Stripper's Guide

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2009-07-12T09:03:00.004-05:00

As mentioned in this episode of Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics, Jim submitted a strip called The Retreads to syndicates. He'd been told by someone at a syndicate that a retiree strip would probably be a big hit since the audience of newspaper readers just keeps skewing older and older.

Unfortunately The Retreads didn't sell, so we'll 'print' it here for the first time ever over the coming weeks. Yo syndicates, it's still available!

Mystery Strips of E&P - "P" Listings

2009-07-09T15:39:00.002-05:00

As you'll no doubt recall from previous installments of this series, the following features were all listed in the Editor & Publisher annual Syndicate Directory listings. Problem is that I have not been able to find these ones in any American newspaper. I'm looking for positive proof that (1) these features did indeed exist, (2) they are actually comics of some sort and weren't just mislabeled in E&P, and (3) they ran in U.S. newspapers. If you have any information about any mystery strip on this list please, please, please tell me all about it. And if you can provide positive proof that the mystery feature did indeed run in U.S. newspapers (a tearsheet is ideal proof) and qualifies for listing in the Stripper's Guide index, you can be the recipient of a goodie box chock full of all manner of comic strip ephemera -- could be reprint books, old tearsheets, magazines, original art or all of the above. Trust me that my goodie boxes do not disappoint!

If you prefer to contact me privately rather than posting a comment on the blog, send it to stripper@rtsco.com. Please be sure to mention Stripper's Guide in your subject line or I may miss your message in amongst all the spam.

Here's the mystery features starting with letter "P" as in "please get me off this list!". Each listing has the title, years advertised, creator(s), syndicate and format. Sorry, I'd put these in a more attractive tabular form, but Blogger plays havoc with tables:

P.J. Abominable, 1968, John Gallagher, United Feature Syndicate, daily strip
The PO Box, 1993-97, Earl T. Musick, self-syndicated, weekly
Pa and Abie, 1926, Russell, Wheeler-Nicholson, daily strip
Pa and Ma, 1926, Voorhees, John F. Dille, daily strip
Padded Cell, 1942, Charles J. Dunn, Watkins Syndicate, daily panel
Paddy Pigg, 1937, Richard Decker, Allied Features, daily and Sunday strip
A Page For Every Age, 1936, G. Melikov, Nu-Way Features, weekly strip
Pan-Dee-Monium, 1982, Jackson Gray, Mid-Continent Features, daily strip
Pandora, 1948, Kaye Spence, Press Features, daily panel
Panel of Fun, 1939, C. Decker, Bell SYndicate, daily panel
Pantomime, 1975, Sara Black, Spadea Syndicate, daily panel
Paperclips, 1981, Doug Brunner, Community Features, thrice weekly
Paradise Park, 1994-99, R. Claude, Singer Media, weekly strip
Parents Plus, 1968-69, Justin Manning, Four Corners Syndicate, weekly panel
Parking Space, 1931, Russell Askue, McClure Syndicate, daily panel
Party Gators, 1998-2004, Elaine Sandra Abramson, A&A, weekly strip
Party Ranks, 1986-87, Mike Pascal and Joe Stuart, JSA Publications, daily/weekly strip
Pat the Paris Shopper, 1932-35, Joan Carson, John F. Dille, daily strip (fashion feature?)
Patent Nonsense, 1999, Roy Doty, Paradigm-TSA, daily strip
The Patsy, 1933-34, Irma Harms, Thompson Service, daily strip
Patterson's People, 1968-73, Gene Patterson, Allied Features, daily panel
Patty Lee, 1933, Edwin Finch, Henle Features, daily
Peanut Butter Soup, 1990-92, Joe Amadeo and Tom Kerr, Syndicated News Service, weekly
Pebbles, 1951, Henry Boye, McClure Syndicate, daily panel
Pee Wee's Pencil, 1979, Joe Rice, Copley News Service, daily and Sunday panel
Peeping Tom, 1981, C. Crist, Globe Syndicate, weekly strip
Peg, Ann & Barbara, 1928-30, Mabel Whitney, International Syndicate, daily panel
The Pennypockets, 1939, Wes Dennis, Consolidated News Features, daily strip
People & Things, 1940, Prescott Chaplin, Bell Syndicate, daily/weekly strip (likely illustrated column)
PeraNormal, 1996-98, Jim Pera, Second Ring Syndicate, weekly strip
Percy's World, 1961, Howie Schneider, Page One Syndicate, daily strip
Perfect Couple, 1986, Rick Geary, Copley News Service, twice weekly strip
Peter Panic, 1973-2003, Lo Linkert, Singer Media, daily/weekly panel
Peter Pupp, 1937-39, Bob Kane, Eisner-Iger Associates, weekly strip
Petey, 1935, Lou Darvas, Thompson Service, daily panel
Pews, 1982-85, Joe McKeever, Copley News Service, daily/weekly panel
Phil Ossifer, 1934-36, Clyde Campbell and O. DeCaillet, Thompson Service, daily panel
Phillip's Flock, 1968-85, Doc Goodwin, Dispatch Features, Sunday strip (presumably originated at Columbus Dispatch)
Phoney Photos, 1925, Bret Hart Jr., Readers Syndicate, daily panel
Phrog, 1985-86, George Albitz, Al Smith Service, weekly strip
Phyllis, 1939, Bernard Baily, Keystone Press Features, daily strip
Pig Newton, 1983, Mal Hancock, Field Newspaper Syndicate, daily panel/Sunday strip
Pilot Storm, 1959-72, Henk Sprenger, Douglas Whiting, daily strip (Dutch - appeared in U.S.?)
Pinhead Pete, 1928-31, uncredited, Premier Syndicate, weekly panel
Pinny and his Pals, 1937, Barney Bravman, Foreign Press Syndicate, daily/weekly strip
Pipe Dreams, 1957-63, Rud, Sun News Features, daily/Sunday panel
The Pit, 1957, Morris Turner, Pioneer Press Service, daily panel
Pixel, 1985, Frank Hill and Ted Mancuso, Al Smith Service, weekly strip
Playmates, 1924-25, Lloyd Jones and H.F. Voorhees, John F. Dille, daily strip
Plympton, 1978-81, Bill Plympton, self-syndicated/Universal Press Syndicate, weekly-4 times weekly panel (possibly political cartoon)
Pollutocrats, 1972, Larkin and Gordon, Allied Feature Syndicate, daily panel
Polly Esther, 1971, Ed McNally, Chicago Tribune-NY News Syndicate, daily panel
Polymericks, 1978, Steve McKinstry, Enterprise Features, 3 times weekly panel
Ponder This, 1965, Leonard Andrews, Chicago Tribune-NY News Syndicate, daily
Poor Little Rich Man, 1948, Courtney Dunkel, Chicago Tribune-NY News Syndicate, daily panel
Pop Winters, 1935, Cliff Knight, Triton Syndicate, daily panel
Possum Holler, 1936, Boody Rogers, McClure SYndicate, daily strip
Pre-Columbian Mysteries, 1976, Mario Bertolini, Ed Marzola & Associates, daily strip
Prince, 1986, Winthrop Prince, Chronicle Features, weekly panel
Private Stuff, 1953, Jack O'Brien, Editors Syndicate, daily panel
Professor Naturebug, 1971, John Hazlett and Edward Thomas, Dispatch Features, Sunday strip
Professor Pi, 1959-72, V.T.Born, Douglas Whiting, daily strip (Dutch - appeared in U.S.?)
Professor Unquote, 1948, Bill Henry, Globe Syndicate, daily strip
Proven Proverbs, 1962, Bill Zaboly and William Davy, Select Features, daily panel
Pud, 1989-98, Steven Nease, Southam Syndicate/Liberty Features, daily strip (Canadian - appeared in U.S.?)
Punch Line, 1975-78, Palbo, Community Press Service, weekly panel
Punchline, 1995-96, Tim Newlin, self-syndicated, Sunday strip
Punchy and Judy, 1945, Loy Byrnes, NY Post, daily strip
Puzzy, 1953, Jack Fitch, Editors Syndicate, daily panel

