGHT

SO-

PAPERS-

-DEEDS

TmjES

-

-

HM-M-M'

AND

WHAT-S

THIS?

WHAT--?

GREAT

GOSHEN .

THIS IS

SOMETHING-

y

[668]

[669]

r

[670]

[671]



HERE IT

IS.

PRINTED

IN

RX.LIN THE

PAPER

'•

I, URIAH

GUDOe, OF

MY

OWN

FREE WILL.

CONFESS

THPrr

1 PLANNet)

AND

DIRECTED THE MURDER

OF

CAPTAIN

CALEB

ALDEN-

HE

GOES

ON

TO

CONFESS

HOW

HE

THEN

GOT

HOLD

OF

NEARLY

ALL

OF CA

PTAIN

ALDEN'S

PROPeirrY--HE

EVEN

TELLS

HOW

HE

HAD

HIS MEN

KILL THREE

OF

JACKS

TROCK

DRIVERS

[672]

VNTI-CUMAX?

PROBABLY--

CERTAIKLY

IT

'

WAS

A

TERRIBLE

DISAPPOINTMEHT

TO

MORBID ONES WHEN

DEAR

MR. GUDGE

NOT

DISCOVERED

RECUNING

AT

THE

OF

THE

OLD

WELL-

ONLY

Aw

METAL

CAN FULL OF PAPERS

FOUMD

THERE— BUT WHATT

PAPERS

Maw Green

Chicogo

Trtbvne-New

York

News Syndicol*,

Inc., 1938



TerT>-

and

the Pirates

Milton

Canilt

1940

-

ajjgg_

^X...

T

râ^.A^'

T

HPAPn

^^S



C676]

[677]

[678]

[679]

©

News

Syndicote Company, Inc., 1940



5

News

Syndicote Company.

Inc., 1940

WE

SHOT

POWN

THE

CAIC

SICINMED

ONE,

VOU

ALLOWED

A

WO/MAN TO RUSH

OUT

OP

THE

HOUSE

AMP CARKV

HIM

AWAV IN

A CAR.'

HE 15

HERE.'

TXE

HANPSOME

ONE^

WAS

ABOUT

TO

POLLOW

HU SHEE.TD HELP

'

HIS

Y0UNi5

PEIENP

. . .

BUT TWO

6JCH

,

MAP

CASHES

COULP

NOT BE

60

U^JKy.'

HE

IS

TOO

SAUUABLE

TD

THE PEA60N

LAPV TO

BE

WA6T6P

THU6...

SO

I

STeuCC

HliM

ON

THE

HEAD

—

JUST

^HARP

ENOUSH

TO

SAVE

HIAA PDR

PirrWE

REPERENCe.'

I?

Newi Syndicate Company. Inc.. 1940



[683]

[684]

[685]

[686]

©

Newj

Syndicate Company,

Inc.,

1940



l

avs;-

© News Syndicot0 Compony, Inc., 1940

In their

early days

[the

comic

strips

had an

importajit

function

as

a

form

of crude

but

vigorous

satire

at

a

time

when American

literature

in

general

was

saccharine

and

imitative.

The

meaner and

littler

aspects

of

American life

amd

character

were

lampooned

in

the

funnies

long

before

Sinclair

Lewis discovered

Main

Street

or

Babbitt

.

And

strip pictures

caricatured U.S. manners

and

mores

at a time

when

the motion

picture

had

Mary Pickford,

America's

sweetheart,

as

its

fairest

flower. Corrupted

by

neither

a literary

training

nor

a

literary

tradition,

taking

their

material

from

the

life

they observed

around

them,

the

comic-strip artists

presented

a

series of

extremely

pointed (and

fundamentally ill-natured)

comments

on

the American

public,

which promptly

roared

with lau^ter

and

came eagerly back for

more,

The

Funny

Papers,

Fortune

.

April

1933



Dick

Tracy

Chester

Gould

1935

[688]

CO

AM£AvD, AR'30M-SMA>P

C3UR. PICTURE ST*^^^1D1MC

HERE

Llt4E

TWlS. U.BZP THAT

CiCAJJ.

IM

-touR.

MOUTI-t.TORA. I'LL

S>EMD

SOME

TO

THE

PAPERS

ME>a

TIME I'M

IM

TCrv^M.

I

Uk.&

POR 'EM

TO

PRIMT

COOP

PICTURES

OP

ME

AS

LOkJC

*>.<=>

TMEW'RE

PRiwtimG

TMEM.

^ Ti «i\

^

\^JHtKJ-

DO

Sou

TMIM^C

OP-

OUR

CWAMCES.

TRACS?

THIS

COUkirRWS

CETTIMC

VJILDER

\MITH

EVERW

r^lLE

THIS

IS

OME

JOB

^

WERE

GOIMC

TO

SEE

THROUCM

.

RC^T

-

THERe

WtU.

BE

t40

TURKIIKIC BACK

TILU

THE

^RSON

OOO

IS

CAUGHT.*

Chicago

Tribune-New

York

Newi

Syndico'e,

Inc.,

1935



[689]

I

cof^&

oar

wEAE

awd

SWOOT

TWROUGM

7W6 SWviE

BULX£T

MOL£

JuST

FOR

PRACTICE'

I'Vt

OJUV

kOsiocxED

rr

oe*

tvu^t

POST owce

iNj

FOUR

VEAJ?S»

[690]

[691]

[692]

[693]

[694]



[695]

®

Chicogo

Tribune-New

York News

Syndicare, Inc.,

1735



[696]

guioeo

BV

VH.IOW>OHV,

OtCK

TRACV,

P«

PATTOM

.

AJJO

TH6

INOlÛ

,

HAN'S

OSMe

TO THE

VERV

DOOR

OP

••CL)TI6

DiAjvtoNDX Hiosioe

c*>/e.»

[697]

[698]

[699]

[700]

[701]



CJPeKJIMC

TUB PIRST

CA.VE

DOOR, DO<

TR^CV OBSERVES

TMfc

TWO

WIUDCKTS

CuAROiKlG

TME

REA-R

ROOM

OC TME

C*.s/E WW6i:?E

BORIS A^kJD

TORA AJISOM

AJJO

CLITIE

DlAJ^lOMD

AJI.E:

IM

MOIMG

-

BUT BBPORE

WE CftJsl

PLAJO

A*JS ACTOM/CUTIE

SPRIMGS

TO

TM6

IMMER,

DOOR OP Tl-te C*«VE AMD

CIRBS

k. MAO-IIME

CUM

*kT

TMB lp&TEC-nV&

.

[702]

BW

MURLISJC

MIMSSLP SUDDiMLV B^CuC-

A,RO

AJJD PulLIMC TVIE

C300R

CLOSED,

DOES

TSAC-^

AtJOID

DEAT)-I, CuTiE

CXJMTWUES TO

TMROUCM

TME

OUTER

DOOR .

MOWEVER

R6CUL^R

iWTERVAiS

SO

THAT

TRAOV

AWD

MEW

D^RE

NOT

ATTEMPT

6MTRAMC6

TO

CfcVE

BUT

AT

LAST

A

PLAW

HAS

BEENJ

UP TO DRiVt

THE

CRIMIMALS

OUT.

.

Ov<1W

-

QulET

MOW

.'

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WITH

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FROM THE

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FORCED

TO

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THE

O.VE.»

[704]

[705]

[706]

[707]

(£)

Chicago

Tribune-New York

News

Syndicote,

Inc.,

1W5

[708]

S'fc«s

TO

Tv.e

sec<:»jo

cusoa

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[709]

©

ChicoQo

Tribune-New

York

Newj Syndicote,

Iac,

1935



[710]

Atrrsa ewtERimS TWE

WOUS6

,

AjX>

PMOlKXa

'CUTIE'

DIAMOND

SENOJO

ML>.ÂjsJ Ua.P,

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80RS

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OUT

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I

MA'

THERE

w£

ARE

IVEGOTTWE

[711]

[712]

[713]

[714]



11

Cats,

Dogs,

Possums,

Counts,

and

Others

A

Comics Miscellany,

1928-1950

This

section offers a selection

of

Sunday

pages

from some

memorable

strips.

The

pre-

ponderance

of half-page

and

tabloid-page

layouts rather cheerlessly indicates

the

en-

croaching

reduction

of space allowed comic-strip artists

toward the

close

of

the

strip's

first half

century.

But

the

ample

and

colorful use of

this

halved

area

by

cartoonists

is

sometimes admirable.

on

strips

in

this

section

The

first

three

selections

in this

section

are all

by

one

of

the

great original

and

in-

imitably

individual

talents

in the strip

field, Milt Gross,

whose Nize

Baby,

Count

Screwloose,

and

Dave's

Delicatessen are

among

the most

consistendy

and irrepres-

sibly

daffy of strips. Flowing

from one

into

the

other,

with some

of

the

same

char-

acters traipsing into one

feature and out of the

other,

Gross's

strips

use names only

as

tags

of convenience.

They are

all

slices

of the great Gross

comic cheesecake from

which two dozen

delectable books

and films

were

pared

in his

lifetime

[716-718].

The

comic

strip Felix

the

Cat

was

drawn

by Otto

Mesmer,

although

it

was signed

by

Pat Sullivan until

the

latter's death.

Felix,

a feisty,

inventive, restless,

yet

some-

how

delicate

adventurer in

his

glass

menagerie

world,

never attained the wide

strip

following

that the

charming

enchantment

of

his weekly and daily activities

might

have

earned

him

[719].

Al

Capp's

irreverent and

crudely hilarious Li'l

Abner,

the veritable

yawp of

the

newspaper comic

strip,

was

at a creative

peak from

1934 to

1944;

the examples here

are

from

three of

those

Abner

years

[720-722].

Hejfi

was begun when

the

Hearst

chain raised

its

Simday comic

section

from

six-

teen

to thirt>'-two

pages

in

1935,

and

it

provides

this

wonderful

example

of

what hap-

pened

when

Dr. Seusss

gorgeous

lunacy

moved

briefly

into

comics

[723].

Abie

the

Agent,

Harry

Hershfield's

nervy

and pioneering development of

the

first

definitively

Jewish

strip

hero,

from 1914

through

the

thirties,

was a

subtle, adult work

of

humor

and

unspoken compassion, which

deserves

more analysis

and

discussion

than

it has received. Here are

two

examples

in the

relaxed

mood

which the strip

ac-

quired

in

Hershfield's

later

years [724-725].

This final selection

of

Herriman's Sunday Krazij Kat pages [726-733] are from the

great

color tabloid period

of

1934-44,

eight

examples

of

the

rare work

which,

during



the

artist's last

decade,

appeared consistendy in

only

two

United

States newspapers,

the

Saturday New

York

Journal and the

Saturday

Chicago American.

Herriman's

comic work, a

national

treasure

comparable to

Daumier's in France,

deserves

the

per-

manence

of

a

definitive and complete collection in boards,

and

the dignity of

repub-

lication

in

the

original

size and color from

beginning

to

end.

(

Meanwhile,

Nostalgia

Press

has

provided

an

anthology,

now available

in softcover.

^^'alt

Kelly's insouciant Pogo

[734-737]

was

a

brilliant newspaper

adaption, in

daily

and

Sunday

format, of

a

major

strip

which

was

originated and essentially

per-

fected

in

comic-book

format

—

the

only

instance

of

a

comic-book

creation

moving

wholly

and

permanently

into

the

newspaper strip medium.

Pogo became

the

first

comic strip

to

have

its

daily

episodes

reprinted

virtually complete

in book form,

se-

quentially,

year after

year.

Gus

Arriola's

Gordo,

with

a

cast

of human and

animal characters,

remains

a daily

delight

in

today's

papers, with

Sunday

pages of e.xceptionally

individual

graphic

de-

sign

[738-7,39].

Casey Ruggles

[741],

Warren

Tufts's

somber,

adult

^^'estem

adventure

strip, lasted

from

May

1949 until late

1954

(

and was

ghosted

in

its later months

)

.

Its

strong

nar-

rative and

brutal

point-of-view clearly anticipated the

Italian

Westerns

of

Sergio

Leone (A

Fistful

of

Dollars, among others)

and

their

imitations

on both sides

of

the

Atlantic.

Krazy

Kat,

the daily comic strip

of George

Herriman, is, to me, the

most

amusing and fantastic ajid

satisfactory work of art

produced in

America

today.

With

those

who

hold that a

comic

strip

cajinot

be a work

of

art I shall not traffic,

. .

.

Such is the

work

which America can

pride itself

on

having

produced,

sind

can

hastily

set

about

to

appreciate.

...

It is

wise with pitying irony

j

it

has delicacy,

sensitiveness,

and

an

unearthly

beauty.

The strange, unnerving,

distorted

trees,

the

language

inhuman,

unanimal,

the

events

so

logical,

so

wild,

are all magic carpets

and faery

foajn

—

all

charged

with unreality.

Throu^

them

meauiders

Krazy, the

most

tender and

the most foolish

of

creatures,

a

gentle

monster

of

our new mythology.

Gilbert

Seldes

The

Krazy

Kat That Walks

By Himself,

The

Seven

Lively

Arts

.

192^4-



Nizc

Baby

Milt Cross

1928

(716]

BABY

lUa

U

>

Fi.

o*

By

Milt

Gross



Count

Screw-loose

Milt

Gross

1929

r

OIL .

COUNT

SCREWLOOSE

OF

TOOLOOSE

By

Milt

Gross

rrr

(B

Pr«»>

Publlthins Co.

(N.w

Ywkl.

I9»



Dave's

Delicatessen

Milt

Gross

1932

[718]

Dave's

Delicatessen

1

CC»-^&.MUKXr

C«,A^.'

>OU'RE A Pl-A-y-pRCCXiCERS

vvn=E.

^4C?W

/

vVE.

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n^Ê.

PCJR

Tvie.

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Fea'ures

Syndcafe,



Felix the Cat

Pat

Sullivan (

Otto

Mesmer )

1931

Nawtpopsr Feotur* S«rvict,

Inc., 1931



Li Abner

Al

Capp

(

Alfred

Caplin

)

1938

/

1940

/ 1942

^^c^^^:^^^^^

jLIX

by

AL CAPP

AdYicre ô'

ChillLiT^

SEE

THAT

LI'L

KID

-

I

PASTED HIM

ONE

YfiTIDCflf'-FOR

NUTMIN

MY

KID

.

BROTHCR.'J

HAS

BEIEN

TRYING

TO

HELP

HER

SPINSTER

COUSINS

MAY AND

JUNE.

HUNKS CATCH

A couple:

of

HUSBANW.

UNFORTUNATELY

THE VICTIMS

SELECTED, HAIR-

LESS

JOC

ANP

LONESOME.

POLECAT

FAIL

TO

CO-OPERATE-

^^HOW

KIN

A

GAL

^m

G.IT

A

YOUNG

^^MANI

ROMANTICAL

^F^

'BOUT

HER

WHEN

HE.

THREATENi>

*

T'

BASH

HER

V;F

7^

A

CLUB

efshe:

-fCOME5

NEAR

HIM?

t

CARCTUL

WHEN

YOU'RE

SPEAKlNft

TO OC

H*i)cuN€PC)L^T.cwKLANC>.Ha»imi-^mrrnoim?

[720]

t.

United

Feoluê

S/ndtcole.

Inc.. 1938



LIL

AL

CAPP

AayJcTc f o'

ChiUcm

Chiixuh which holos back

each

shoulder

dont get nolmd ome5

when

they-re

older-

sevr^tayGeoffSf

TAKsry*.

s^ff^ hûla.

cmih

MOTHER,

OLD

THIf«3

,

PREPARE

YOOR'SCLF

FOR

A

BIT

OF

A

SfOCK.'-YOUR

CEMUC

IS

IM

MATTER or

FACT,

MOTHER, OLD

BEAN-

i MAVE^f

r

ASKE^

HER

ABOlTTHER

TAMILY

YET.'-BUT

FROM

HER

REGAL

MANNER,

IM

IF

HER

FAMILY

IS

REAUY

ARISTOCRATIC

.

I

MAY

CONSENT

TO YOUR

MARRlAGEr-IF

HC.

YOU MUST

FORGET

HERr-MAKE

CERTAIN

<0

Unil«d

F«otura

Syndicote. Inc..

1940



AL

CAPP

SISEJ

ILIUN.

DO YOua SCHOOCWORK ON TIME.

,

OR

SOMEDAY VOU

rWh'

BEG

A

DIME

SENT

IN

EST

RKHAAO

A/£LSOK

SIOUX

fAlLS.

j.q

[722]

TH-

FO'TEEN

CENTS,

.

SAM

.'/

)

THANK

VO'.'.'

TSKr-WAS

AH

SHOCKED WHEN

AH SAW

VO'

TRVIN'T'SNEAK

OFF

WIFOUT

PAVIN' ME.AFTER

,

AH

MADE VO'

/

INVISIBLE.'/

si.

Unit«<l

r«ijiwre

Svôrcoi*. Irx.,

1942



Hejji

Dr. Seuss

( Theodor

Geisel

)

1935

WATOQF

has

STRANXSE

WAVS

IN)

TV-\E MOOMTAIMS

OF

BAAKO.

IM

LAKES

ON) OLD

\<XX:ANa

TOPS,

WWALES

SPLASH AND SPOUT.

.

.

»0,000 LEAGUES FROM THE

WEAREST

sea/

tmis

land

COMES

MEJJI

A

SnZANGER

\

It^^^L

1.

WHAT

A

COUMTCy/^

TURTLES

THAT

WHEW.'two

cjOAts

that

WEAR

ONE.

BETWEEK)

r

/•

;C.

AND

MERE'S

y

</-

«^

SOME

snjNT,

^

^^

A

*^

A

FLOWEK

^-~>y•'-

BROAOCASTING

MUSIC



Abie

the Agent

Hairy

Herslificlcl

1938

[724]

';

SAÂE

v;oLUME

inJ

WouR

Bookcase

,

MEs.

This

owe is> from

The

Public

uBRARy

=

\

l^tK^

SHOOLb

1

RUIN)

'

hKi

FiKie

EbiTioros?

y

c.

King

Fco'yres

Sy

T^

ft

FtLU^R

MWASO

Minsk li

COMlM<i

HB»E

TO BORBOUJ

A

HUN^BEC

OOLIARS

-

:

CuAflT

ÔU 1UX>

Ai

VJlTWESiES.THAT

I

(5A\m

IT

TO

[725]

AMb

WllMSV:

MBJER.

REPAIb

ME

I Fx

QOT

SBJEM

lAllTMEStE^ '

THE

»OMt>REB

*OLV>Rl

-

'

'^^ WHO

SAW

ME

RETURM

I

TUlO

WITNESSES

UJHO

SAUJ

ME

LOAN

HIM THE

AAONEy

THE

MOkJEv TO ABE.

k

A

WEEK

LATER

VOUR

HOWOR.TC

SMOul

VOO

WHAT A

LIAR

THIS

MlHStC

\«>-I'M TELLIMQ

VOU

NOW

T>*AT

I

NEVER

LENT HIM

,jrVIE

MOMEy



Krazy

Kat

George

Heriiman

1936-1939



[727]

~\r

'

m^.

LE.

TT^Xfe'S

(?e/Mpe<s

—

rut

4^

Ji^c?

^Ji'

ê.

'^>'

'^fex

'WV

f*'^

>^

^^

—

^'^^

,

CouCr

CCHG,

A(yo

[y

iw^s-A

^/^ppy

Dw<H^-

[D06e

fOftTJVfe

P0iePU6.

Pb&/B

ALL

IN

F«VC>^,

t>AV

/^y^

/





[729J





[731]

\

•^4>

._^-.:;.5S)/S.v^v

-**^^^^'*««V»^-





[7331



Pogo

Walt

KeUy

1950

©IMVe THE

BORKy OF

VO' BAIT

P060

WHILST

I FEEDS

THESE BIRD

CHuO-UN'

AN'r

TELLS

>OU

HOW COME

1 D1?ESC-

UP LllCe

A

JACK

KAB6it |

®

Poil-Holl

Syndicate,

Inc.. I9S0

'



[735]

(V

Post-Hall

Syndlcoie,

Inc..

I9S0



[736]

PoitHoll

Srndicai*.

Inc.,

1950



[737]

(ij

Posi-Holl Syndtcoto,

Inc., 1950



Gordo

Gus

Arriola

1948

/

1949

[738]

]

Unired F«oture

Svndicoi«. Inc.. 1948

f*A

°4

i

^



Texas Slim and

Dirty

Dalton

Ferd

Johnson 1943

[740]



Casey

Ruggles

Warren

Tufts

1951

KIT

CO)(...P0N'T

»E

COOUISH/

IT.

.IT

WA'S

A

J

7UEL

YOU

«££...

YOUe PEIENP



mm

Little

People,

Wise

Guys,

and

Witches

The

Return

o£

the

Funnies

What

follows

is

a

frankly

subjecHve,

perhaps

even

cursory,

selection

of comics,

picked

to

represent

the

dominant

event

on

the

comic

pages

during

the

recent

past.

And

much

of

the

recent

history

of

the

comics

centers

on the

arrival, success,

and

influence

of

Charles

Schulz's

Peanuts.

The

old

family

strip

formula

has

been

turned

completely

around,

for what

we have

is

not

a

bunch

of

adults

behaving

like

children

but

a

group

of

children

behaving

like

neurotic

adults.

And

the

traditional

American bound

to

win

has

quite often

become

bom

to

loose.

More

than

that,

the

influence

of

the tiny,

sparse

panels

of Schulz's

strip,

plus the

increasing

cost

of

paper

and

printing,

have

shrunk

the

size

of all

comics.

So that

we

not

only

see

graphics

clearly

derivative of

Schulz's

style,

but

a

general

shrinkage

in

comics

in width

and

depth.

Indeed,

the

venerable

Dick

Tracy

is

but

one

example

of a

strip

drawn

so

that its

bottom

quarter

can

be

cropped off

entirely,

leaving

it Schulz-

size.

And

some

papers

have

been knowm

to shrink

all

comics

back

to a

mere

two-col-

umn

width.

Suffering

the most,

perhaps,

is

the

Sunday

color

comic

section,

with

most

comics

now

available

in either

a

third-page

or

a

quarter-page

format,

with

panels

either

shrunk

or

cropped

off

or

dropped

out.

Comics

have

long

had a

flexible

format.

In

the

1930s King

Features

cartoonists

were

instructed

to

provide

three

expendable

panels.

A

full

page

of

Blondie,

for

example,

could

become

a half-page

by

dropping

its

companion

top

features,

Colonel

Potterby

and the

Duchess,

and omitting

three of

its Blondie

panels.

Currently,

the different

syndicates

use different

methods

for

possible

squeezing,

but

the alert

reader

will

notice herein

several

examples

of

the

expendable

(or

expended)

top,

whereby

a comic could

be

easily

condensed

by dropping

its

top Hne

of

panels,

leaving it two

deep

Another

result

of smaller

panels is

a static

quality

to some

strips.

Very

good

gags

may

be

delivered,

and

often

are, in

a

three-panel

format

which

virtually

repeats

itself

except

for

the

dialogue

balloons,

an approach

observable

in the

otherwise

keenly

caricatured

Tumbleweeds

sequence

reproduced

here.

Fewer

papers

using

fewer

strips

also

means

fewer

outlets for

cartoonists,

with

the



result

that

one

cartoonist

finds

himself

producing two (and

sometimes more)

strips

in

order to keep up. But

more on

that

matter

later.

For now,

enough of

complaints

and

abnost

enough of

history.

What

is

left

is

humor.

Humor, and a gradual

moving

away

from the

soap opera

strips that

have

dominated

the

comics

pages for

three

decades. But humor of

that

sort

has

been

called

adult,

sophisticated, and the

rest.

If

it

contains

less out-and-out slapstick,

knock-

about, and tumble, however, it

is

still probably

no

more

or less adult

on

the

whole

than

was

comics

humor

in the past.