Obscurity of the Day: It Happened In Birdland

2009-07-08T07:40:00.004-05:00

Fired by his successful introduction of the Weatherbird feature at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Horace B. "Harry" Martin set his sights on New York. He arrived in 1903 and, surprisingly enough, immediately got a job with the Hearst papers (which is odd since the P-D is a Pulitzer paper -- you would have thought he'd go to work for the World). Other than a few Pulitzer jobs Martin spent most of the next decade turning out material for Hearst, none of it to any particularly great renown.

His longest-running feature was It Happened In Birdland, a return to the Weatherbird character that had spurred his ambition in the first place. As you can see from the samples above the strip was often an accompaniment to a sports editorial cartoon.

When the feature debuted on April 12 1907 in the Evening Journal it was titled A Little Bird Told Him To, but that title was dropped in favor of It Happened In Birdland on April 29. As was typical for the day, though, the feature was often untitled or had a one-off title of the day.

The initial run of the strip ended January 16 1908, and Martin did no series at all for over a year (his sports cartoon may have continued, but my files are mute on that question). Then on February 26 1909 the strip reappeared, this time running on the center stage of the New York American. There the strip ran until September 7 1909.

Thanks again to Cole Johnson, the scanning demon, for these samples.

Obscurity of the Day: The Cynic's Corner

2009-07-07T08:25:00.004-05:00

We seem to be in 'lesser-known brother' mode here at Stripper's Guide this week. The Cynic's Corner was penned not by Phil Interlandi, the famed Playboy cartoonist, but brother Frank.

Frank was primarily an editorial cartoonist; he worked for the Des Moines Register in the fifties, and then the LA Times in the sixties. Unfortunately I lose track of his career after that -- anyone know what Frank was up to later on?

The Cynic's Corner was drawn using a fascinating double-line technique. I've seen cartoonists employ similar conceits, but Frank Interlandi really used it to great advantage -- the cartoons just seem to pop right off the page. Combine that interesting art with the delightfully pungent gag lines and you have to wonder why in the world this is an obscurity.

My guess is that the Register and Tribune Syndicate's salesmen just didn't push the feature. Perhaps they though the cartoon series was just a sop to the staff editorial cartoonist and of little consequence. 'Tis a shame.

The Cynic's Corner, which was often run as an untitled feature (and the listings in E&P didn't suggest a name) ran from October 12 1953 until sometime in 1956.

Obscurity of the Day: Peter Popple the Prize Pilgrim

2009-07-06T07:10:00.005-05:00

The Glackens brothers, Louis and William, were both prolific, well-known and respected newspaper and magazine illustrator/cartoonists. Amazingly enough, though, between the two of them there was just one newspaper comic strip series, Peter Popple the Prize Pilgrim.

Louis M. Glackens is responsible for their only entry in Stripper's Guide and he was definitely the less famous of the pair. While William was getting out of the newspaper business in favor of fine art, and making a major name for himself as one of the original Ashcan artists, Louis stuck to cartooning primarily as a regular at the humor magazine Puck. When the magazine hit the skids in the 1910s he shifted his focus to animation work.

Louis' only foray into the newspaper comic strip series field was done far away from his regular stomping grounds of New York and Philadelphia. Perhaps this series, done for the Boston Herald, was his way of testing this new sort of material on the road.

Glackens' Boston Herald strip follows the pattern set by that syndicate of choosing their material based entirely on the quality of the art. Peter Popple, like most Herald strips of the era, was nice to look at but a real stinker in the writing department. The strip was set in pilgrim days and concerns a tubby dullard kid named Peter and his father, Jabez. Jabez is the strict disciplinarian who always manages to make a fool of himself while trying to catch Peter in mischief. The strip, other than the era in which it's set, shares a lot in common with the long-running Boston Globe strip, Fatty Spilliker.

Peter Popple the Prize Pilgrim didn't impress anyone in Boston, despite the traditional Boston setting. The strip ran from May 6 to August 26 1906.

Thanks to Cole Johnson for the scans!

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2009-07-05T06:49:00.002-05:00

Jim Ivey's new book, Graphic Shorthand, is available from Lulu.com for $19.95 plus shipping, or you can order direct from Ivey for $25 postpaid. Jim Ivey teaches the fundamentals of cartooning in his own inimitable style. The book is 128 pages, coil-bound. Send your order to:

Jim Ivey
5840 Dahlia Dr. #7
Orlando FL 32807

Also still available, Jim Ivey's career retrospective Cartoons I Liked, available on Lulu.com or direct from Jim Ivey for $20 postpaid. When ordered from Ivey direct, either book will include an original Ivey sketch.

Herriman Saturday

2009-07-04T09:04:00.004-05:00

Thursday, September 19 1907 -- George Memsic is training for his fight with Joe Gans. If Herriman's depiction of Memsic's camp boxing ring looks a little off-kilter, don't blame the cartoonist. The makeshift training facility was too small and the ring had to be abbreviated into a sort of triangle shape.

Thursday, September 19 1907 -- A convention of the American Press Humorists is in town, and Herriman (referred to as "George the Greek" in the article) accompanies the funnymen on an outing to Mount Lowe just outside LA. They are:

William Hamilton Cline, a local press humorist whose only notable credit seems to be that he translated a book of Russian short stories. He was active in L.A. from the 1890s to at least the 1920s.

William J. Lampton, Kentucky-bred humorist and poet, he worked for the New York Sun. He died in 1917.

Fred W. Shaefer, the only fellow depicted with a cartooning background, he did the writing on several comic strip series for NEA in the 1910s. He was a Cleveland staple for decades.

T. Augustine Daly was one of those dialect poets who proliferated in the era. He specialized in Italian and Irish-accented verse.

Frank Searight, president of the APH, seems to have as his most notable achievement writing a lurid account of the Great San Francisco earthquake. It was rushed to press and sold briskly as a cheap paperback.

I can't find any information on J.M. Lewis or Dunk Smith.

News of Yore 1950: Beetle Bailey Debuts

2009-07-03T09:09:00.004-05:00

New King Comic Strip Has College Locale
By Jane McMaster (E&P, 8/12/50)

Mort Walker, whose "Beetle Bailey" may be unique in its status of a comic about college life,
is not so far removed from his subject. He finished at the University of Missouri in 1948 after an Army stint interrupted his studies.

The chief character in his daily gag strip, which King Features offers for Sept. 4 release, is an eyeless wonder (his hat covers his peepers) fashioned somewhat after a Kappa Sig fraternity brother of the cartoonist's. (The brother picked up the name of "Spider" after some tall climbing one night of exuberance.)

Anti-study, and regularly mooching off his freshman roommate, Beetle turned up first in the Saturday Evening Post about a year and a half ago. The advice of the Satevepost cartoon editor: "Draw what you know" resulted in more of the same, and eventually, the comic strip.

Authentic Collegiana
With a locale of Rockview University, the strip may cause waves of nostalgia among Missouri grads who will recognize "the Shack," student hangout made out of an old railroad car, and other spots. The 26-year-old cartoonist calls his background authentic collegiana: he's made a study and they all have equivalents of the shack; ivy, arbored walks, etc., he says.

Characters or composites of characters he's known people the feature in his effort to achieve life-likeness, says the artist. A basic realism pointed up with satire and slapstick humorous poses, and universal situations are some of his goals.

The cartoonist seems to have been something of a child prodigy in his field. He sold his first cartoon at 11 to Child Life magazine. At 14, he sold to Inside Detective, Flying Aces and others. At 15 he drew a once-a-week comic strip, "The Lime Juicers," for the Kansas City Journal for 20 weeks before the paper's demise. At 16, he was an editorial designer for Hallmark cards.

An attempt to major in journalism at college was foiled presumably because he lacked the proper courses for the first two years. But the cartoonist darkly hints his post as editor of "The Missouri Showme," humor magazine, probably considered the outhouse of journalism, had something to do with it.

Gag Panels in Magazines
Coming to New York in 1948, he began selling gag panels to the big magazines: Satevepost, Collier's and This Week, among others.

Almost painfully interested in verisimilitude for his strip, Mr. Walker admits pouring over old annuals, "Showme's" and other mementoes in an effort to recall the flavor of those salad days. His wife Jean, who was a classmate, helps on ideas.