It

is only different

—

and

it

reflects the

way

a

United

States with more

citizens,

more of

whom have

gone

to

college,

sees itself

in

the

1950s,

1960s,

and 1970s.

In

a major

aspect.

Broom

Hilda is,

after

all,

the

man-

chasing

spinster stereotype

we

all

know

from

traditional

popular

drama of all

kinds.

Notes on

strips

in

this

section A

short-lived

strip, but one much

loved

by

devotees

of

comics.

Jack

Kent's

King

Aroo

[744-749] took much the same

sophisticated approach

to

the naif

materials

of

the

fairy tale

as

Krazy

Kat had done to the

animal fable

or

Bamaby

had done

to

a

child's

fantasy.

The

choice

of

King

Aroo strips

here

is

Jack

Kent's own,

by

the

way.

The influence of Peanuts

[742-743]

on both

Mell

Lazarus's

Miss Peach

[756]

and

on

Johnny

Hart's

B.C.

[755]

will

be

obvious,

and

is

acknowledged.

But

Lazarus

has

also now

given us

Momma

[759],

a comics

manifestation

of

the

general

consciousness

of the

manipulative, possessive

mother,

be she

Jewish

or

gentile. And

Hart

is also

half

the team, with Brant

Parker,

of the

quasi-medieval

farce The

Wizard

of

Id

[757].

What

has

been called

the

Mort Walker

factory,

with

Dik

Browne and

Jerry

Dumas,

produces

(

or has

produced

)

Beetle

Bailey,

Hi

and Lois,

Hdgar

the

Horrible,

Boners Ark,

and Sam's Strip. The first

three

fit

into dramatic-comic

and strip tradi-

tions and the fourth

is about

those

traditions.

Bailey

is

service

comedy,

tellingly

up-

dated

[752].

Hi and Lois

is a suburban

family

strip, but with a

not always

obvious

element

of distaste and even

dislike

[758].

Hagar,

when

he is

not looting,

is

as

glori-

ously

henpecked

as

were

Jiggs

and

Dagwood

[753].

And

Sam's Strip was about strips,

their

characters

and

conventions, themselves.

It is

therefore

a

fitting

way

to

end

our

volume

[761-763].

Meanwhile,

there

has

been

Doonesbury

[754],

which

began

as

a

student's strip at

Yale,

and

was inspired,

in its

early

days,

probably equally

by

Peanuts

and

by

Jules

Feiffer's

rhetorically conceived panel cartoons.

For

our

omissions

in

this

final

survey

we

apologize.

For

our

brief

overview of a de-

cade

and

a

half,

we hope

to

incur your

enfightenment and your pleasure.



Peanuts

Charles

Schuiz 1972

(imS

©11

2j,z(zeia)

Two

Cities



King Aroo

Jack Kent 1956

-me

picTUKEi),

MK.EUEPHAKVT?

(£)

McClure

Newipopvr

Syndicol*.

1956



[748]

[749]

©

McClure

Newspoper

Syndicate,

1956

Tumbleweeds Tom K. Ryan

1971

lOi

WHAT'S

PIS?i

A LILLIPUTAN

FRAIL

WIT'CIN

PA

WOIRSO'PA

IMMORAU

PARP)

*P16

ROUN'

TEARS

COURSlU'

ONE

ANUPPER

POWN

CAT

INNVCENT

SNOOT,

IN

mVOUS

CHASE

WHAT,

6IVES,

ME

CHILE?

9,28

[750]

Lit

0NE,1LDW/

ME

T'

INTERPUCE

ME PA^V

CRUPPER

^SNOOKlE'YA&e

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PEAR,

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GOES

PV

PA NOM

PEPLOOMO'

«ECHO i

]M--

Jkl

HE'S

ONLY

12?

VEH...SN00K1E'5

A

MITE

URGE

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HIS

AGE ...

A

1

PHENOMYNON

PRUNfrAWUT

PY A

ALTERATION

r

HIS

P'TUITAR/

aANP WHILST

HE WAS

A

PAPEi

ii

ca

©

The

Register

&

Tribune

Syndicote.

1971

...AT

PA

WY'S

CHRISTENIN,

OUR

OIL

MAN,

IN

HIS EXUP'RANCE,EMPLOY'P

A

MAGNUM

0' CHAMPAGNE

INSItAP

C

PA

USUAL CHIANTl

POTTLE

1751)

©

The

Rttgiiter &

Tribune

Syndicot*.

1971



Beetle Bailey Mort

Walker

1953

[752]

[753]

®

King

Feoturei

Syndicote,

Inc.,

1953

Hagar the

Horrible

Dik

Browne

1974

Yoj'pB

iM

A

Very

SPECIAL-

PLACE ...

FULL

OF AG'S. AMD

MYsTeCY..

(^

King

Feoturci

Syndtcole.

Inc..

1974



Doonesbury

C. B.

Trudeau

1971

^

^Dooqesbur

y

^(5^^^

ruMKS

FCHK

PICKING

tê

UP...

NO

PROBLEM,

AiACK.

I

YVU

KNOU),lve

ACWAYi>

kJfiiNTED

TO

FtNO

our

mAT

A

TRUC^

PI?lU£R.

/S

Uke..

OH,

Lue'/zer

pperrr

much

THC

spê AS

ANYBODY

ei5t

ReALCr?

AfiE

WOL,

BA5ICALLX,

YOUR

GOfidJ>

THE

r

6U€SS I'M

SAMe?

k/HAr

LOOI^Ne

FOfi

eKf>UT~Y

ARE

yvU

AMORICA...

COOfaN6

FOfi.

IN

uFeZi

FINDING

AMOilCA

HAS

3ecoMe

KiNP

OF A

ouesr

FOR

MF.

.

Z

/refi^

THlNfclNe>

it's

eoiNe TO

bf

akovnd

rue

NEXT

BeND..

but

XU-

F/A/P

IT,

T

frNOU)

IT.

FA/^TASTIC

PCEASe

TAkS

MF

WITH

YOU,

MR

mua^

pRiveR.

X,

TOO,

hJANT

TO

FINP

AMFRlCA'

our.,

you

CAN

JOIN

MF

IN

MY

SFARCH

FOR^

TRUTH.

I

/

WFLLFHANKie

BOY,

YOUVB

DONE

IT

again

[754]

£

1971, G.

B.

Tfudeou

Distributed

bv

Unlversol

Preii

Syndicate.



B.C.

Johnny

Hart

1965

©

Publiiheri

New»pop«r

Syndlcote, I9AS

B.C.

by

p«rmitsion o<

Johnny

Hon

ond Fi«ld

Enterprisei.

I



Miss

Peach

Meli

Lazarus

1965

[756]

®

Publiihefs Newjpop«' Synd'COte,

1965

Miss

Peach

by MeM

Lozorus.

Covrlesy

of M«ll Lozorus and Fiald

N«wspap«r Syndicoie



The

Wizard of

Id

Johnny

Hart 1976

[757]

S>>

f\6WT\

i

[758]

>

/



Broom

Hilda

Russ

Myers

1974

mmmm

[760]

The

Chicago

Tribune. 1974

Sam's Strip

Jerry

Dumas

1962

SAM,

yi>

-iOO

PeowiSE To ÛT

UP

AlOV

I

AwyotJE

CACTCOO

GHA2ACTEK

lOHO

SHOUDEO

UP

F02

TWe

[761]

King

Feoiurej

Syndicote,

Inc.,

1962

WHILE

All

TUEÊ

\

(

S^^\..)

OLD

CDfA\C

dWAEAJTEK

\

V^

^

A2E W£(2£,

I'D

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W

STS\P

IT'LL

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BUT

I

CM PROBABLY

iOOEK

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ItJ

SOMEHOuJ

SAM...

b

A

PECSOIO

UOITW

MV

lUTELLl&EOCE.

AfOD

IMASlMATIOtJ

SMOULD BE

ABLE

TO

TWifOk:

OF

SOME WAV/

[762]

[763]

€

Ktnj

^cMum

S)ndxHt. Iih

I'^r.J

IB

«M f.|fM

(S)

King F«alures Syndicate,

Inc.,

1962



A

Selected, Introductory

Bibliography

of

Books

and Articles on

Newspaper

Comics

Note:

The

editors

do not

recom-

mend

all

of the

titles listed

as

equally

informative

and

factual.

A

number

are

perfunctor\'

and

sketch-

ily

researched, and

the data

given

are often

contradictory.

But

these

are

the

best

known

and

most

readily

available

titles

in

a

shallowly

covered field.

'

Donald

Phelps, one of

(he

most

perceptive

critics

of

the comics,

is

listed

here

for

onl) the

most readily

oi>tainahle

of his

inafâ/ine

pieces.

Mis other

essa\s

on

the

comics

ha\'e

l)ei*n pnl>hshe<l

largeU in obscure,

ephemeral,

sometimes

mimeo-

);raplied

little

niuâ/ines

like

Giwxis

or

Till'

Mi/nlfriinis

Barri-

tildes. His work

on

the

.American

comic strip cries out for

anlliol-

ogizing.

Abel,

Robert

H.,

and David Manning

White, eds.

The

Funnies:

An

American

Idiom.

New

York:

The

Free

Press

of

Glencoe,

1963.

Aldridge,

Alan,

and George Perry.

The

Penguin

Book

of

Comics.

Harmondsworth,

England: Penguin

Books,

1967.

Becker,

Stephen.

Comic Art

in America.

New

York:

Simon

and

Shuster,

1959.

Blackbeard,

Bill.

The First (Arf, Arf ) Superhero

of

Them

All

(on

Popeye). In

All

in

Color For

a

Dime,

ed.

Dick Lupoff

and

Don

Thompson.

New

Rochelle,

N.Y.:

Arlington

House,

1970.

.

Mickey

Mouse and

the

Phantom Artist.

In

The

Comic

Book

Book,

ed.

LupofiE

and Thompson. New

Rochelle, N.Y.: Arlington House, 1973.

.

Comics.

Boston:

Houghton

Mifflin,

1973.

(with Thomas

Inge). American Comic

Art.

In A

Nation

of

Nations,

ed.

Peter

C.

Marzio. New

York: Harper

&

Row,

1976.

.

The

Endless

Art:

The Literature

of

the

Comic Strip. New

York: Oxford

Uni-

versity Press. Forthcoming.

,

ed. Series

of classic

comics

reprints. Westport,

Conn.

:

Hyperion Press. Forth-

coming.

Couperie, Pierre,

and

Maurice Horn. A

History

of

the Comic

Strip. New

York:

Crown

Pubhshers,

1968.

Craven,

Thomas. Cartoon Cavalcade.

New

York: Simon and

Shuster,

1943.

Goulart,

Ron. The Adventurous Decade. New Rochelle, N.Y.:

Arlington

House,

1975.

Horn,

Maurice,

ed.

The World

Encyclopedia

of

Comics.

New York:

Chelsea

House,

1976.

Murrel,

\\'illiam A. A

History

of

American

Graphic Humor.

New

York:

Macmillan,

for

Whitney Museum

of

American

Art

(2

vols.

),

1933 and 1938 (o.p.

Phelps,

Donald.

Rogues

Gallery/Freak Show.

In

Prose (no.

4),

New

York,

1972.°

Robinson,

Jerr\

.

The

Comics:

An

Illustrated

History

of

Comic Strip Art.

New

York:

G.

P. Putnam's

Sons,

1974.

Sheridan,

Martin. Comics and Their

Creators.

Boston:

Hale,

Cushman

and

Flint,

1942

(paperback edition:

Luna

Press,

1971).

Waugh,

Coulton.

The Comics. New

York:

Macmillan,

1947

(paperback

edition:

Lima

Press,

1974).



An

Annotated

Index

of the Comics

Abbie

an' Slats

began

in

1937, its

eccentric

characters

and

its

somewhat

amorphous

locale

created by

[485-496]

Al

Capp,

who

also

wrote the strip

for its

first nine

years and

persuaded

magazine

il-

lustrator

Raeburn

\'an

Buren

to

draw

it.

Capp

was

succeeded

as

the

writer by

his

brother,

Elliott

Caplin,

who later

became a

prolific

plotter

of

strips

of

all kinds.

Caplin

continued

to

write

Abbie

an

Slats until

the

strip's

demise

in

1971.

Abie the

Agent was first

introduced

by

Harry

Hershfield as

a minor

character in

his burlesque

melo-

[724-725] drama

Desperate

Desmond.

Abe Mendel

Kabibble appeared in his

own strip in

1914

as

a sympathetically

conceived ethnic

type,

a

perpetually worried, fiercely

active,

lower

middle-class

New

York businessman.

Hershfield

himself

was bom in

Cedar

Rapids,

Iowa,

and had been

a

journeyman cartoonist since the age

of fourteen

in

Chicago

and

San

Francisco.

Abies

success,

and

his

creator's

own

subsequent career

as

a writer

and

speaker

and raconteur,

took

Hershfield

to

New

York.

Abie

ceased his

life

as

a

Hearst

feature in

1940.

Alley

Oop by

V. T.

Hamlin

began

his life

as a


Association

feature

in 1933

[432-434]

and

lived

it as

a

comic caveman.

Then in

1933,

Hamlin

introduced

Professor

Wonmug

and

his

time-machine,

and

that device

carried

Alley forward

to

the

twentieth century

and

then

backward

again

to

any era

where the

possibilities for

a

comic

adventure

and

for strong graphic design

and

(on

Sundays)

the

fanciful

use

of

color—

seemed

promising. Hamlin,

a

native

of

Perry,

Iowa,

retired

from

the

strip in

1971.

A. Mutt by Bud Fisher

began as a

sports page

feature

in 1907.

He

was joined

by

Jeff

within

[41-46]

five months. See Mutt

and

Jeff.

A. Piker

Clerk

appeared

in

the

Chicago

American

in

1904,

a

pioneer

cross-page

daily

strip,

with

a

[47]

horse-racing background,

and

the direct

progenitor

of A.

Mutt,

above.

Its author,

Clare

Briggs,

was

bom in

Redsburg,

^^'isconsin,

in

1875.

Briggs

was later better

known for

his

daily

panel

feature,

which

was variously called

When

a

Feller Needs a

Friend, There's

One

in

Every

Office,

and

other

titles,

and

Mr.

and

Mrs.,

his

Sunday

page. Briggs

died

in 1930.

Barnaby, Crockett Johnson's

(David

Leisk's)

delightful,

somewhat

literary

fantasy

of a

boy

[505-539]

and his

cigar-chomping

fairy

godfather.

Mister O'Malley, began

in PM in .\pril

1942.

The

author turned the

feature

over

to others

between

late 1946

and

1952,

when

Bamaby

was dropped, to

be

briefly

revived

in 1962.

Johnson,

bom

in

1906

in New

York,

had

begun

as

a

magazine

cartoonist. He

turned to

children's books

in

the

1950s

{Harold and

his

Purple

Crayon

and its

sequels).

In

his

later years

(he

died

in

1975)

he

devoted

himself

to

nonobjective

painting.

Barney

Google

and

Spark Plug began as

a

harassed

husband,

an offshoot

of its

author Billy De

Beck's

previous

car-

[149-150;

278-319] toon work,

but

reappeared

as a

sports-oriented

strip in the

San

Francisco

Herald-

Examiner in

June

1919.

Barney developed

into

a

widely

popular,

picaresque

rogue of

the big city

during

the 1920s

and

the

Great

Depression era.

After

a

wistful, knock-

kneed

race

horse.

Spark

Plug, appeared

in 1922,

the strip

changed its

name,

as

it

did

again soon

after

Barney

encountered

the

hillbilly Snuffy

Smith in 1934.

De Beck,

bom

of

middle-class

parents in Chicago

in 1890,

attended

that

city's

Academy of

Fine Arts

and went

immediately

into

cartoon

work in 1910.

He

died

in 1942.

Barney

Google

and

Snuffy

Smith

continues today

in

Fred

Lasswell's

version.

Baron

Bean

was one of

George

Herriman's early

strips.

See

Krazy Kat.

[54-77]

B.C.

first appeared

as

a

comic strip

through

the

New York

Herald

Tribune

Syndicate in

[755]

1958.

Its

author,

Johnny

Hart,

bom

in

Endicott,

New

York,

in

1931,

had

tried

out

a

similar

idea

of

a

caveman

community

in

earlier

magazine cartoons.

Hart began as

a



cartoonist

in the Pacific

Stars

and

Stripes

when he was

in the

Air

Force during

the

Korean

conflict. See also

The

Wizard

of

Id.

•

Bear

Creek

Folks

was

an

early

strip

by

C. M. Payne, better known for

his

S'Matter Pop?

[24-25]

Beetle

Bailey was the first

(1950)

of

the strip

successes of

Mort

Walker,

who had already

estab-

[752]

lished himself

as

a

gag

and

panel cartoonist

in such

publications

as

The Saturday

Evening

Post

—

indeed Beetle,

as

Spider,

first appeared

there.

\\'alker was

bom

in

El

Dorado, Kansas,

in

1923

and

raised in Kansas

City.

He

received

only

a

few

casual

art

lessons,

served

in

the

infantry in World

^^'a^ II,

and

worked

as

an

editor

for

Dell

Publications

in

New York while cartooning

in his

spare

time.

Walker is also founder

and

guiding

force

behind

the

Museum

of

Cartoon

Art

in Greenwich,

Connecticut.

See also

Hi

and

Lois,

Sara's Strip,

and

Hagar the Horrible.

Blondie

was begun in

1930

by

cartoonist Murat Chic

Young

of Chicago as

a

girlie

strip. It

[173]

concerned

a

gold

digger who pursued a

naive

but rich

playboy,

Dagwood

Bumstead.

The

strip was

soon

converted

into

the

most

popular

matriarchal family

series. Young

died

in

1973.

The strip is

continued

by

son

Dean and

John

Raymond.

Bobby

Thatcher,

George

Storm's second boys'

adventure strip,

set

standards

for

graphic

style,

char-

[179-190]

acterizations, and narrative invention

and

pace

between 1927 and

1937,

after which

Storm decided to

discontinue

his

tale.

Storm

was

earlier

responsible for

Phil

Hardy,

which began in 1925 and has

been called the first

boys'

adventure

strip.

Boob

McNutt,

Rube

Goldberg's

Sunday-only strip,

lasted

from 1915

to

1934.

Begun

as

a

low-comedy

[157-158]

gag

strip,

it was converted

to

comic

adventure

with

the addition

of

Boob's

girlfriend.

Pearl,

a

rival

named

Major Gumbo, the twins

Mike

and

Ike

(they

look alike), and

Bertha

the

Siberian

Cheesehound. Goldberg,

bom

in

1883,

began

as a

cartoonist

with

the campus magazine

of the University of

California

at

Berkeley,

and was

a

major

contributor

to the

development

of

the

comics.

Best

remembered for his

zany

cartoon

inventions,

he

created and drew

many other

comic and sports page

and

even

editorial

cartoons

before he died in

1970.

Braggo the

Monk

was one of several alternating titles given to Gus Mager's

Monk

strips.

See

Sher-

[34]

locko the Monk

and

Hawkshaw

the

Detective.

Bringing Up Father, George

McManus's

low-comic saga of

Jiggs,

an

Irish-American

bricklayer

made sud-

[144-145; 479-484]

denly

wealthy

by

the

Irish

Sweepstakes, and

Maggie,

his

socially ambitious wife,

began as a daily strip for the

Hearst papers

in 1913.

McManus,

born

in

St.

Louis in

1884,

had

been a

cartoonist

for that

city's

Republic, beginning

at age

sixteen.

Bringing

Up Father

juxtaposed

his

broad caricatures

with

his

fine draftsmanship and

sense of

space and depth.

The

strip

has

been

continued beyond

McManus's death

in

1954

(al-

though it

had

sometimes been

ghosted

meanwhile

)

.

See

The Newlyweds

and

Nibsy

the

Newsboy.

Broom Hilda,

Russ

Myers's

cigar-chomping,

beer-guzzling

witch

(who

claims once to

have been

[760]

married to Attila

the

Hun), first

appeared on the comics

pages

in

1970. Myers

was

bom in

Pittsburg, Kansas, in

1938 and

spent his

apprenticeship

conceiving

humor-

ous

greeting

cards

for

the

Hallmark

Company.

Buck

Nix,

Sidney

Smith's early

humanized

animal

strip,

began

in

the

Chicago

Examiner in

[92-95]

1908.

See

Old Doc

Yak

and

The Gumps.

Buck Rogers concerned

a

twentieth-century American

who

awakes

after a

sleep

of

five centuries.

[427-428]

It

began as pulp fiction,

Armaggedon

2415

by

Phil Nowlan, and

in

1929

became

the

first

science-fiction comic

strip, as

plotted by

Nowlan

and

drawn

by

Dick

Calkins.

The

feature

continued

until

1967,

the

work of

a

number of

writers and

illustrators

after 1947.

The

Bungle

Family, Harry Tuthill's penetrating burlesque of

the compulsive and harassed

big-city

lives

[163-169;

540-541]

of

George

and

Jo

Bungle, has

been

called

one

of

the

most

inventive and

artistic

of

all



comic

strips.

It

began

in the

New

York

Evening

Mail

in

1918 as Home

Sweet Home.

Tuthill,

born

in the

Chicago

slums in

1886,

led

the

life

of an

itinerant salesman from

the

age

of

nine, offering

everything

from

newspapers

to fake patent

medicines,

while

trying

to

teach himself

a

drawing

style

that

would

carry his

wryly

comical sense

of

human

character

and relationships.

He

landed

his

first

newspaper

job

in St.

Louis on

the

Post-Dispatch

in

the art department

in

1910

and

took

some

night-school

art

courses

with

the

income.

He folded the

successful

Bungles in

mid-

1942,

apparently

because

of syndicate

pressure

to

make it

a

more cheerful family

strip,

but

revived

it

eight

months

later

and

distributed

it

himself.

He

retired

in

1945

and died in

St Louis

in

1957.

Buster Brown

was

R.

F.

Outcault's

second

important

strip,

the

adventures of a likable,

upper-class

[3-5]

brat,

in

contrast

to

his

lower-class Yellow Kid

(see

Hogan's

Alley).

Outcault

was

bom

in

1863

in Lancaster,

Ohio,

and

had

established

himself

with

gag cartoons

in

the

old

Life

and

Judge

magazines before introducing

his

hearty urchins

and the

Yellow

Kid

to

the

New

York World.

Buster's adventures

began

in 1902

in the

New York

Herald,

and,

although

they were discontinued

in 1920, Buster and his

grinning

dog

Tige

remained

familiar

figures

in

American

popular

culture,

even after

Outcault's

death in

1928.

Captain

Easy

was

(also

as

Washington

Tubhs

II

and

Wash

Tubbs)

the

premier

comic

adventure

[435-437] strip.

It

began

in 1924

as a

humor

strip

but soon

began its journeys to the

far

comers

of the

real and imaginary

world.

Roy

Crane,

whose

inventive

and

innovative

graphics

carried

the strip as much

as

did his

narrative

fancy and

sense

of

pace,

was

bom

in

Abi-

lene, Texas,

in 1901.

In

1943

Crane

began

Buzz

Sawyer, while Easy and Tubbs

were

taken

over

by

his former

assistant, Leslie Turner.

See

Wash

Tubbs.

Casey Ruggles was

the

work

of ex-actor

and radio and

television

scripter

Warren

Tufts,

bom

in

[741]

Fresno,

Calif

omia,

in 1925. Tufts

had

little formal

art

training,

but

his strip

work was

thoroughly

professional from the start. He did the short-lived

science

fiction

strip The

Lone

Spacenmn, as well

as

Lance,

a

full-page

art feature

with

highly sophisticated

color

treatment. Casey Ruggles

began

in May

1949.

Chantecler

Peck. Beyond

the

fact that it appeared on

March

11, 1911,

in

Joseph

Pulitzer's

New

York

[38]

World,

we can

offer

no further information

on this

feature

or its artist. The popular

concept

of

the

rooster,

and his

name,

go

back

to

a

whole

series

of

medieval

tales,

of

course,

one of

which Chaucer

retold.