Both cartoonist and syndicate feel the strip has comic appeal that goes beyond the ivied walls. Says King comics editor Sylvan Byck: "We think teen-agers will like it as well as adults who have kids in school now, had kids in school or are just plain interested in kids. The fact that the characters are in college is interesting but incidental. The humor has general appeal"

Obscurity of the Day: Little Bill and Ben of Babylon

2009-07-02T08:38:00.004-05:00

Here's one to celebrate the withdrawal of our troops from the cities of Iraq. Congratulations, guys and gals of the military, for getting one giant step closer to coming home!

Betcha didn't think I could come up with a strip set in Iraq, eh?

Little Bill and Ben of Babylon was by a fellow who signed his name 'Hampton'. You've gotta give this guy props for coming up with a very unusual spin on that tired old Katzenjammer formula. His two little finks were in ancient Mesopotamia. I particularly like the strip where they take over an oracle to perform one of their stunts -- you just gotta believe that some mischievous kids might have actually done something like that back in the day.

The feature ran in the Philadelphia North American from June 6 to August 26 1906. It's the only strip that Hampton ever did for the North American. I have a guy named Hampton signing one other feature in the New York Journal in 1908, but no other clues to his identity.

Thanks again to Cole Johnson, supplier of todays sample strips!

Obscurity of the Day: Louie and Franz

2009-06-30T07:39:00.004-05:00

We tend to think of Gus Mager as the king of the monks in the oughts and teens, but he did plenty of series featuring other animals, and even (gasp!) humans on occasion.

Here's one of his least memorable efforts, Louie and Franz. This pair of German-accented bears (they are bears, right? It can be hard to tell with Mager) had nothing special going for them. The two buttinskis get comeuppance for sticking their noses in touchy situations. Not much ha-ha there. It's amazing what slight effort was expected in a strip in those days if you were using dialect dialogue. At this late date we can only assume that since this sort of base humor proliferated on the comics pages that it was in fact entertaining its audience. Today even if we make allowances for it and don't take offense it is often impossible to detect even the barest bit of humor.

Louie and Franz ran in Hearst's New York Evening Journal from December 23 1904 to January 3 1905. It appeared just four times.

Thanks to Cole Johnson for the scan!

Strange Life and Death of a Multimedia Superstar

2009-06-29T07:21:00.003-05:00

by Cole Johnson

In the halcyon days of silent comedy, among the funnier stars were the animal comedians. Among others, there was Brownie the dog, Max, Moritz and Pep, the monkey trio, Snookie the chimp, Billy Whiskers the goat, Cameo the cat, even Sally the horse. One of the most famous was an Orangutan given the monicker "Joe Martin". He was heavily promoted by Universal pictures as the "smartest animal in the world", and as being the "closest an ape can be to being human". They embarked upon a series of slapstick shorts in 1919, with titles like The Jazz Monkey and A Monkey Prohibitionist. They became so popular, a sub-series with a female, "Mrs. Joe Martin" were made.

In 1920, a comic strip was inaugurated starring the simian star. Here's the announcement for it, with a brief bio of the artist, Forest A. McGinn. The newspaper it appeared in, Farm Bureau News, ran only this blurb and the first episode!

Farm Bureau News, March 12 1920

Farm Bureau News, March 19 1920

My brother Mark Johnson searched through a great deal of newspapers on microfilm before he found another that carried the Joe Martin strip. These next three are from The Vernal Express (Utah), which began running it a year later (2-25-21). Here are episodes #2 (3-4-21), #3 (3-11-21), and #4 (4-8-21), after which they abandoned it. I have no idea what syndicate this is. Both the Washington and Utah papers both regularly took Western Newspaper Union and Autocaster stuff, but this could very well be some free promo stuff sent to newspapers by Universal. [I concur with that guess -- Allan]

The rest of the Joe Martin story isn't very pleasant. Far from being the wonderful animal he was painted as, Joe was actually quite unpleasant to work with, going through unpredictably aggressive periods of behavior. A couple of episodes in which he got loose and went on destructive rampages even made it to the newspapers. Once, he broke into a house and destroyed it, in an hours-long bender in which the police had to intervene. Fellow Universal comedy star Diana Serra Carey in her memoir, Whatever Happened To Baby Peggy? tells of the horrible end of Joe Martin. The ape had gone berserk again, and had taken a vicious bite on the arm of trainer A.D. Steckler's wife. In a blind rage, he brained Joe, tied the unconscious ape to a prop dentist's chair set up for a comedy to be filmed, and pulled out every tooth of his head. Someone at the studio did the most humane thing, and put a bullet in the monkey's head to end its suffering. A January 1924 news article tells of how Joe Martin was getting too hard to control, and was sold to the Al G. Barnes circus. The last Joe Martin comedies were released that month. Here's a clipping from the 10-24-26 Arizona Daily Star (Tucson.) It's another monkey, using the franchised Joe Martin name. Today there doesn't seem to be any Joe Martin comedies that have survived. However, he can still be seen briefly in Seven Years Bad Luck (RC 21) , a Max Linder feature.

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2009-06-28T11:09:00.002-05:00

Jim Ivey
5840 Dahlia Dr. #7
Orlando FL 32807

Herriman Saturday

2009-06-27T08:40:00.001-05:00

Saturday, September 14 1907 -- Joe Gans returns to LA triumphant after his victory against Britt, now Memsic will get his chance.