Count

Screwloose

( of Tooloose ) was one of

several zany

strips

by Milt Gross. He

began

it

in

1929

and

[717]

continued

it

either

as

the

bottom

or

top Sunday

feature

until

1934,

when the

Count

joined the

company

of

clowns

at

Dave's

Delicatessen.

Gross

(

1895-1953) was

a

native

of New York

Cit>'

who began

drawing

at

age

twelve,

and

created

a variety

of strip

characters

{That's My Pop,

Nize

Baby)

and

books

of

humorous

doggerel

verse,

fre-

quently in

Yiddish dialect

{Hiawatta Witt No

Odder

Poems)

.

Dave's

Delicatessen

began

as

a

1931

daily

and Sunday

feature

by

Milt

Gross.

In

early

1935,

it

was

joined

[718]

by Gross's other

favorite.

Count Screwloose ( see preceding )

.

Desperate Desmond

was

Harry Hershfield's first strip for

the

Hearst papers

and

a direct

imitation

of C.

W.

[37]

Kahles's Hairbreadth Harry.

See

Abie

the

Agent.

Dick

Tracy was

created

by

Chester

Gould in

1931.

Gould,

bom

in

Pawnee, Oklahoma,

in

1900,

[688-715]

the

son of

a

newspaper

publisher,

had been a

sports cartoonist

and

had done a

movie-

burlesque strip, Fillum

Fables. With

his

plainclothes

detective,

he

discovered an

ex-

ceptional

talent for strip

narrative and

a

bizarre,

sometimes

bmtal,

sense

of

character-

ization

and atmosphere.

Dok's Dippy

Duck

by

John

Dok

Hager

appeared

locally

in

the Seattle Times

in 1917.

Hager had

been

[84-91] a dental

surgeon

(hence

the

Dok )

with an

interest in

caricature

until

he

moved

from Terre Haute,

Indiana,

to

Seattle

in

1889

and

went

to

work

for

the

Times.

He re-

tired

in

1925

because

of

blindness,

and

died in

1932

at

seventy-four.



Doonesbury began as

Bull

Tales in

the

Yale Record

in

1968,

moved

to

the

Yale Daily News

the

[754]

following

year, and

(named

for

one of its

protagonists)

moved

into national

news-

paper

syndication

in late

1970.

It

is the work

of

Garry

Trudeau, who

was bom in New

York

City

in 1948 and

is

a

graduate

of the

Yale School

of .\rt and Architecture.

His

strip has occasionally

been censored

by

having daily

episodes

dropped

by subscrib-

ing

papers for

his satiric but candid treatment

of

politics,

drugs, and sex.

The

Family

Upstairs.

This

was The Dingbat

Family,

George

Herriman's

early strip,

in

whose

basement

[48-53]

Krazy

Kat first

appeared.

Felix

the

Cat

began as

an animated

cartoon, the work of

Australian-bom

Pat

Sullivan,

and

moved

[719]

to the

comics

in

1923.

The

strip was

ghosted

by

several hands.

Otto

Mesmer

being

the

most

frequently

mentioned and talented candidate.

Flash Gordon was

the work

of magazine and

comics

illustrator

Alex

Raymond

(

although

he

did not

[430]

plot

the strip),

born in

1909 in New

Rochelle, New York.

Ra>'mond

had previously

worked

with

Russ Westover

on

Tillie

the

Toiler

and Lyman

Young

on Tim Tylers

Luck.

Raymond's

best work was a unique combination

of

physiological realism

and

graphic

fantasy.

During

the

Second World War,

when Raymond

served in the Marine

Corps,

the

strip

was taken

over by

others.

When

Raymond

retmned

to

civilian

life,

he

began the

detective strip

Rip

Kirby, and

continued

it until

he

was

killed

in an

automobile

accident

in

1956.

Gasoline

Alley began

(at

first,

as

a

single

panel) in

1918,

and

was

devoted to

the

country's

then-new

[151-156]

fascination

with

automobiles. It

became

a

family

strip

in

which the characters

aged

in

real time

(

as

opposed to dramatic

or,

one

might

say, strip time

) with the

in-

troduction

of the

foundling

Skeezix

on

Uncle Walt

Wallet's

doorstep

in

1921 and

Walt's

subsequent

marriage

to

Phyllis

Blossom.

The

strip's author-illustrator,

Frank

King,

was

bom

in

Cashton, Wisconsin,

in

1883 and

began

as a

professional cartoon-

ist

on

the

Minneapolis

Times in

1901.

Moving

to

Chicago,

he

tried

several

unsuccess-

ful

strips

until

Bobby

Make-Believe

( in

1915

)

and

then Gasoline

Alley.

King's

gen-

tle continuity reached

its narrative best

in the

1930s

and

1940s.

King

died in

1969

but his

strip

has continued and is today

done,

daily

and

Sunday,

by

Dick

Moores, who

carries

on its

tradition of

graphic resourcefulness

and interest.

Gordo,

Gus

Arriola's

brilliant

graphic fantasy on

the life

of

a

contemporary

Mexican bache-

[738-739]

lor,

began

in

1941 and featured

strong

characterizations

and attractive

graphics from

the

start.

Arriola,

bom

in

1917 in

Arizona,

grew

up

in Los Angeles

and worked

as

an

animator

on MGM cartoons.

He was

also

the

only

artist

to

suspend

his

daily strip

during his

service in World

War II

and

resume

it

after

his

discharge.

The Gumps,

Sidney

Smith's

enormously

popular

serial

drama

of

lower middle-class family Hfe,

[96-102;

128-129]

began in

1917, conceived

by

Chicago

Tribune

publisher

Joseph

Patterson

and

exe-

cuted

by Smith (and sometimes

ghosted by

others,

even

in its

early years). Smith

was

bom

in

Bloomington, Illinois,

in

1877 and had been responsible

for

the

humanized

animal

strips.

Buck Nix

and Old Doc

Yak, in

both

the

Examiner

and Tribune.

When

Smith

was killed

in

1935,

The

Gumps

was

continued

by

his

assistant, Gus

Edson.

Hagar the

Horrible

was

begun

by

Dik

Browne

in 1973 and became

an almost

instant success.

The

title

[753]

character,

who looks

remarkably like

Browne

himself,

is a sort

of cross between an

ancient Viking

plunderer

and

the traditional

henpecked

husband and father. See

Hi

and Lois.

Hairbreadth Harry

was the

work of C. W.

Kahles, bom in Germany in 1878 and raised

in

Brooklyn

after

[143]

the

age of

six.

Kahles

had already been

a

cartoonist

for

several

years when he

first

drew Harry

in 1906. Harry

began

as a

boy

hero,

but

around

1916

had

reached

young

manhood.

On Kahles's

death in

1931,

the

strip

was continued for

eight

more

years

by

F.

O. Alexander.

The Hall-Room

Boys

was

the

work of illustrator-cartoonist

H.

A.

(Harold

Arthur)

McGill

and began

in the

[35]

New

York American

in

1906.

It was

at first

a

three-column,

upright

panel, usually

di-



vided

into

six

frames, and presented the

adventures of

two

of

Mrs.

Pruyn's

ambitious

boarders. McGill

later continued

the

strip

as

Percy ami

Ferdtj,

distributed

by

the

Sun-Herald's

syndicate.

McGill

died

in

1952

at

age

seventy-six.

Hans

und

Fritz. See Katzenjammer

Kids.

[7]

Happy

Hooligan was

the

classic Irish-American

tramp.

Fred Opper's

strip

began

in

Hearst's

Sunday

[9;

159]

comic

sections in

both

New York and

San

Francisco

in

1900.

Opper

was

born

in

Mad-

ison,

Ohio,

the

son

of

Austrian

immigrant

parents,

in

1857.

Opper

also

introduced

Maud

the Mule and

Alphonê

and

Gaston, and

became

a

Hearst

political

cartoonist

as well.

Failing eyesight forced him to

discontinue

Hooligan

and

most

of his other

work

in

1932.

He died

in

1938.

Hawkshaw

the

Detective was born

out

of

Gus

Mager's

Sherlocko

the

Monk

in

1913

when

the

American

repre-

[31]

sentatives

of

A. Conan

Doyle, author of

the

Sherlock

Holmes

stories,

threatened

a

lawsuit.

Sherlocko

was

quickly humanized along

with his

assistant,

now

called

the

Colonel.

Mager

discontinued

Hawkshaw

in

mid-1922,

but he

was

later

revived

as

a

companion

feature

to

Rudolph Dirks's

The

Captain

and

the

Kids.

Mager

sometimes

did

the strip on

this

revival,

but

during

other

periods it was

ghosted

(as

was

The

Captain)

by

the

gifted

Bernard Dibble.

Hawkshaw retired

with

Mager

in the

later

1940s.

See

Braggo

the

Monk.

Hejji

was

a

Hearst-King

Features Sunday

page

of

comic

fantasy

by

Dr.

Seuss

that

appeared

[723]

briefly

in 1935.

Seuss

(Theodor

Geisel)

had

previously

done

magazine

cartoons

(a

well-remembered

series in

Liberty)

and

advertising

drawings

( Quick,

Henry, the

Flit

was his

)

.

He

later, of course,

became

famous for

his

children's

books

(

The

Cat

in

the

Hat, Horton

Hears

a

Hoo,

et

al.

),

and he was a

master

of

comic

doggerel

verse.

Hi

and

Lois by

Mort

Walker

(scripts)

and

Dik

Browne

(drawing) is

a

suburbanite

family

strip

[758]

which

first

appeared in 1954, and

which

frequently

reverses the

attitudes

and

char-

acterizations

of

older

strips

in its

genre.

Browne

was bom

in

1918

in

New York

City

and

worked

his way up

from

newsboy

to

cartoonist

on

the

old

New

York Journal.

Be-

fore joining

the

Walker

group,

he

had

done

advertising

art. See

also

Beetle

Bailey

and

Hagar the

Horrible.

Hogan's

Alley was

one

of

several

slum

place-names

given to

R. F.

Outcault's

Sunday

feature

page

in

[1]

the

New York

World.

It

was

also

the

name which

stuck.

Hogan's

Alley

featured

a

bald child

in

a

yellow

nightshirt

who

quickly

became

known as

The

Yellow Kid,

and

Outcault's

page

was

renamed

again.

See

Buster

Brown.

Jimmy,

later

Little

Jimmy,

was

James

Swinnerton's

most

famous

strip, begun

in

1904

(but

[10]

appearing

sporadically

at

first)

and

continuing

until

1958,

except

for

a

break in

the

1940s

when

Swinnerton switched

to

Rocky

Mason.

Swinnerton was

bom in

Eureka,

California,

in 1875,

and

raised

in

Stockton,

where his

father was a

newspaper

pub-

lisher

and

politician. The

younger

Swinnerton

began

a

series of

weekly

bear

draw-

ings.

Little

Bears,

on

the

San

Francisco

Examiner

children's

page,

the

first

contin-

uously

presented

graphic

character

feature

in

a

newspaper.

Swinnerton also

did

Mr.

Jack,

the

well-remembered,

female-chasing,

humanized

tiger.

He

retired

in

1958,

turned

to

landscape

painting, and

died

in

Arizona

in

1974.

Johnny

Wise,

by

Thomas

Aloysius

Tad

Dorgan,

was

a

short-lived,

weekly 1902

color-page

effort

[2]

by a

man

who

was

later and

better known

for

his slangy sports

cartoons

and

Indoor

Sports

panel

feature.

Dorgan

was

born

to laborer

parents

in San

Francisco

in

1877

and

had

been

urged

to

develop

his

drawing

talents

while

recuperating

from a

fac-

tory

accident at

age

thirteen.

His

drawing

style

and

comic

attitudes

had

an

effect on

early

cartoonists

and

readers

alike.

He

died

unexpectedly on

Long

Island in

1929.