Sunday, September 15 1907 -- Hen Berry, owner of the Angels, was presented recently with a large, gaudy opal tiepin by an admirer. The tiepin was presented as a good-luck charm, and the Angels did indeed promptly go on a bit of a tear. Berry took this as a sign that he would redouble his luck if the rest of his garb were as loud and obnoxious as the bauble now holding down his tie. So he bought himself a complete new wardrobe heavy on eye-blistering colors and miasmic patterns.

The story is of enough interest to merit a gigantic page-width Sunday cartoon and a long story from sportwriter C.E. Van Loan. Ah, the good old days when 'juiced' haberdashery was the biggest scandal reported in the sports section.

Obscurity of the Day: Just The Type

2009-06-26T07:01:00.000-05:00

Bob Dunn, who had the uncredited job of assisting/ghosting for Jimmy Hatlo on They'll Do It Every Time, got to take credit on this very similarly themed Sunday strip called Just The Type. Never a syndication success, King Features may well have let him do the feature just to keep him happy while working on the Hatlo cash cow feature.

Just The Type ran in the New York Journal-American and darn few other papers from May 5 1946 to November 24 1963, a very respectable run. When Hatlo died in 1963, though, Dunn's workload presumably got that much heavier and Just The Type was dropped. Dunn finally got an official byline on They'll Do It Every Time starting in 1966.

Thanks to Cole Johnson for the lovely scans from syndicate proofs.

News of Yore 1950: Aussie Syndication Examined

2009-06-25T09:00:00.003-05:00

Outside Comics Display Is Envied 'Down Under'
By Jane McMaster (E&P 7/1/50)

"I am impressed with the way influential New York papers are displayed with the color comics on the outside," observed A. D. Gorfain, owner of Press Feature Service, Sydney, Australia. "These huge papers—and what they display is the comic strips!

"When we get to that stage in Australia, I will think we have really arrived."

The 38-year-old syndicate head was the man behind "Streetcar Named Desire" in Australia. He distributes London Express features, which included the Desire dialogue.

Australian representative for General Features and Press Features, New York, he owns his country's second largest feature dispensary. It's first, he adds, in the number of features produced.

All told, his syndicate produces nine features — not so many by American standards. It's different in other ways too:

1. Its 11 artists are staff, not work-at-home, artists. (Most of them are under 22 years old.)

2. Nine of the 11 work on children's puzzle and brain-stimulator features. The syndicate has created 800 original puzzles for children in four and a half years.

3. The syndicate distributes no columns. "Columns written in Australia are usually not syndicated," Mr. Gorfain comments. (A popular column there is a round up of short local human interest items, which ends with a gag. This type column is often front-paged.)

4. The country is considered "blanketed" with a feature when it runs in a capital city paper in each of the six states.

5. Mr. Gorfain's syndicate produces comic books arid children's books (for publishing by other firms) as well as newspaper features.

There are some "likes" too. Press Feature Service frequently serializes important non-fiction. However, serials of inspirational books are not a fad.

Perhaps the greatest kinship, Mr. Gorfain indicates, is in taste in comic strips. Australians like both gag and adventure strips — possibly in equal proportion—and have a sense of humor more American than British, he believes. One of his Sunday comics,"Holly," drawn by 19-year-old June Shoesmith could be a sister to Harry Haenigsen's "Penny."

"American comics are very popular in Australia," Mr. Gorfain comments. "And as a syndicate we rather like that. It keeps us on our toes."

Mr. Gorfain at one time booked films for Metro Goldwyn Mayer but after serving five years in the Royal Australian Air Force decided there was opportunity in the feature field. His trip here was via England and Canada where he placed with syndicates both the children's features and a "Cross-quiz" — a crossword puzzle with every clue a question.

He has secured rights to produce a comic strip based on the work of Peter Cheyney—a leading British writer of crime thrillers.

Some of the well-illustrated papers in Australia, carry 12 daily comics, and big Sunday color comic sections.

Obscurity of the Day: Be Scientific with Ol' Doc Dabble

2009-06-24T07:38:00.004-05:00

In the 1930s it seemed like every Artie, Inky and Chalkie was pressed into service to duplicate the success of Robert Ripley's huge hit, Believe It or Not. When the inevitable time came for the Associated Press to add yet another 'me-too' feature to their comics page offerings, though, bless their hearts for taking the road less travelled.

Be Scientific, as the feature was initially called, started out as pretty much a straight clone of the Ripley feature. The only differences were that the daily panel (there was no Sunday for any AP feature until much later) concentrated on one subject per day instead of the scattershot approach favored by Ripley, and the accent was on science factoids rather than on oddities.

Harold Detje, the creator of the feature, soon tired of his clone act and introduced a pair of characters to his panel, Doc Dabble and his sidekick, McSniffle. The panel got a new name, Be Scientific with Ol' Doc Dabble, and the factoid of the day was now the subject of the day's gag. Some gags worked well, some didn't, but at least Detje was doing something different than the rest of the pack. The new format also showcased Detje's cartooning skills rather than his technical drawing, which wasn't exactly making for a graphically interesting panel.

The AP had a set number of features, and Be Scientific replaced Al Burtis' cartoon panel when he was reassigned to producing a strip, The Dillys. Be Scientific debuted on June 6 1932 and ran until June 15 1935, when it was in turn replaced by Oaky Doaks.

According to my admittedly quite fallible memory, Detje dropped the feature to become syndicate editor for the AP. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere, but I can't come up with the source at the moment.

Obscurity of the Day: Now, What D'Ye Think Of That?