Katzenjammer

Kids

(

in

German

slang

of the

time

the

hangover

kids

)

was begun

in

1897

by

Rudolph

[6;

146-148]

Dirks when

Rudolph Block

of

Hearst's

Neic

York

Journal

suggested

he

model

a

comics feature

on

the

captioned

German

cartoon

series

of

Wilhelm

Busch

depicting

the



destructive

brats Max

und

Moritz. In

the

result. Dirks

combined strip

continuity

and

talk

balloons

for

the

first

time in comics history. Dirks was

bom

in Germany in

1877,

and

emigrated to Chicago

at

age seven

with

his

parents.

At

twenty

he

was

selling

cartoons to

Life

and

Judge,

popular

humor magazines

of the

time.

In

one

of

the

most

interesting

events

in

early

comics history.

Dirks

went off

on

a

European vacation

in

1912 and

Hearst had

his feature

continued.

Dirks

sued, and after much litigation

he

was awarded

the rights

to use his

characters,

but Hearst retained

tide

to

the

strip.

Thus

Dirks began

Haas und

Fritz,

later

The

Captain and the Kids, and Harold

Knerr

(1883-1949), of Bryn

Mawr

and

Philadelphia,

took

over

Katzenjammer Kids

and

continued

their

adventures

in

sometimes

superbly conceived

destruction. Dirks

died

in

1968. Both strips,

however,

continued

into the 1970s.

The Kin-der-Kids

was

created

by

painter and illustrator Lyonel

Feininger for

the Chicago Tribune

in

[16-18]

1906

at the suggestion

of

James

Keeley.

Keeley

undoubtedly

had

the

Katzenjammers

in

mind,

but

Feininger

wrought

a motley

crew of

kids

and adults and

put

them

into

uniquely

ludicrous

adventures. Feininger, bom

in

New

York

in 1871, had

been

given

a

musical

education

in Germany

by his

parents. In

1894

he

began

a

career

as

an

illustrator

for

magazines

there

and

in

France

and the

United

States. He quit the Kids

after

a

few months after

a

contractual

dispute

with

his publishers

and

pursued

a

suc-

cessful career

in

painting

until

his

death

in

1956.

King

Aroo

is one

of the

most

celebrated

strips

of the recent

past

in

the comics,

but

celebrated

[744-749]

largely

among

devotees

of

comics,

and appealing largely

to

members of the reader-

ship

that loved

Krazy

Kat,

Bamabij,

Togo, and Little

Nemo.

The

King

was the crea-

tion of

Jack

Kent,

bom

in

Burlington,

Iowa,

in

1920.

It

was

probably

Kent's lack

of

formal

art training that

led him

to

a

loose-lined

art st\'le,

with panels full of

characters

and activity.

It

was

surely

his

innate artistic

ability

that

kept those panels from

look-

ing

cluttered.

The strip

began

in

1950

in

national syndication

but was

discontinued

after

a

few years. It was kept on in

limited

syndication

until

1965

by

Stanleigh

Arnold's small

Golden Gate Features.

Today Kent devotes most of his time

to

chil-

dren's book illustration.

Krazy

Kat,

the

most

highly praised

of all

comic

strips,

was

begun

by

George Herriman

as

a cat-

[170-172; 726-733]

and-mouse

chase,

a part of

his

Dingbat

Family

strip. Krazy got

his

own strip

in

Octo-

ber

1913, and thus

the

imaginative

fantasy

life

of

Krazy and

Ignatz Mouse and

the

other

inhabitants

of Kokonino County

began. It

was

continued,

often

solely

because

William

Randolph

Hearst

liked

it although a mass

public did

not,

until

Herriman

died in

Los

Angeles

in

1944.

Herriman

had

been

bom

in

1880

in

New

Orleans but

was

raised in

Los

Angeles.

Estranged

from his family,

he

was drawing

cartoons

and

working

as an

office

boy at the

Los

Angeles

Herald

before

he

was

t\venty. He rode the

rails

to New

York and finally

landed

a

staff

cartoonist

job

at

the

World in

1901,

even-

tually

ending

up with

Hearst

for

whom

he did several

strips

before

settling

down to

Krazy

Kat alone.

Li'I

Abner

began with

almost

instant

success

in August

1934. Cartoonist

Al

Capp

(

Alfred

Cap-

[720-722]

lin),

whether

he

was

really aware of

it

or not, was

offering

his

own

feisty

variation

of

the favorite

American

story of

the

yokel

(or,

in

this

case, Yokum) who

exposes

the

foibles and

corruptions

of

the

city

slickers

simply

by

maintaining his

own

naivet^.

Capp, who

still

manages

to people his strip

with

memorably lampooned

characters

and

events

after

more than

forty

years,

was born

in

1909

in

New Haven, Connecticut,

to

a father who

wrote

and drew

his

own comics for

the

amusement

of his

family.

Capp attended a

number

of

art

schools

and did some work

at

the

Associated Press be-

fore he

became an assistant

of

Ham Fisher,

creator

oijoe Palooka.

Little

Joe

was

a

Sunday

feature

by Ed

Leffingwell, Harold Gray's

cousin,

assistant,

and

letterer

[438-439]

on

Little Orphan

Annie.

The story concerned a

thirteen-year-old

on

a

modem

cattle

ranch

owned

by

his

widowed

mother

and

managed

by

Utah,

a

cowhand

with a shady

past.

Gray

himself

wrote and

drew

much of

the strip. When Ed Leffingwell

died

his



brother,

Robert,

who

also

assisted

Gray,

took

over

as

Joe's

nominal

author.

The

strip

continued

into the late

1950s

in

both

the

Chicago

Tribune

and

New

York

Sunday

News comic

sections.

Little

Nemo

undoubtedly

grew out

of

Winsor McCay's

earlier

Dreams

of

a

Rarebit

Fiend

(

1904),

[11-14;

140-142] which

showed

the

nightmarish

results

of his

protagonist's

overeating.

Nemo

first

ap-

peared

as

Little Nemo in

Slumberland the

following year

in

the

New

York

Herald,

and

represented pictorially the

feelings

and

transformations

experienced in the

dreams

of

McCay's

boy

protagonist. When McCay

moved

to

Hearst's

papers

in

1911,

he

sim-

ply

retitled his feature

In

The

Land

of

Wonderful

Dreams

and

continued

Nemo's

nocturnal

adventures

until

1914. Nemo

reappeared

in 1924,

this

time

back in

the

Herald

(and,

of

course,

its

syndicate)

until 1927. McCay

was

born

in Spring

Lake,

Michigan,

in

1869

and

received

basic

art

instruction

from

a

teacher

in

Ypsilanti.

When

he

was

seventeen

he

was

in Chicago

seeking

more

instruction

but

working pro-

fessionally

on posters as

well.

He

began

as

a

cartoonist

on

the

Cincinnati

Enquirer

in

1903. McCay was

also

a

pioneer

in film

animation,

beginning

in 1909.

His

best-known

movie cartoon

is

Gertie the

Trained

Dinosaur,

but

he had

also

earher

filmed a

Nemo

fantasy.

Next

to

George

Herriman's,

McCay's comics

work has

probably received

the

widest

recognition

and

praise.

He died

in

1934.

Little

Orphan

Annie

reputedly

began

as

a

boy

in

Harold

Gray's

original conception,

and

was

changed

to

a

[644-672]

redheaded

orphan

girl

by

Joseph

Patterson

of

the

New

York News.

In

any

case,

her

narrative

began

in

1924 and lasted

beyond her

creator's

death

in

1968

in

contin-

uations

of

ever-decreasing

interest until

reprints of

Gray's

earlier

strips

replaced

them.

Gray

was born

in

Kankakee, Illinois,

in 1894 and

served

his

apprenticeship

assisting Sidney Smith

on

The

Gumps.

With

Annie

he

established

a

feature

of excep-

tional

narrative

interest

and pace.

Although,

of

course. Gray

did

use

assistants, he

hired

no ghosts

either

to

draw

or

plot

Annie,

and

maintained

his

personal interest

in

his

work

for

forty-five

years.

Mama's

Angel

Child,

Esther,

was

the

work of

Penny

Ross

of whom

little

is

known except

that

he was a

man,

[23]

and

that

he had

assisted

Outcault on

Buster

Brown

and

possibly

ghosted

that strip

on

occasion.

Maud

was established

as

And

Her

Name

Was

Maud as

a

topper

strip

to

Fred

Opper's

[8]

Happy Hooligan

in 1926. But the

character

of

the

grinning,

stubborn,

kicking

mule,

Maud,

had

been

used

by

Opper in his

earlier

strips. See

Happy

Hooligan.

Merely

Margy

began

as

Oh

Margy

in the

late

1920s and

was a

comics effort by

John

Held,

Jr.,

who

[161]

was and

is

best

known

for his

depiction

of

leggy, flat-chested

1920s

flappers. Bom

in 1889,

Held

was

from

Salt Lake City.

He

had

begun

as a

cartoonist

when

barely six-

teen, and had

also

been a

sports

page

and,

later,

magazine

illustrator on

Vanity

Fair

and

The New

Yorker.

Margy lasted

until 1935.

Held died in 1958,

having

long

since

turned

to

sculptiire.

Mickey

Mouse

was

not

the

first

star

of

animated

cartoons

to

gain a

strip

of

his

own,

but

he

had

one

[542-643]

by

January

1930.

Three

months

later,

when the

Walt

Disney studios

turned the

project

over

to

Floyd

Gottfredson,

and he

introduced

broadly

burlesqued

adventure

and

melodrama

as

its

basis,

the

strip

began to

thrive.

By the early

1950s,

however,

King

Features,

which

distributed

the

feature,

had

urged the

elimination of all

action-adven-

ture from

humor

strips,

and

Mickey

returned to

a

domestic

gag-a-day.

Gottfredson,

bom

in

1907

in

Kaysville, Utah,

was

delighted

with

the

comics

as

a

young

man, and

took

correspondence

courses

in

cartooning.

He

moved

to

Hollywood,

applied at Dis-

ney's,

and

was put

on

as

an

apprentice

animator.

Until

1938,

he

also did the

frequendy

charming

Mickey

Mouse

Sunday

color

strip.

Midsummer Day Dreams by

Winsor

McCay. See

Little Nemo.

[40]

Minute

Movies,

the

creation of

Edgar

Wheelan, began

as

Midget

Movies in

1918. It

not only

parodied

[191-196]

movie serials,

it also

helped

establish

the idea

of

continuity

in

the

daily

strip.



Wheelan

created his

own imaginary

studio and

stable

of

stereotypical

stars and

con-

tract players

(

Ralph

McSneer,

Hazel Deare). He

cast them

in

mysteries,

adventm-es,

love

stories,

and (later)

the

classics. The

strip lasted on the

comics pages

until

the

mid-1930s

(but

later

appeared

in

new

episodes

in

the Flash Comics

book).

Wheelan

was bom

in

San Francisco

in

1888,

and graduated

from Cornell.

His

mother

had

been

a

comic-strip

cartoonist,

and

he began with

the Hearst

papers

as

an

editorial

and

sports cartoonist. He died

in Florida in 1966.

Miss

Peach first

appeared

to

instant

success in 1957. Admittedly and obviously

inspired

in

part

by

[756]

Peanuts,

the feature

was

the

work

of

Mell

Lazarus,

bom

in

Brooklyn,

New

York,

in

1927,

where,

as

he

has

said, he hated

school

and even

flunked

art

in high

school.

See

Momma.

Momma

was

Mell

Lazarus's

second

successful strip,

introduced

in late

1970. A

comic-strip

ver-

[759]

sion

of

the

possessive,

manipulative

Jewish

mother,

if the temi is

taken to

mean

a

generic

and

descriptive

and not necessarily

ethnic

type. See

Miss Peach.

Moon

Mullins, Frank Willard's

winning

rogue,

put in

his

first

appearance

in the

Chicago

Tribune

in

[138-139;

221-277]

1923,

partly

as

an

answer

to Hearst's

success with Barney Google.

As the strip

accu-

mulated

characters

of

its

own

(

Kayo, Emmie

Schmaltz,

Lord Plushbottom, Mamie,

Uncle

^^'illie)

and a

narrative

pace of

its

own,

it became one of the classics of

the

comics page.