2009-06-23T07:55:00.007-05:00

Looking at this strip you're probably thinking that it's the sort of oddball thing that probably lasted a couple of weeks. Most emphatically not so! While I get no impression that it was a particular favorite of newspaper readers, Hearst's New York papers ran Now, What D'Ye Think Of That? over a span of five years, a very impressive run in that formative era of the 1900s.

The creator of the strip signed himself as Childe Harold. If that name sounds vaguely familiar to you, thank a literature teacher. The original Childe Harold was a fictional character created by Lord Byron. He wrote an epic-length poem titled Childe Harold's Pilgrimage, the story of a world-weary young man and his travels. The term 'Childe' originated in medieval England to denote a young man who was in training to become a knight. Later on the term became more general, referring to either a youngster or one who is naive, or young at heart.

Byron's poem inspired various 19th century artists to take on 'Childe' as part of their nom de plume. Best remembered of the group is Childe Hassam, a painter of great renown. Childe Harold seems to have taken on the name to celebrate his unsophisticated drawing style and to evoke the old-timey setting of his strips . His real name was Edward Salisbury Field.

Now, What D'Ye Think Of That ran in four discrete series in three Hearst papers:

New York Journal May 14 - September 17 1903
New York American March 24 1904 - February 12 1906
New York Evening Journal April 19 1904 - November 29 1904
New York Evening Journal March 19 1907 - August 12 1907

The strip told its gags in rhyme, and obviously Harold was much more interested in producing poetry than in getting a big laugh from the reader. I suspect that Childe Harold considered himself quite the 'artiste', though he never produced a serious book of poetry as far as I know. He did, however, write and illustrate several volumes of light verse under his pen-name, and a number of other works under his real name, most notably the bestseller A Six-Cylinder Courtship.

Muche thankes to Cole Johnson for the scans.

Strip Teasers: Capsule Book Reviews

2009-06-22T08:37:00.003-05:00

The Brinkley Girls -- The Best of Nell Brinkley's Cartoons from 1913-1940
Edited by Trina Robbins
Fantagraphics 2009, 136 pages, oversize hardcover, $29.99
ISBN 978-1-560-97970-8

Nell Brinkley was an icon for several generations of women, and Robbins' estimate that she was the most copied artist of her era could very well be true. What Brinkley lacked in formal capability (her anatomy was often pretty questionable) she more than made up for with her dense, florid, uniquely feminine style. Women were utterly captivated by her romance illustrations (she rarely did anything outside that genre) and she had an intensely loyal following among not only readers but other women illustrators. In fact, if you were a female illustrator or cartoonist in the 1910s or 20s and didn't draw at least a little like Brinkley you were considered a bit of an oddball.

That this gorgeously produced, oversized book contains her best work is debatable because it concentrates almost exclusively on her color covers for the Hearst Sunday newspaper magazine section. This work is certainly her most impressive so I guess "best" is not necessarily misapplied. However, it would have been nice to devote at least a short section to Brinkley's black and white cartoons, which certainly are the bulk of her published work, and what she's remembered for. I suppose Robbins didn't want to waste her 9.5" by 13" coated-stock pages on work that could run in a less prestigious format. Fair enough.

The reproduction of the old color pages, always a dicey proposition, is handled here very well. The art has been beautifully restored, a task that must have been pure torture given the density of Brinkley's drawings and that sophisticated color work. My hat's off to whoever did that fabulous job.

My only problem with the book, and I may be starting to sound like a broken record on the subject, is that I would have liked to have more editorial matter. I realize that this is a coffee table book, and the art is necessarily the star, but Robbins knows her subject and I would have appreciated hearing more from her than the capsule bio provided. Another item that would have been welcome is a complete list of Brinkley's magazine cover features and their running dates. Some of Brinkley's series are reprinted her in their complete runs, while others are missing pages and yet others are individual samples. A real Brinkley fan would want to know what they need to be on the lookout for to complete their collections.

The Flash Press -- Sporting Male Weeklies in 1840s New York
By Cohen, Gilfoyle and Horowitz
University of Chicago Press, 2008, 278 pages, softcover, $20
ISBN 978-0-226-11234-3

This book is an accounting of a very strange episode in the journalism history of the 19th century. For a few short years in the early 1840s a small group of entrepreneurs created a whole new sort of newspaper. The "flash press", as they were known at the time, were a group of newspapers that chronicled the sexual underworld. These papers discussed and reviewed, often in startling frank terms, the world of bordellos, prostitutes, pimps, and johns. They overlaid a thin, VERY thin, veneer of moral objection that kept their operations from being shut down, at least for awhile, but their clear purpose was to keep potential customers up to date on the happenings in the skin trade.

Now my readings in journalism history are normally limited to the age of the newspaper comic strip, but how could I resist a book about such a subject? I was expecting a rollicking account of these amazing Victorian relics, but I hadn't reckoned on the authors' scholarly approach. The first half of the book consists of dry, pedantic essays about the newspapers and early Victorian sexual politics. The authors absolutely refuse to have any fun with their subject, quite an achievement really given the subject matter, and I had to force myself to keep reading.

The second half of the book is considerably more lively, featuring excerpts from the newspapers themselves, including many racy woodcut cartoons. I was so worn down from the essays by then that I didn't enjoy the material as much as I should have. If you are sufficiently interested in the subject to buy the book, I suggest you read part two and then, if your thirst for knowledge about the papers remains high, tackle the essays only then. The front matter does in fact provide important history, context and background, but the information goes down much easier once you've had the chance to get some firsthand experience with these utterly crazy newspapers.

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2009-06-21T07:35:00.001-05:00

Jim Ivey
5840 Dahlia Dr. #7
Orlando FL 32807

Herriman Saturday

2009-06-20T09:15:00.003-05:00

Wednesday, September 11 1907 -- Before Jimmy Britt's welts have even begun to heal Joe Gans is already training for his next fight, scheduled for September 27. This contest will be against a not particularly distinguished opponent, George Memsic. Memsic also fought as Jimmy Burns and both names are referenced in this cartoon, making for a little confusion if the reader wasn't up on the aliases (aliai?).

Many fighters of this era went by pseudonyms. Sometimes it was to get the crowds on their side (thus the common use of Irish names for fighters who had no such heritage), sometimes fighters took on variations of the names of other popular boxers. "Joe Gans", for instance, was the stage name for at least three different boxers.

Who the Baltimore plumbers are I haven't a clue.

Friday, September 13 1907 -- The Hassayampa Club, an organization of Arizona's big movers and shakers, holds a club outing to Los Angeles. The 'reunion' includes a day of various waterborne athletic conntests followed by meetings and festivities in the evenings. At the meetings one of the hot topics is whether Arizona should press for statehood.

News of Yore 1949: E&P Short Items Roundup

2009-06-19T07:10:00.003-05:00

Saint in New Episode (3/12)
Beginning March 21 is a new episode in "The Saint," distributed by New York Herald Tribune Syndicate. Despite the fact that Leslie Charteris, the author, has published 27 volumes of the Saint's adventures. This episode has the Saint in an entirely new role. He's to be a gigolo on behalf of a Virginia planter, whose problem is to keep his beautiful and reckless daughter from falling for a no-account adventurer.

The Saint will, with this episode, appear in Sunday color pages, starting March 27.

The art work is by Mike Roy, who does his work at his Long Island home. Both Charteris and Roy have traveled, which is well for the authenticity of the background as a Charteris story often switches from New York to Miami to Bombay.

Bunyan Sunday Page (3/12)
The Mighty Bunyan, daily strip drawn by Clyde Yeadon, an Ironwood, Mich., lumber jack turned cartoonist, became a Sunday color page production and started appearing in papers in the mid-West, Feb. 13. [Have never seen the Sunday version; has anyone seen it? -- Allan]

An interesting local promotion in connection with the feature was devised by the Iron Mountain (Mich.) News. A full page Yeadon cartoon carried the congratulations of other artists in the syndicate field. On an adjoining page were the messages of local advertisers, admiring Bunyan, and extending best wishes to the artist-creator. A statement from the superintendent of schools led off the promotion page, attesting to the accuracy of the "magnitudinous feats of Paul Bunyan."

Obituary (1/22)
Charles H. Coll, Jr., 58, creator of "The Shadow" and "Myra North, Nurse" comic strips and former art director of Philadelphia Ledger Syndicate and NEA Service, January 18 at Upper Darby, Pa.

On Hollywood, Daily (3/19)
"Foto Face in Hollywood," a cartoon strip about the movie industry, has gone from weekly to daily and is currently available, according to Artist Martin, who advises that syndication is by the Herb Martin Syndicate, Hollywood. [Has anyone seen this feature? -- Allan]

King Offers Commercial Service (3/19)
King Features Syndicate has announced creation of a Special Service division for the purpose of preparing booklets for general commercial use. KFS artists will create cartoon characters especially for use by advertisers.

New Circus Strip (3/19)
Bell Syndicate is reported to be planning a strip release, "Tanny," by Rex Maxon. The strip features a circus-born girl heroine. Continuity is by Tom Duncan, author of "Gus the Great," a book about circus people. [I don't think this feature was ever released; anyone know different? -- Allan]

Obscurity of the Day: Was There Ever a Boy Like Barney Blue?

2009-06-18T07:57:00.006-05:00

Walter Gallaway produced Was There Ever a Boy Like Barney Blue?, a full page Sunday cover feature for the Boston Herald. It always ran as a full pager, a good thing because the title might well have taken up the whole space in half-page format!

Barney seemed to be a telegram delivery boy, though today's samples don't have him operating in his professional capacity. Like many of the Boston Herald's features in their 1906-07 incarnation, the art was superb and the plots were either senseless, hacky, or just plain not funny. Gallaway seemed to think that his customary tagline on the strip was a fine grace note, but often it didn't even make sense, as in the top example here.

Barney Blue ran from May 6 1906 to March 31 1907 in the Herald, but the feature ran longer in the syndication, as late as April 26 1908 in one paper. My assumption is that the syndicated material was actually reprints from the original Herald run, but I haven't had the opportunity to do a comparison.

Gallaway seemed to be stuck on newspapers called the Herald. He left a three-plus year stint at the New York Herald to join the Boston Herald. Barney Blue was his only feature in Boston. He was also a prolific contributor to the satirical magazine Puck.

Tip of the hat to Cole Johnson for the sample scans.

Obscurity of the Day: In Bugville

2009-06-17T07:55:00.003-05:00

Paul Bransom's New York Journal bug cartoons account for the bulk of his newspaper work. Much like his contemporary, Gus Dirks, he concentrated on depicting anthropomorphic bug society virtually to the exclusion of all else. My guess is that the tradition of 'bug artists' probably came from Palmer Cox and his Brownies. Although the Brownies weren't insects, the idea of tiny creatures having a civilization all their own seemed to please young and old readers in turn of the century America. Undoubtedly a weighty tome is just waiting to be written on the psychology of it all.