Willard

was

bom

in the

Chicago

area

in 1893,

the

son of a

physician,

and

he

early determined

to

become

a

cartoonist.

He

died

suddenly

in

1958.

His assist-

ant

(and sometime

ghost)

Ferd

Johnson

continued Moon, but

today

the

continui-

ties

of

its past

are

gone

and

it

is

a

gag

strip.

Mr. E.

Z.

Mark was

the

work of

F.

M. Howarth

(

1870 ?-1908),

whose

strip

drawing in

Puck

in

the

[32]

1890s

probably helped pave the

way

for

the

comic

strip.

In 1903

he

was

approached

by

William Randolph

Hearst

and the result

was the

Luhi

and Leander pages.

Howarth

never

employed

talk

balloons, even in the

Hearst

section.

Mr.

Jack,

James

Svvinnerton's humanized,

pop-eyed,

skirt-chasing tiger, first

appeared as a sep-

[33]

arate

feature in

late 1902 and

ran

almost

weekly

until

early

1904.

It was

revived

as

an

occasional

daily from 1912

to

1919,

only

to

be

revived

again

as

a

top

feature above

Little

Jimmy

in

the

1930s.

See

Jimmy.

Mr,

Twee Deedle

was

a Sunday

feature,

a

fantasy-fairy tale

for

small

children

by

Johnny

Gmelle,

crea-

[20]

tor

of

Raggedy

Ann. The

strip replaced

Little

Nemo in the

New

York Herald

when

Winsor

McCay moved

his feature

over

to

Hearst.

Gruelle, born

in

Illinois

but

raised

in

Indianapolis,

was

the

son of

a

landscape

painter,

and

was

a

cartoonist

with the

Indianapolis

Star

and

Cleveland

Press

when

still

in his

late teens.

He contributed

illustrations,

cartoons, and

children's

stories

to a number of

magazines,

and wrote the

Raggedy

books and others. Gruelle lived in

Connecticut

after 1910. He returned

to

the

comics with

the

Sunday

strip Brutus in

the

late

1930s. He

died in

Miami

in

1938.

Mutt

and

Jeff

began

as

A. Mutt,

when

H. C.

Bud Fisher

established

the

first continually

published

[28-29;

108-125; 136-137] six-days-a-week

strip

on the San Francisco

Chronicle

sports

page

on November

15,

1907.

Fisher,

born

in

Chicago in

1885,

left

for

a job at

the

Chronicle during his

third

year

at

the University

of Chicago.

His

unique

drawing

style and

comic

point of view

developed

quickly

during

the early years

when he did the strip

himself, moving

it

from

syndicate to syndicate

as the value

of

his services rose. Fisher

died

in 1954,

but

the strip

had by then been ghosted

for years.

And, of course, it

continues today.

Naps

of

Polly

Sleepyhead

was Peter Newell's

contribution

to

the

early

comics page. Newell,

better

known

for

[21]

his fanciful children's

books (Topsys and

Turvys,

The Hole Book, The

Slant

Book),

was

bom

in

Bashnell,

Illinois,

in

1862

and

was

largely self-taught,

although

he

did

some work

at

the

Art Students

League

in

New

York.

He

died

in

1927.

Naughty

Pete

was the

work of

Charles

Forbell,

who

was

best

known

for

his

cityscape and

architec-

[22]

tural

perspective drawings

in

Puck,

Life,

and

Judge.

It

appeared

in

Judge

from

after



1910

until

its demise

in

the late 1930s. The

&

A.C.

appended

to

Forbell's

name

(and

that

of other

cartoonists)

was for Arthur

Crawford,

a

cartoonist's

agent

and

gagman.

The

Newlyweds (or The

Newhjueds

and

Their

Baby)

was

the feature

which

George

McManus did

[19]

for Pulitzer's

VV'orW

between

1904

and

1912.

When

he

moved

over to

Hearst in

that

latter

year, McManus

renamed

the feature

Their Onhj Child.

When

his Bringing

Up

Father

had

established itself

by

1918,

he

discontinued Their

Only

Child. But in the

1930s, he

brought

it

back on Sundays

as

Snookutns,

a

cofeature

to

Maggie and

Jiggs.

See

Bringing

Up

Father.

Nibsy

the

Newsboy,

another

early George McManus feature,

appeared

in

the

New York

World between

[15]

April 1905 and

late

Jul\'

1906.

Nibsy's

imagination could turn any

New York street

into

'Funny

Fairyland

and a kind

of

lower-class

takeoff

on

Little

Nemo.

See

Bringing

Up

Father.

Nize

Baby,

by Milt

Gross

(his first

Sunday

color page),

appeared

in

the

New

York World (and

[716]

its syndicate

)

between

1927

and 1929.

However,

the

wild

adventures

of

the

nefarious

infant

and

Looy Dot

Dope

were

abandoned by

the

restlessly

inventive

Gross for

Count Screwloose.

Old

Doc

Yak

was

Sidney

Smith's

very

successful

transformation

of

his

Buck

Nix when

he

moved

[

103-107]

from

the

Chicago Examiner

to

the

Chicago Tribune.

See The Gumps

and

Buck Nix.

Our Boarding House,

with the

braggart

Major Hoople,

began

in

1923

as

a

single

daily

panel in

comics

form

[497-504]

for Newspaper

Enterprise Association.

On his

Sunday

page, the

Major

(in

true

strip

form

)

was

joined

by

the

top-of-the-page

Nut

Brothers

(

Ches

and

Wall

)

in

a

surreal

comic

fantasy.

The

strips

were

the

creation

of

Gene

Ahem, born

on

Chicago's

South

Side

in 1895.

He

attended the

Chicago

Art

Institute

for

three

years,

hoping

simply

to

acquire enough technique

to

become

a

funny

cartoonist. Ahem

moved

to

King

Fea-

tures in

1936,

doing

a variant

of

the

same

Boarding

House strip

as

Room and

Board,

while

his former syndicate continued

Our

Boarding

House,

and

does still.

Ahem

died

in 1960.

Out

Our

Way

began national distribution

in

November

1921

as

a

single-panel,

daily

feature

and

[175-178]

soon

developed

a

set

of

memorable

recurring characters

and

a

unique comic

view-

point.

The

author was

J.

R.

\MUiams,

born

in

Nova

Scotia

in 1888

of

American par-

ents, and raised in

Detroit. He

left

home

to

shift

for

himself

in

his

mid-teens,

worked

the railroads, and

did

a

hitch in the

cavalry

before

settling into a

factory job,

where

he did

his

first

cartooning for

the

company's

catalog. After

Williams's

death

in

1957

his

drawings

were

frequently

reissued

by

his

syndicate, NEA,

while his

former

assis-

tant,

Ned

Cochran, contributed

new ones

to

the

series.

Peanuts, introduced

on October

2,

1950,

by

Charles

Schulz,

revived interest

in

the

humor strip,

[742-743]

recast the

size

and

shape

of strips

and the

format

of

the

comics

page,

and

became

one

of

the

great

success stories of

the

comics.

Schulz

was

bom

in

Minneapolis

in 1922

and studied

art

by

a

correspondence

course

before he

graduated

from high

school. He

had

placed

a

few

gag

panel

cartoons

in

newspapers

and

the

Saturday

Evening

Post

before

finally

placing

his

strip,

which

he

originally

wanted

to

call

L'il

Folks,

with

United

Features

Syndicate.

Pogo,

by

ex-Disney

animator

Walt Kelly,

actually

began as

a

feature in

Animal

Comics

in

[734-737]

1943 under the

title

Bumbazine

and

Albert

the

Alligator.

In

it,

Pogo the

Possum was

initially

a

minor

character

at

best.

Very soon

the

clownish

Albert

was

more

promi-

nently

featured,

Bumbazine (a

boy)

dropped

out, and

Pogo got

a

bigger

role. By the

time

that

Kelly

moved

the

feature

to

newspaper

format

in

the

short-lived

New

York

Star in 1948,

it

had

become

simply

Pogo,

and in

it

humanized

animals daily

drama-

tized

the

idiosyncrasies of

their

human

counterparts. The

political

spoofs for

which

the

strip

probably

became

best

known

in

the

mid-1950s

had

actually

been impUcit

somewhat

earlier. (

See

nos.

734-737)

Kelly

was

bom

in

Philadelphia

in

1913,

the

son

of

a

painter

of

theatrical

scenery.

He

had been a

reporter

and

cartoonist

for the



Bridgeport

Post just

out

of

high school.

When Kelly

died in

1973, Pogo

was

briefly

continued by

others

but

was

soon

withdrawn

h\ Kelly's widow,

who

devotes

herself

to

editing books

which

collect his

work.

Polly and

Her Pals

(at first

Positive

Polly in

1912)

was begun

as one

of

several

daughter

strips

of

the

[130-135]

period. Its

author

was

Cliff

Sterrett,

bom

in

Fergus Falls,

Minnesota, in 1883.

He

at-

tended the

Chase Arts

School

in

New York for two

years, and

he

began

as

a staff

artist

for

the New

York

Herald in

1904,

moving

to

the Titnes

in

1908. However,

Sterrett

wanted

to

be a

cartoonist,

and

three

years

later

he

began

four different

strips

for

the

New

York

Evening

Telegram.

Settling

on

Pollij,

he

gradually

developed one

of

the

most

whimsically individual

graphic st\les

in

the comics

section,

particularly

on

his

Sunday

color work.

He

and

Polly

retired

in

1958 and

he

died December

28,

1964.

Popeye. See

Thimble Theatre.

Prince

Valiant

began

in

1937 as

a

carefully

researched,

meticulously

illustrated

Sunday

saga of imag-

[431

]

inary Arthurian

times.

It was

created

by

Harold

R.

Hal

Foster, bom

in Nova

Scotia

in

1892. In

1921 the

ambitious young

Foster

bicycled his

vva\'

to

Chicago,

to

the

Art

In-

stitute,

National

Academy

of Design,

and

Chicago

.Academy

of

Fine

Arts. He was

an

established

advertising

illustrator when the syndicators

of a

new

Tarzan

text-and-

illustration

strip

approached

him.

Foster

did

the first daily

Tarzan

sequence

in

early

1929 and later

did

the

Sunday

episodes

from

1931

until

he began

Prince Valiant.

He

retired

from the

drawing

of

Prince

Valiant in 1971

but continued to

plot

his

tale.

See

Tarzan.

Sam's

Strip, unsuccessful

with

the

public, was

a

well-remembered

effort to make

a

comic

strip

[761-763]

which

fondly

spoofed

the

conventions, characters,

and

histor>'

of

comic

strips.

Mort

\\'alker

conceived

the idea

with

Jerr\'

Dumas, who

did

the

art. Dumas,

bom

in

Detroit

in

1930, had

very

little

formal

training,

but

has

been

cartooning steadily

since

his school

days. He assists

on most of the

Walker

strips,

lettering, pencifing,

inking.

See

Beetle

Bailey and Hi

and Lois.

School

Days was

one of several

Sunday

and daily strips by

Clare

Victor Dwiggins (1874-1959)

[26-27; 197-208]

which

depicted

the

almost idyllic small

town life of

a

group of

school boys. One

of

his

strips was

an authorized version of Mark

Twain's

Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn. Dwig-

gins was

himself

bom

in

mral Ohio and attended country schools. He undertook

car-

tooning while

working

as an architectural draftsman. He drew

School

Days from 1917

to 1932. Between

1945

and his death, Dwiggins

worked

as a book

illustrator.

Secret Agent X-9 was

begun

by

Hearst's King

Features

Syndicate

in

1932 as one of several efforts to

[475-478]

answer

the

success of

the

Chicago Tribune-New

York

Daily News detective feature,

Dick

Tracy.

The

syndicate hired mystery

writer

Dashiell Hammett

to

plot

(he

did

the

first

four

sequences) and Ale.x

Raymond

to illustrate.

The

strip

has

been

through

numerous transmutations

since that time,

with

various

writers and illustrators

con-

tributing.

It

continues

today

as

Secret

Agent

Corrigan.