Bransom's bug comic strips formed into a coherent series starting on October 7 1903, when the title In Bug House began to be used on a frequent basis. That title passed out of favor in March 1904, and the next regularly recurring title, Happenings In Bugville, started June 3 1905. In 1906, the year of our samples, Bransom had set his sights on one particular cast member of the bug society, and the final running title became Troubles of the Lover Bug. The series ended on November 20 1906.

Along the way several other running titles popped up sporadically, including Bugville Nursery Rhymes and Items from the Bugville Bugle. A case could be made that there are several discreet series here that Bransom should get credit for in the Stripper's Guide index, but tough. The titles on his cartoons were all over the map, and they all had the same subject, even if handled in a number of different ways. The one relative constant in his titles, especially the one-shots, is that they would end "...in Bugville" (A House Fire in Bugville, A Birthday Party in Bugville, etc.) so thus the reasoning behind my blanket title for the series.

This was Bransom's last newspaper comic-stripping job. In 1907 he graduated to working for the slick magazines, book illustrating and fine art. Click here for a a good overview of his career.

A tip of the hat to Cole Johnson, supplier of today's samples.

Obscurity of the Day: And Then He Changed His Mind

2009-06-16T08:15:00.003-05:00

Here's a short-lived panel cartoon that was syndicated by the Ledger Syndicate. I once assumed that signature, "Done by Dunn", was indicating the work of Bob Dunn, but I was set straight by a family member that anything from that era signed in this manner is by actually the work of Charles J. Dunn.

Charles was apparently a mischievous fellow, because his other favored signature was "GAR". His relatives haven't a clue why he chose that pseudonym.

And Then He Changed His Mind, an eminently forgettable effort, ran from sometime in 1921 to December 16 1922.

Strip Teasers: A Problem Pair

2009-06-15T13:48:00.007-05:00

Tall Tales by Al Jaffee
Abrams 2008, 128 pages, hardcover, $14.95
ISBN 978-0-8109-7272-8

Al Jaffee is well-known to Mad magazine fans, but not so many know about his stint as a syndicated cartoonist. Al Jaffee's Tall Tales ran from 1958 to 1966 (not 1963 as the book states but perhaps the last three years were reprints?), first for the New York Herald-Tribune, then for Publishers Syndicate. The main selling point of the feature was its shape -- it was a tall one-column cartoon that could fit in a space not handled by other features. The back cover claims that this was the first and last feature ever to use the format -- sorry, no. Duets by Jo Fischer comes to mind, as does Dave Eastman's Carmichael, and many strips could be run vertically in approximately the same space (Peanuts was quite popular in that configuration).

Anyhow, factual errors notwithstanding, how's the book? Well, it serves as convincing proof that bad editing can ruin just about any book, even one filled with delightfully demented cartoons. After a chuckle-worthy introduction by Stephen Colbert, we get an informative essay about the strip from Jaffee himself. Then on to the cartoons. As I paged through (rather quickly since it was a pantomime feature), marveling at the inventiveness of Jaffee, I soon started noticing something odd. Jaffee seemed to be forever repeating himself, offering a pair of gags on the same subject, sometimes practically the same gag. Wait a second, that can't be. No, as I slowly figured out, the editor of this book was grouping similar cartoons together. If he had two gags about flamingos, they went on facing pages. Two gags about traffic on a narrow road -- put 'em on facing pages. Two gags about the starting gun for a foot race -- well, you get the idea.

Does this editor have some sort of vendetta against Jaffee? Was he determined to ruin the book for readers and make Jaffee look like a repetitive hack? Obviously these cartoons didn't run in this order back in the day. For all we know (the cartoons are undated) they could have run years apart! What could possibly possess this editor to think this was a good idea? Is he a compulsive sorter, did he really think that he was making some positive contribution?

Because of this bizarre sorting fetish I could get little enjoyment out of the book. I couldn't enjoy the gags -- all I could concentrate on was what new indignity this editor could do to Jaffee at the next turn of the page. I actually found myself disappointed when the gags on facing pages DIDN'T match. Hey, editor, yer fallin' down on the job!

Boody -- The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers, edited by Craig Yoe
Fantagraphics 2009, 124 pages, paperback, $19.99
ISBN 156097961-5

Knowing well how much Craig Yoe loves the work of Boody Rogers, I had to get this book despite knowing that the bulk of it would be comic book stories. Naturally I would have preferred Boody's newspaper strip work, but according to the marketing for the book, I could enjoy myself with the extras. According to the description, "this beautifully designed tome also has tons of vintage photos and unpublished art (including art from the first modern newsstand comic book that Rogers did in 1935). It all begins with a career spanning fun and fascinating interview with the late Rogers, by editor Craig Yoe."

Let's see how that marketing-speak translates into actuality:

"tons of vintage photos" = one dark, blurry photo of Boody

"unpublished art" = as best I can tell, there is no unpublished art in the book

"art from the first modern newsstand comic book that Rogers did in 1935" = a single Rattlesnake Pete page from The Funnies, which was published in 1929 or 1930, not 1935.

"a career spanning fun and fascinating interview with the late Rogers" = there is no interview

Okay, so I've obviously been bookjacked here. So what extras do we actually get? Instead of the promised interview, we instead get a three page introduction by Yoe. It's fine, but certainly no definitive brain dump on the life and career of Boody Rogers.

If you want to read some of Boody's looney comic book stories I don't doubt that you'll enjoy the book. But if you're there for the promised extras, prepare to be underwhelmed.