See

Flash

Cordon.

Sherlocko

the Monk was

Gus

Mager's

Holmes

burlesque,

later transformed

into

Hawkshaw

the

Detec-

[36]

five.

See the

latter

and also

Braggo

the

Monk.

Skippy

began

his cartoon

Hfe in

the pages of

the

old

humor magazine

Life

as

a

somewhat

sar-

[

174]

donic

ten-year-old

commentator

on the

passing

scene and the

world

adults had

made.

In

1928,

Skippy

became

a King

Features

comic

strip,

daily and Sunday,

and

contin-

ued

until

Percy Crosby

withdrew

the feature

in

1943,

in

protest

against its

unauthor-

ized

commercial

use.

Crosby,

whose

drawing

style

was

always closer

to

sketch-illus-

tration

than cartoon,

was born

in

Brooklyn, New York,

in

1891 and did

newspaper

and

strip

work

on the

New

York

World

and

for

the

McClure

Syndicate

before

Skippy

at-

tracted

the

attention of

King

Featiires.

He

died

in

1964.

Slim

Jim,

an

early

and all-but-forgotten

strip, was drawn

variously

by

several

cartoonists,

most

[30]

notably

by

its originator,

Charles Frink

(who

died

in

1912),

and

his

successor,

Ray-



mond Ewer,

who contributed

our

fine

selection

here. Slim

Jim

began

as

Circus

Solly

in

1910, and

continued

until

1937,

mostly distributed to rural

papers.

S'Matter

Pop?

was

one of

several

similar

titles assigned

to the

best-known

strip

of

Charles

M.

Payne.

[39;

160]

Payne

was born

in

Queenstown, Pennsylvania, in

1873. He

hung

around the

offices

of

the

Pittsburgh

Post

and offered

cartoon

ideas while still

a

teenager;

later,

he

was

hired

by the

paper as a

staff

cartoonist.

S'Matter

Pop?,

notable for

Payne's

decorative

use

of

the

page

as

well

as

its humor,

began

in

the

New

York World

in

1919

and

con-

tinued

for thirty

years.

Payne died in poverty

and obscurity

in New

York

in

1964,

the

victim

of

a

mugging.

See

Bear Creek

Folks.

The

Smythes

was

a

Sunday feature in

the

New York

Herald

Tribune (and

its

syndicate) by

New

[126-127]

Yorker illustrator and art editor Rea

Irvin (1881-1972).

Irvin was

from San

Fran-

cisco

and was

an established

magazine

illustrator

and

cartoonist

both before

and

after

his

stylized

interlude

on the

comics page.

Somebody's

Stenog,

distributed

by the

Philadelphia

Public

Ledger's syndicate,

was one

of

the best

of

sev-

[162]

eral working

girl strips that

began in

the

late

1910s.

It

was

the

work

of

A.

H.

Hay-

ward,

who

was hired

away from

the

New

York

Herald

by

the

Ledger.

The

strip

lasted

into the

late 1940s.

Stumble

Inn was another of

George

Herriman's

early

strips.

See Krazy

Kat.

[78-83]

Tarzan,

Edgar

Rice

Burroughs's

jungle

lord—

a

titled

English heir

raised

from

infancy

by

a

[429]

tribe

of

African

great

apes

—

entered

the

comics

page

via

a

daily

illustration-and-text

strip rendered by

Hal

Foster

in

early

1928.

Foster also

did

the Sunday

version

be-

tween 1931

and

1937,

including

the

much

celebrated

Lost

Egyptians

sequence. See

Prince

Valiant.

Terry and

the

Pirates

began in late

1934,

the

work of

Milton

Caniff who

revitalized

the style

of

newspaper

[673-687]

adventure

strips

with his

effective use

of impressionist

graphic

techniques

and his

somewhat

exotic

adventure

narrative.

Caniff

was born

in

Hillsboro,

Ohio,

in 1907.

He

had

done

several

features,

most

notably

Dickie

Dare, before

approaching

Captain

Joseph

Patterson

of

the

New

York

News

with

Terry.

The

strip

was

his

answer

to

Patterson's

expressed

desire

for a

blood

and

thunder suspense

adventure

strip

with

a

juvenile

angle. Terry

was

taken over by

George

Wunder

when

Caniff began

Steve

Canyon

in

early

1947.

Texas

Slim and

Dirty Dalton,

a

Sunday-only slapstick

cowboy strip,

was

the

work

of

Ferd

Johnson,

who

otherwise

[740]

assisted

Frank

Willard

on

Moon Mullins

( and

continued that

latter

strip

after

Wil-

lard's

death )

.

Johnson

was bom

in

1905

in

Spring

Creek,

Pennsylvania,

and

was

draw-

ing

published

cartoons before

he

entered

high

school.

He

attended

the

Chicago

Aca-

demy of

Fine Arts

in 1923,

but

his first job

resulted

from

his

spending

most

of

his

time

hanging

around

the

cartoonist's

desk

at

the

Tribune,

where

he

attracted

Wil-

lard's sympathetic

attention.

Texas Slim

began

in

1925.

Thimble

Theatre,

by

E.

C.

Segar, is

one

of the

most

celebrated

comic-adventure

strips.

It began

as

Wil-

[443-474]

liam

Randolph

Hearst's

idea of

one

way

to

replace

his

recently

lost

Minute

Movies.

It

was

the

work of

Elzie

Crisler

Segar,

bom

in

Chester,

Illinois,

in

1894,

the

son

of a

house

painter. He

diligently

taught

himself

to

draw,

with

the

help

of

a

cor-

respondence

school

course,

and

presented

himself

at the

Chicago

Herald,

where he

got

his

first

work. Once

founded,

Thimble

Theatre

developed a set

of

mnning

char-

acters,

chiefly

the

spinsterish

Olive

Oyl

and

her

husthng

brother.

Castor.

Popeye

the

Sailor first

appeared

in

an

adventure

in

January

1929,

and

immediately

captivated

the

strip's

growing

audience, as

well as

its

author.

A

series

of

memorable

adventures

and

characters

(J.

Wellington

Wimpy,

the

Sea

Hag, Alice

the

Goon,

the

Jeep)

fol-

lowed. Segar

generally

kept

the

story

continuity

in

his daily

episodes

separate

and

used

his

Sunday

pages

for

self-contained

gags.

On

the

one

occasion

when

he

broke

with

that

practice,

he

produced the

masterly

Plunder

Island

adventure which is



reproduced

here.

Segar

died

in late

1938.

His

feature has been

continued

since

by

others, but

usually

with

quite

different

intention

and

quality.

Toonerville

Folks,

Fontaine

Fox,

Jr.'s

daily

panel

and

Sunday

strip on

the

engaging

eccentrics who

in-

[209-220;

442]

habited his

imaginary,

then

still

semirural

suburbs,

was begun

in

early 1915. The

vignettes of the

trolley's

Skipper,

the tough

kid Mickey

Himself McGuire,

the

ter-

rible-tempered

Mr. Bang,

and the rest,

lasted until

1955. Fo.\, born in 1884

in

Louis-

ville,

Kentucky,

went

to work

for

the

Louisville

Courier

right

out

of

high

school, do-

ing reporting and

cartoon work. He

later

briefly attended

the

University of

Indiana,

but dropped

out

to

become a

full-time

cartoonist.

Toonerville

Folks

began in

the

Chicago

Post

before the

Wheeler

Syndicate

distributed it

nationally. Fox died

in

1964.

Tumbleweeds

is the

work of

Tom

K.

Ryan, born

in

Anderson,

Indiana,

in

1926,

who

always

wanted

[750-751]

to

be

a cartoonist.

He began

in

commercial

art, read

Western novels, and

eventually

did

a

burlesque

Western

comic

strip.

Tumbleweeds

began

modestly

in

1965 and

has

built

gradually

in

popularity

since.

Wash

Tubbs, b\'

Roy

Crane, began

as

Washington

Tubbs

II

in

1924.

See

Captain Easy.

[320-426]

White Boy

first

appeared as a

Sunday, half-page

strip

in

the Chicago

Tribune in 1933

and sub-

[440-441]

sequently

also

in

the

New

York

Daily

News.

The

strip,

initially

concerning

a

white

youngster

captured by

an

Indian tribe

in the

late

nineteenth century,

went

through

several

changes of focus,

format, and even

historical

time.

In them,

fantasy

narrative

switched

to

realism,

switched

to

gags, and

back

again,

possibly

in

efforts

to

appeal

to

juvenile

readers. The

feature

was the

work of Garrett Price, best

known for

his

illu-

strations for

magazine fiction

and his New

Yorker

cartoons.

White Boy became

SkuU

Valley toward the

end

and

disappeared

in

August

1936. Price,

bom

in

Bucyrus,

Kansas,

graduated

from the

University of

Wyoming and

the

Art

Institute

of

Chicago,

and

continued

art

studies

in

France.

The

Wizard

of

Id

is

the

collaborative

effort

of

Brant

Parker (ideas and

drawing) and

Johnny

Hart

[757]

(ideas).

Parker,

a

Californian born

in

Los

Angeles

in 1920,

was

a

Disney

cartoonist

and

later

an

illustrator for

International

Business

Machines.

He

judged

an

art

show

in Endicott,

New

York, that

included

the

work of

a

highschooier named

Johnny

Hart

in the

late

1940s

and a

friendship

developed.

The vaguely

medieval

Wizard first ap-

peared

in

1964.







Bill

Blackbeard

is the

director

of

tlio Sail Fran-

cisco Academy

of

Comic

Art,

a

nonprofit

educa-

tional institution

devoted

to

the study

of popu-

lar

narrative arts. Tlie

strips reproduced in this

collection

were obtained from

its

archives.

Black-

beard

founded

the academy

in

1967

in

the

course of planning

a

book on the comic

strip,

after

discovering

to

his dismay

that there were

only

a

few

books,

superficial

and inadefjuatc,

existing

in

the

complex comic-strip field.

To

properly prepare

his

work,

he

was

forced

to

create his own public

research

and study center,

accumulating what is

now

a

vast

collection of

bound

newspaper

files,

popular fiction

and car-

toon

periodicals, books in all genres

of

fiction

and associated

background

data,

and literally

millions

of

comic-strip episodes.

Blackbeard

has written and edited

extensively

in

the narrative arts

fields, including

many ar-

ticles and

books.

He prepared a

sizable number

of

the

entries

in

the recent

World

Encyclopedia

of

Comics (Chelsea

House). Blackbeard

is now

editing

a

series

of

fifty

or

more

reprint volumes

of classic

comic

strips in

complete sequences,

starting

with the

earliest

daily strips

of

worth

(

Hyperion

Press

),

and

is

also

preparing a

factual

and critical

history of

the

comic

strips

(

Oxford

)

for

which

much of

the

contents

of

this

Smith-

sonian

volume

will

serve

as

illustration.

Martin

Williams

has

been

an

English

teacher

(Columbia

University)

aiKl book

editor (Mac-

millan),

but

most of

his

time has

been

spent

as

a

critic of

the popular

and

performing

arts. He

has written

on literature

(including children's),

theater,

films, radio,

television—

and

comic strips.

Chiefly,

his

work

has

been

in jazz.

As

editor, his

books include

Tlw

Art

of

Jazz

(Oxford) and

Jazz

Panorama

(Collier);

as author,

Where's

the

Melody? A Listener's

Introduction

to Jazz

(

Pantheon

)

;

Jazz

Masters

of

New Orleans

( Mac-

millan

)

;

The

Jazz

Tradition

(

Oxford

)

; and Jazz

in

Transition

(Macmillan). He has written on

jazz for

dozens

of

magazines

and

newspapers

and

was

for nine

years the

regular

jazz

critic

for

the

Saturday Review.

Since

1971

Williams

has been the

director of

the

Jazz

and

Popular Culture Program of

the

Division

of Performing Arts,

Smithsonian Institu-

tion,

where

he

produced the much

acclaimed

record

album

The

Smithsonian

Collection

of

Classic

Jazz.

Needless

to

say,

Williams is also a

comics

aficionado.

Documents

The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics