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The Smithsonian Collection of

Edited by Bill Blackbcard and Martin Williamn

Foreword by John Canaday

The American newspaper comic strip (like jazz

and the movies) is a major innovative and crea-
tive cultural accomplishment of the United
States, one that has spread around the world.
From the outset, the comics were widely read
and enjoyed by the American public, oblivious
to cultural history or art criticism. But for sev-
eral decades, historians of the arts and scholarly
critics mostly shunned the supposedly lowly
comic strips, largely l)ecaiise the finest of thi'se

features originally appeared in the sensational

popular press. Fortunately, this situation has
changed, and those in positions of authority in
American arts and literature are now taking the
comics seriously, recognizing the often subtly
imaginative, splendidly inventive, and creatively
memorable <|iialitics of the best products of this
national art.

Although essentially a narrative art, comic strips

have provided an extraordinary vehich' for in-
spired graphic and narrative experimentation
and accomplisliment for major comic-strip ar-
tists, including VVinsor McCay (Little Nemo),
Lionel Feininger (The Kin-tler-Kuh). E. C.
Scgar (Thimble George Ilerriman
Theatre),
(Krazij Kat), Cliff Stcrrett (Pollij and Her Pais),
Roy Crane (\Va.v/i Tuhhs), and many others.
First-rate comics can be enjoyed both as "gal-
lery" art and in continuity iis fiction or drama.

Included in this .Smithsonian Collection are

some of the most accomplished and critically
notable strips from the Ve/Zoit, Kid r)f 1896-tli<'
first to attain form— to such admired
definitive
contemporary works as Peanuts, B. C, and
Doonestmrij. Along the way we come across old
favorites; Katzenjammer Kids. Mutt and ]ef).
The CUtnips, C.asoline Allei/, Moon Mullins.
/{rin^jiii^ Vj) I'atUer, Mirkei/ Mouse, Little
Orphan Annie, Dick Tracij, Li I Aimer, liarnnhij.
Pof^o, and ever so many more.

Most of the work.s chosen for this vohnne have

intrinsic excellenceand wer<' popular with tlic
readers of their time. The editors have looked
for comics that are important, interesting, ar-
tistic,funny, representational, curious— some or
all of these— take your pick. These newspaper

comic strips ar<; an important part of our cul-

tural history. They are also fun to read— and are
meant to be enjoyed.
The

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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
strip numbers are reprinted with
the permission of:
Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate: 23,
96-107, 128-129, 138-139, 151-156, 221-277,
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, Hogan's Alley 22 The Newlyweds 40

Pagliacci, and Puss in Boots: Johnny Wise 23 Mr. Twee Deedle 41
Folklore Figures in the Early Buster Brown 24 The Naps of Polly Sleepyhead 42
Sunday Comic Strip, Katzenjammer Kids 27 Naughty Pete 43
1896-1916 19 Hans und Fritz 28 Mama's Angel Child 44
Maud 29 Bear Creek Folks 45
Happy Hooligan 30 School Days 46
Jimmy 31 Mutt and JefiF 47
Little Nemo in Slumberland 32 Slim Jim 49
Nibsy the Newsboy 36 Hawkshaw the Detective 50
The Kin-der-Kids 37

II Mr. Caudle, Sherlock Mr. E. Z. Mark 54

Holmes, and the Artless Mr. Jack 54
Dodger: Popular Images in Braggo the Monk 55
the Early Daily Comic Strip, The Hall-Room Boys
1907-1927 51 Sherlocko the Monk
Desperate Desmond
Chantecler Peck 56
S'MatterPop? 56
Midsummer Day Dreams
A. Mutt 58
 )

IV Sunny Toonenille and Out Our Way ia3 Moon Mullins 144
the Darkling World: Bobby Thatcher 134 Barney Google and Spark Plug 156
Anecdote and Narrative in Minute Movies 136 \A'ash Tubbs 165
the Daily Comic Strip, School Days 138
1917-19.33 131 Toonerville Folks 141

\' Popeye, the Skipper, Buck Rogers 185 Little Joe 196
and the Abysses of Space Tarzan 187 White Boy 197
and Time: Anecdote and Flash Gordon 188 Toonerville Folks 198
Narrative in the Sunday Prince VaUant 189 Thimble Theatre ( Popeye 199
Comic Strip, Alley Oop 190
1930-1941 183 Captain Easy 193

VI Shadow Shapes in Secret Agent X-9 233 The Bungle Family 246
Moving Rows: Extended Bringing Up Father 233 Mickey Mouse 248
Narrative in the Daily and Abbie an' Slats 235 Little Orphan Annie 265
Sunday Comic Strip, Our Boarding House 237 Terr\-and the Pirates 274
1928-1943 231 Bamabv 239 Dick Tracy 279

VII Cats, Dogs, Possums, Nize Baby 289 Abie the Agent 297
Counts, and Others: A Count Screwloose 290 Krazy Kat 298
Comics Miscellany, Dave's Delicatessen 291 Pogo 306
1928-1950 287 Felix the Cat 292 Gordo 310
Li'lAbner 293 Texas Slim and Dirty Dalton 311
Hejji 296 Casey Ruggles 312

VIII Wise
Little People, Peanuts 315 Miss Peach 321
Guys, and Witches: The King Aroo 316 The Wizard of Id 322
Return of the Funnies 313 Tumbleweeds 317 Hi and Lois 322
Beetle Bailey 318 Momma 322
Hagar the Horrible 318 Broom Hilda 323
Doonesbury 319 Sam's Strip 323
B. C. 320

A Selected, Introductory Bibliography of Books and Articles on Newspaper

Comics 324

An Annotated Index of the Comics 325

 ——

Foreword

You have be lucky enough to have been around for a rather long stretch of years
to

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 Europe in 1914, and other events in the fictional area out-
war in

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-
terBrown, 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 were marked by one discovery that saves my self-respect.

early teens
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.
The Seven Lively Arts wrote the famous essay on Krazy,
In 1926 Gilbert Seldes in
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 by then collected in a book with another ap-
that Krazy,
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

The Comic Treasures of the

American Newspaper Page

a 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 commonplace by the mid-nineteenth cen-
fairly

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-

11
 )

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 and the Times carried and
strips, ( 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, Nemo, Buster Brown, Happy Hooligan, and the Kat-
Little

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
m 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-
remarkable advantage. Compare, for example, the graphic compe-
tinuity to often
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 Tubbs whaling sequences are as defdy
self-evident (his panels in the
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.

m The comic strip

open-ended dramatic narrative or

may

fied characters, told in successive

functionally be defined as a serially published, episodic,
series of linked anecdotes about recurrent, identi-
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 was probably the illustrated novel of
strip

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

13
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
by Phiz ( Hablot Knight
art

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 and graphically oriented mind.
fertile

Any was presented by means of short sets of successive drawings

narrative that
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 on the potential of the art form he had
relish

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 black and white were initiated in the Hearst morning and
strips in

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. ( Somewere Cus Mager's
early examples

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-

by Clare Briggs and Moses Koenigsberg for the

fated try for a similar strip created
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.

Mutt (later Mutt and Jeff) literally became an overnight sensation in

Fisher's A.
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- which quickU' followed on the

and seven-day-a-week strips

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

15
 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, Newspaper Enterprise 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 was to be seen at its most varied, inventive,
strip

colorful, and exciting plent>' in the thirties and early forties —

a peak of creativity and
popularity it has not held since.

m As an introductory
strips are

but perhaps as many

collection, our volume has ( and must have )
presented here in extensive continuity' with complete narrative sequence,
as thirty deserve that kind of representation. Moreover, a
its limitations. Eight

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 One of them contained the editors' choices of
lists of comics.
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
 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.)

w The pages
types are racial.
that follow have their share of stereotypes
Comedy and melodrama
and some
are always based on the manipulation of
of those stereo-

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 encouragedby 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.

m 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 unobtrusive body of infonnation 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

17
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 tohave included.

By collecting and juxtaposing our strips as we have here, we do them some admit-

ted injustice. The and the rest are, after all, intended to
narratives of Segar, Kelly,

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 two decades the new comic-strip medium appeared chiefly on large,
its first

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
Mark Twain's Huckleberry Finn, George W.
conceived, notably with such hellions as
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

19
 )

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 ascommon 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 Sunday comics as the two types cited, but a
in the early
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, was putting salty and sarcastic ripostes in
R. F. Outcault, in 1902,
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.

Notes on strips in this section That's the anticipatory grinning face of George B. Luks looking down on R. F. Out-

The strip numbers, in brackets,

cault's Hogan's Alley characters in the opening selection [I]: Luks was to take the

accompany individual comments World feature over from Outcault for Hearst's Journal when the latter left, after
as an aid to easy reference.
drawing this final page.

Johnny Wise was a very early page from Tad Dorgan, a cartoonist chiefly noted
[2]
appeared only in the San Francisco Chronicle.
for his later, daily sports-page strips. It
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.

21
 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

.TOHIS-N"!' AVISE GrP^Ts^ TflK "DOTJBT.K nROSS. [21

9 *M6 I»Mrt JtMr

HIM N«ME|M A
-VMAUU&T

23
 Buster Brown R. F. Outcault 1904 / 1906 / 1913

[3]

24
 New ytxk H«rold Co., 1905

25
[5]

REJtolA/E D
That irr wad itTo Do OVER asA<H-
0» WEtt., NtVER. MlNP.tVEHYBOPYKUSHfp.
LAUCHTIR. l5Hffll.TrfY. HUIHOR ISSANlTV.
^^UCH
iANE. HMLTKy PEOPLE LAUCH AS
ASTMtyMN. ITKEERJ TmEMWEUL AND
MAIWl/AIUJJ You ARE
HAPPY. You CAMT BC
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

-| [6]

of f^

jsiisiiii^er'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,

27
 Hans und Fritz Rudolph Dirks 1918

Hans und Fritz-A Vadvester ^ ^ ^ By R. Dirks j^^L^^S;

© Prea Publishing L.> llho Now York World) 1918

28
 Maud Fred Opper 1905

GOMIG 5UPPLEMENToFmE
MASTER'S
VOICE.
BOSTON
AMERICAN.
-+:4»<»»-
«IUI.Y9& 1005
AND HER NAME WAS MAUD!

Americon-Journol-Examincr, 1906

29
 Happy Hooligan Fred Opper 1905

KtSC-i^lSg* .liiuriJgra COMIC 5UPPUMENT o'' "«

MfK ^'^

if -^ ^
^
.>^-'-'"-^
«of7RlGMT1^5 p/Tut AMERICAN- JOURNAL-EXAMINEff-
AIL BRITAIN KtanTS RXitRVE^

Happy Hooligan Dropped Into the House of Lords

Among the GWiering Throng Were Ntontmofency and Clooniy Gus

t9J ^

• Ani«lcon-Jouri>ol-tKamin«r. 1905

30
Jimmy James Swinnerton 1915

[10]

JIMMY
Pinkey Gives Him a Clear Explanation oi
What a Symphony Concert Is

Slor Comporty, 1915

31
 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

33
[13]

£ Now Vwk H«rold Co., 1908

34
 [14]

N.;.-. v^-k Herold Co., 1908

35
 Nibsy the Newsboy George McManus 1906

[15]

SAN FRANCISCO. CAL.

I
.^..^.i ^

tfttii.'iiwiig^iiWiiaarttfii^ijji^^

p .
i Publishing Compony,

36
The Kin-der-Kids Lyonel FeininKrr 1906

tI6]

Tribun* Componv. ChicOQO, III., 1906

(2

37
[17]

I„bun. Compony, Chicago. '» >'<>*

i,

38
 © Tribune Cooipony, Chicogo, IN., 1906

39
 The Newlyweds George McManus 1909

[19]

I
THE NEWLYWEDS— THEIR BABY ^ By Geo. iVlcManus

40
 Mr. Twee Deedle Johnny Cruelle 1914

P^
J^^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"

>^*^^ia
 The Naps of Polly Sleepyhead Peter Newell 1906

[21]

'gV'

No. 3.— Polly raadliy*. rantbling

No. fi.— AU at onc« aha hcare the ehii chit, cMt Of an autO« In baalda tha JoKar Stia ihan noticad a vary peculiar inlng
mobila, and aoon vea aurpr.^Ml to a«« nar (ri«rtd tha Jokar, abcut tha driver. TTia amok* ^waa pufTtng oui or hiatail aiova*
|._Peiiy wa* aiiiinQ out ey ih« rabbtt^ c*g* watchlAi aaatcd la a b>«nd nav/ macnma. Ha tock ott bia &M, aod,
ni«s niCbl* carrou. The day «M»a warm and It ^wa* aJ pipa hati Tha Jokap obaarvad tha iniarM
bowing profoundly, aald to nor;—
Id do lo kcvp f rorn go.r.9 to kl««p. - 1 ma. my —
— da< r. toSnaitow Land, tha fair.
unny pfant naiyrvAa bo rankly inar«."
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

IS -In an _. ... .a thay arrived B-

ind. lurnina, bowad vary low ici the automobile. Thau
I bow ihal Via aMvaplpa hai v>aa No S —Onca again Ihay look Utair placaa In ih the Joker moiionad in tha dlr of pt>^nm Odd looking plajita
ina ocfupanta of tha raar aaat and tha
lib aoon ihry wara m*rriiy l>owlinp a*
aton'j tha lana t
""" ihai had directly balora tham and aalc
• of iha drauflht from Ihr crcwn atnt tham nyino out of Shadow Land, cnuraly totvalttiT
lof III* mtahap '• the Dunny Plania. my daar; go pull ona. aAt tha
-
i

rar Pontjna<«ly thay w.ra not hurt Bui tha Jokar waa lately befallt root
«i»4 t^t ha Boundly baraiM) Chil-chat tor hia carclvia- You'll find. If I an •M>« at fault, lurky rabblt*a foot."

[ "i^^^wB
Naughty Pete Charles Forbell 1913

® New Yofk Hofold, 1913

43
 Mamas Angel Child Penny Ross 1916

[23]

44
 Bear Creek Folks Charles M. Payne 1911

BEAR CREEK FOLKS, neg'lar election

[24]

BEAR CREEK FOLKS off the track.

[25]

45
 School Days Clare Victor Dwiggins 1909

[26]
Going Dpi Be Good and Maybe Pip
'Sf* % SCHOOLDAYS Will Let Yon Side io Hia Elevator. and Ophelia. %

[27]
-* SCHOOL-DAYS r^'i^r^iVK%'^\^:sX^tU^.'^^ I
and Ophelia ^

^OK OVT
PiP.'

46
 Mutt and Jeff II. C. "Bud" Fisher 1918/1919

[28]

^ CICtRoJ
'I

MRi. ttOiTi MOTHtH. _>^

MUTT AND JEFF — Eight Dollars Is Some Money— By BUD FISHER

i, H. C. f.sher. 1918

47
[29]

© H. C. Fiihc-r, 1919

48
slim Jim Raymond Crawford Ewer 1911

[30]

49
 Hawkshaw the Detective Gus Mager 1914

[31]

Hawkshaw the Detective— The Colonel Is a Little Too Hasty

50
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

51
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 Maggie was an ambitious
Irish bricklayer-become-millionaire,

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 -perceptivedetective, 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
more
course, notably as Falstaff, or () as Dickens's Seth Pecksniff in Martin
recently
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

52
 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.

Notes 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 Mutt episodes included here [41-46] ran only in the San Francisco Exam-
A.
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-

53
 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. Jack James Swinneiton 1904

Mr. E. Mark F. M. Howarth 1907

Z.
rVTR. JACK.
[32]

E. Z. Mark Makes Protest

1. MH. E. Z. —
Look h«r«. ilr: whit doca Ihia mMnT 2. MR. E. Z^Thla la on owtraga! An Inaultl I'll
Voy K»v« boon fOllowl«o mo owof •mco I loft th« to rtghl Into thia ato*^ and 'phono Mrs. Mark for
train. tho mooning of har inoo'ant and uncallod for In-
THC tHAOOWCn— Mr. Mark. Vm a prUaU do- to rf< ran eo.
tactiwa hirod ky Mro. Mark lo follow ai^ protact THE t^/AOOWER— Yaa, olr; aalloty yowroatf that
jrow ffo*" iKa wtiao o* th, bwnke-otatm and what oaj la trvo. Lat mo hold your bog until yov
I

com« owl.

L MRS. HARKS VOICE OVER PHONE— Vaa. iti 4. MR. E. Z. (ruohing Owt of otoro) — Vowr oUto-
ma. What la tha mattar with row, onjrwajrT No, mont Is faloa.Vow an an Whjr, whara la that
No, No. No! I hlrad n« man to ahadow you. Car> fallow! Vi godal OONB' And with my bag con-
Ulnly not. Now. for goodnaao aaka. E. Z, dont tali Ulnlng ont thousand dollars' worth of nogotlabla
ma yow ara akoui to bo buntiead again, Thara'a oocurltloo. WtOWl DONE AOAINI DONE
oonMthing wrong. Watch youroalf. Oood-by. AOAINl
^ASARAAftAA
) Amoricon-Jowrnol-Exomlner, 1907

54
Braggo ine Monk ous Mager lyvi rue Hall-Koom Boys M. A. Mcuiii is*u/

[351

Braggo the Monk. The tiall-Room Boys.

THEY DO ON S9.SO PER. IT

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

The funny paper has . . . become not only a faithful reflection of the tastes and ethical principles
of the country at large; it is also manifestly an extremely powerful organ of social satire. The

daily block of cinema-squares is the medium through which the vices of man are held up for all to
see .... The few cardinal virtues that we sometimes venture apologetically to call our own are dis-
regarded by the funnies as comparatively uninteresting to the non- church-goer, and as 'old stuff to
the veteran of the Sunday-school bench or the straight-backed pew. All of them, it is true, draw

largely on contemporary mainners for their subject matter, but the genuine masterpieces of the art use
these merely as machinery for the display of the essential Satan, the unquenchable 'Peck's Bad Boy,'
in all of us.

Ernest Brennecke
"The Real Mission of the Funny Paper," Century Magazine ,
March 192^1

55
 1 1

Sherlocko the MonJc Gus Mager 1911 Desperate Desmond Harry Hershfield 1910

[36] [37]
^ Picture Drama of Love and Hate,
By Gxts Mtger Despe;Vaf A riAeiAnn<1
I ale LieSniOna
^
Sherlocko the Monk with a nmU in Every Picture '0

; N'olionol New* Associolion, 191 © New York Evening Journal Publishing Compony, 1910

Chantecler Peck F. G. Long 191 S'MatterPop? Charles M. Payne 1911

[39)1
[38]
S'Matter. Pop? |K |g By C. M. Payne

(C Pr«» Publlthing Co. (The New York World). 1911

IS Preu Publiihing Co. (The New York World). 1911

56
 iici i^uv i^rcuni> >vin>iur JMCv^ay laii

[40]

Midsummer Day Dreams

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

© Notional Newi AhocopIoo, 1911

57
 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 a^aron «WTT*5 -^htbi I^^rr DC*-**,*.* p: —

ConD<T>on,SA«^— •( I
P^tOnE^BhPOf ^^•*T -^S St^te t*M) Alt »**U: OF f«S MBl-
'I S«
bm^iScsmthB booby • I l^iN, Txe FATMnt
0U> AVtn A
?^P'*Cr Wtio »*0 T*«r rV lb "1*1^ ^riO TB*T Tl* eOC>B&

'^^
^-«.

[42]

DIVERS OPINIONS AMONG BOOB INSPECTORS! MUTT ASKS POSTPONEMENT TILL TO-MORROW
y Boob !,'if.-elor d{datet that ilatl u «•-, wlif'tufci Bco^ir tnakei ta<rt at the Do.

««.*«caTricNOM^
^""^ •ooena^eToe,
"" !*•» - "^TTT I* HOT ^r^
r
I'/ CCICO -J-TT ..»•« I

^•» »>%rrT »w«

9ooe e<f»%T - Sk*««T c-

A« 0&TftiCk« «»«o ret TUC

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 taid^ivl 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
 [46]

EFFORT BEING MADE TO HAVE CITY PAY FUTURE EXPENSES OF GREAT MUTT CASEi
U«.. )*..( ]t, rt<i »'••« *<• !.«

•CLl wit rtxtnicovt V>^Mt.

1 Oftrt'T f^tr WHO »Yr- »-f

«I ^* ^^"'^O a«"TkT
'^''*''"'
»To*

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 ?^

' ȣV/^ ^
^1- -_:.- < f '-

Hottona\ N«ws Atiociolion, 1911

59
 [49]

> XVT * ilTIt» **tm »

e^
^€.
A^ #-
r
•J

^*rf?^
© Notional News Associotion, 191 I

[50]

© hJotionol N«ws Association, 1911

I

152]

Nalionot Nttws Associotion, 1911

60
 [53]

© Naf'onal News Aisoc.alion, i9ii

Baron Bean George Herriman 1917

[S4J

© tnternafional News Service, 1917

[55]
HOLE /*J ctft SHifi. <s^^CHly, t c«us
C*AJVA6t COM-M(Y>e£" Dft-t'MS TWt.
CflJwflL. tvMifw i^Aves 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

^>

® Internotiortot News Service, I9I7

[56]

[57]

:£ International News Service, 1917

[58]

[59]

[60]

[61]

[62]

I Internotionol News Service. 1917

62
 [63]

[65]

[66]

[67]

© Inlernationol News Service, 1917

63
 [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«;

^27 A

© Internotionot N«wj Service, I9I7

[71] r

[72]

!|

inl«rnatlonot Newt Service, )9I7

64

I
 (UOEIL ht VMS SUCH A 6M0 PVNC 7XOT1 "I f73)
ie«^JlNaTo ST/^y uM>e* ivA"^ft &o*^ IN WOliucHE. HAB OUtFONtp l>t
Om'Aff >tXJ ? - *WtetL. »*E HlktD A c I ^lAVEO So UNS UTOtt «AT»ft.
FlW/ .» OtEf JE« FlSM TD Tl>0< (OV
.

tue wac Fish /iitmco cf S7-«v/\6

VjlM ""IE PoOK FiSN' DMwMDtD

© Internorionol Newi Service, 1917

(74)

[75]

[76]

[77]

Internolionol New» Service, 1917

65
 Stumble Inn George Hemman lyzz

[78]

r King frotur«» Syndicate, Inc. 1922

(£i King F«atur«i Syndicate. Inc.. 1922

66
31] [83]

© King Features Syndicote, Inc., 1922 King Feolures Syndicote. Inc.. 1922
King Feolurcs Syndicote, Inc., 192
[82]

67
 Dok's Dippy Duck John "Dok" Hager 1917

[88] [891 [901 [91]

68
 0UCK i^ix oiuiiey oiniui ivii

[93]

[941
HELD AT BOtK WAD Btf M W*rrMi«r^
THE QOOf) Sujp'NevPR S'WX"
AROm T*iC little tV'NDOW
M T-iE NOtP|T*L '.V&RD
QfMMNTlNE I

View <^'TN iTi

^ilH HAPPlHCiS AND pnccioo& CAR wo
MiS NATIVE LAND-iFJ
W&MT,WiTM WNHt BTWi
&i»t AND LIPE-
&«e«iVtjLY A'tOWER

&TfttTCNiMfi OUT
BEFORE- Mt« -

4 HANff MOrDflCVU.f-, ME (tCKU&6iN<i BLlTHSlt 4t.0«4, •tm( irom T>*tt AM ABOur ronEcArf k*S ••tVlBEti -EAR 6 BY EA^ioF mortai. m«
I
lOuEFTtO A^AjMST 'XP [95]
^rARS UPON ItARS «*»( PAiiEP OvrR My "OARl nEaO SJ«|(t Fift 3T. /N ''hE SlOOmO
LiT »KT .IxC Acii<TAR>
HPT •» * ViAiTOff, \WhFW a tAMli.iAR'PST.VCAiiSEs I

*U(»t OF ftuK MtRO 11 »e(M

CNABLFP 6ulK MiJL HIM T6 Tun** nil meab . 'WNCH-tNT CKilOHOOe THf StCRET WHuN A* AfiOor TO SflAff W*i W^ShCO yPON
, l
»i

WrU AND OAlE.

IT WAS CvOiD! *OUN(, MAN-GOUJI-'-TW T£«ilBlf C(y#iF - THtliRftO for
T6 fUHE Hli[4CAPC Mftf ERKWS THAN F*f R,
t.OO«IN(T A^bAE PReMfORI WCAI}-,^ LI O'tR

^*0M tHC4UA(tANrfMe "THERt iPTS TXEOLDMAV Of MVSTfRt.

BUCK N(K 0<fRCOMe8* HISPHtFKf
-TkE VT»'"«& fOOP«»«W "f^AI COWtiONi-t WTM ON fOl* »< *« J J ^^Si!" 'iWT -Ui OwABFeo m
QE^T u^OV TM£ i>WRA*lLUIi>6i
^UAftTFNS, t H^Utt *WD NARPIC Wil (AtULTiei , LC«ri«(j M£ A$ MU itf
- A in4M ei.i*<U -.Rtt".
PAiLSO T» »EGA'«r HIS EOyiLiBRioM '
VTMJO WPTM CfMtmiNtj 60"(6S<nCi CREAKIAHiOttwri, A Wtf TOtKRrPASVVl, S'0»«-T-.f IjAMtftf O*^^
XHt RWMEfvTS. 'ME LIT (If C-iiMIKBuH FROMMCnTtRooR, t*£« ThE OumEI Bf AtiTh
^ ?'* '-^^^ A (CuRRi Bfron mi Tomffnt, woiMtPl. IT «* fc ©t( f* tbf cyBif o»myi.iPE: i

Rotior coAir.

69
 The Cumps Sidney Smith 1917

[96]
INTRODUCING "THE GUMPS."
Gump yCKs&UMp THE BOl/LE-VARD
Hope-
TWE-rAWVO CAT-
^NOREVJ GUMP VA^Af»IRE-
OVbT/V PLAIN ORDINARY _. VIHO NVlENTECi THE
/
r^i, VilNOHAS NEvEf?
FLOWER POT. H6A.LS0 POLKADQT t?^ QUK*^ HAKE MAO A KNOCK
INTROOOCED TXE- "T>te
OOT SCORE-P
TIE- IN T>1l5COONTR-<. hE-HAS IMCOLLC^E A<3Anl%T HI^A»
SEEN WORKlNli ON PERPETUAL HIS PET TRAINIftd
AMD Klkl^^
/MOTION '=OR. 30 YEAeS "^tuNT ISLl(.KIN(j
AND I^^TftLKjH — PLATED EVEM
K^ORNrNU TO KEEP
XE ^MS THEY'LL KA'Jt
SHOOT M|^AON --^>^ IN TR(N\
To
OUOCaMtNT
DAV. NiNtm The Gumps new mqnve-
GOMP ThEREARE (AANT STRANfat RUIWRS
^N^^o is reaily
ABOOT THl^ HOUSE- SOTAt
The BSHiNScf
iAY TMEPtAtE 14 MAONTEO- OTHERS
TXf FAWllll RoisiA^" ^PT^ THt l*Ot.lCE T>«INK "Tli
dtNTVE.LtXINll A *^ENCE- FOR STOLEN
CHESTER GiUlAP AvVOW\OSH.F-S.
AHB tNOUR^Nti. we SMALL
WHOSE P6T STONT \NI1>I A oT^CWir
1% VoRNiNft IN FALSE
ALA«tlA5> ON Z.ERO euTA TERRAIN
NKjHTS to iEE THE
Fl?E ENtilNt^ ftOBV.
WS tATS PICKLES
\N1TH HI ^
ice CREAsAS .^

[97]

[98] THf ^A/WLT

rnKT UKtD HtVl MI5IW\
ftHE BEfOW I^OTT*. BLOW \

WERE\buNUI [ out LEMNiE \

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 • ^ibNfT awiiTji^
HI^M IN A bUI)(AU DRAWED.

70
 u

[09]

[100]

tion
'
—
^H^NEH,HBOR^A
UTTifrCLA^^,—
T»tY HAVE- OUST
aOUbHTA,NEW
PAR 1.0ft UAfV\P
A.N& %HE tif\\
DKlOEB TOUVWBEB
OWM NAT FROWy^iW.

^Cp VMiNOOv*.
vtiTM The AiDO^ a
WACOvK PfAlMtR
TVAT «a«.8EEn8«<
OF APttniRC-fRAMt,
AGiLriED^nntit
AXt>Al-»ST(EAA4
^HAP( 4V4E-HA^
SET Out TTi <u««>St
^^fcMUl6AWB Af»D
"liA^/t ^^oNt-<—
<AAA^A/«^^^*.'i !•

RV— BUCK"
TVl BOOUtVAI^O
VAMPll^e- li
STILL AT LARtiE .

TWef THINK.
THt OOti tATCWtR\

71
 [102]

Old Doc Yak Sidney Smith 1917 (precedes The Gumps in date)

[103)

[104]

[105] ^nt^ie^'Jf^S^ HAS (T COOK3 PARK PO(%

RCCClveO NOTltt FWOfA
HIS LANDLOftD TWAT IP
' A^A OFFtWNtj A CAW \
I
TKAT i^ iuPtmoR ro ah/
ON TNC ^AARKtT TO OAX
f NOYfr TmC E^kTRftAt Lines Dot- MC^-t* MAYC A
OF TmC aoDX AMD THAT NOW GtNTlEMCN —
\
OFFER THii vvON0eRFUl-\ HARO T'ME PAYIN*
\
FA^HlONAALt CHiNpStCOWL I

T>iAT ^ftO<-eRT fliL*.

•n*» BtNT PORTHi^ SPACE AND THJ-N ao UNDtft plfcCt OF y<ORK»AANiwiP
1^ hOT PAID By ^ATuRCAf AT ANY PRICE- A CAH. rWAT> The hooo and take- it THii #AA&rERPlEC£- OP
UtT ALONE
»AflH CiO RtGHT OUT NOV* ON H<JMAN 'NQENU'TY- 3rAYIN<3 ON >*H1%
HSAHD HIS UTTLeCOM YUTtM TMt BOUlf VA(tt> AHt> TI^IN^ APART NUT 6t NOT PA<»6-
WlLU HAVe ro leAWE TmiS ANY TNIN&- 60lT BTf BOi-T - FOR SAUt-
FOANCii Q«tf FIN DCFT XOl; TO FiNOA
PA6E ANO tr WILL BC PBRCy FORD O^ ANY BODY. I

FLAW - TAKE iTAl-L

RENTED TO ANOTmEU A CAR TNAT HAi ^TOOO TMt APAf^T BRlNb YOU** OWN , BlDP-OR\T?
TEST OP- YEAW^, THAT HAS
PAATT — auMpeO tVCR^i bu*A(> PROfA COonT
HKKC- TO aLt-NCOtAMD BA^K CAR£ - TV<EN
Doc MA^ But •<*^ in IF XOU DONT BtLlt^C ir AS«. ThE NUfABBROF bPOKpV
OOC SPAi- '* -
T>4C BANK. AWO HA^ POOMlUO
TO PAY A <«ft(KCR ati-L OF

TXtUt 1^ ONt MOPt —

IT l^LlKt PyiLlNti TttTU.
HE ^YlLU HA\ Ml^ CA.K
Hr^ I.IFCL0N<1 FR»CnO
Ok& i^& - 't WILU
PART vs/iTM THAT-
IT
15%-
OP^ - >*t wrV.L AUCTfOH
vii50f«».y NieA#«i

I
 [106]

[107]

Mutt and Jeff H. C. "Bud" Fisher 1927 / 1928 / 1932

[108

® H. C. Fiilwf. 1927

73
[110]

[HI]

[112]
^

[113]

li. M. C. F.ih.r. 1928

74
 [1141
ICMA IN
BUYIM& TOU
TUG FTtOWV
•an tfbNty » I

[115]

[116]

[in:

£ H.

75
[118]
THG: ICCMAW STlU"- CALL OU MRU
GlwBATTte wHCM MR. GlttBATTL*

M\iTT LASr MftMTM?** HA -HA- ha:

OOWAH.' "THAT'S THt CTOFF-'
THtMMS

1% &»l*A&

11191

[120]

[1211

H. C. Fiiher. 1932

76

li
JWtt has [122]

mt. -reuju
UIITM Hit
KCYHOia
C01.UMW-

[123)

[124]

[125]

© H. C. fisher. 1932

I have that fallacious feeling of absolute knowledge that a first edition of Theodore Dreiser will
have only the value of its covers for a quaint period chocolate box in 2000 A.D., whereas the
single copy known of three famous comic strips, say 'Mutt and Jeff,' 'Andy Gump,' and 'Krazy Kat,'

complete from their beginnings, cut out and pasted in endless oilcloth- covered volumes by an invalid
spinster of the epoch on an isolated fann, will have something like the value of the original manu-
script, say, of the Book of the Dead.

William Bolitho
"Comic Strip," Camera Obscura , 1930

77
 **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 "I WONPen IP M« PHONEP

eONNA BE DARK IN A MINUTB THE WIFE TO eCT THE KID/
AND MAY»E I CAN AWAY ? HE'S STILL ^A
NAB HIM ? "
 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 hfe in the multitude of comic strips which packed the color comic sections
to

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
and even one-third pages for major strips gradually became a
the 1940s half pages
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.

Notes 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

79
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 where it had to run in black and white,
arts section of his papers,

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].

81
 The Smythes Kea Irvin 1»30

[126]

82
 [127J

83
[128]

<& Ih« Chicago Tribune. 1924

84
 [129)
HAND »V \ ^V\RtVJ ^5^ ^ ^

^ 'M»0 \\ POURlMCi OUT «>» VKKT f^OKVUIte

s\\^ vrn\.t tviPT< ^ootA /

VvKW&N* 0>R«i\OlE SKVXOON KVlD .CROVVM*- CAMT WEVP

drama oP
idvenlure and £»CS«Ces KMtEIRS
Uirilh

roef EvE>»

TMCBE MMUb OE
HI

MiH n> (w^. 1

<,u ihp Chicago Ir.bune 1926

85
 PoUy and Her Pals Cliff Sterrett 1926 / 1927 / 1930

[130]

Polly and Her Pals

86
 [131]

FciiR^SwJOCTT

Polly and Her Pals

i: Nr-w.cacor r.-otv-f k". <o St.. 1927

87
88
 [133]

© Newipapcf Feoturc Service. Inc., 1927

89
[134]

i^ h4«<w<popwr ftiOtuic Scf^iCu. Inc., 1927 ,

90
 I l:J.5)

Polly and Her Pals

fe) Newspopcr Feature Service. Inc., 1930

91
 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

92
 [137]

eouU>e/^T
MO FAT?

MUTT AND JEFF Mutt Needed a Blow-Out Patch By BUD FISHER

93
 Moon Mullins Frank WiUard 1927

[138]

Moon
Mullins

94
 ri39]

iicogo Tnbun*, 1927

95
 Nemo in the Land of Wonderful Dreams WinsorMcCay 1912/1925
Uttle

96
 [141

Americon-Exoftiiner. 1912

97
[142]

<5 N«w Yo<k Tribune. Inc. 192J

98
 Hairbreadth Harry C. W, Kahles 1924

=^3^ [143]

n^iXUQ-l C.W. KAHLES

iSNT IT wonderful!
aw'T ITA WONDEK^UL A(£ WE'RE 1.IVIN6 '
HOW
iw?io to$Mie *NP evERrmiN<s,You know' WELl.OFAUreRSONfi AMO SO T«15 15 LITTLE KNOTT THEYCK' iNTn?EsriN<;.
fP JUST LOVE TO MEET ONE OF THOSE ', PEL16HTED, I'M SOKE. WELI'WHAT ASTUEff LITTLE OW
HE6
RUDOtPH IS
FWCHJI^rPEfesONS WHOSE SOUi VIBRATES LAW INNE2-VI22 OETTINfi TD BE' lAST TIME SAW HIM
I

ONEOFTWSE
TO T)te AMOIUTE ANP YtW IS IN COMMUWIO*!; HOW LOVELY AND Ht WAS UsrH A jPKfTE Of A i:XllD I

PilCHIC PERSONS
VJITHTHE IWVISIBLE.J ETHEREAL YOU'RE i,
LOOKINg.MY PEAg 'J

FWRtlOH ME, BUT THOiE WEBE FRiENOS OC WEIL.IF THIS »4N'T THECOONTFiS
f I
MINE OF THE INVIS4BLE yvOELD.'OFCOUtSE I
iNorri-Nirril i never a<w you
igxi iArfT SEE T>fEM IJUCESS TOU ARE TU MED
LOOK 30 CHAPHAHOUS; THIS ji
H>THEA»SOUJTEJ I

A TREAT, IM SURE
AH» VIBRATE
^
M*n<IONI0USLY
INAWJWlEAueAJ

PARDON The INTEI^KUPTlON, MY PEAR OXJNTESS.' THAT LOW u

VUL<jARIAN has no manners.' ALLOW ME TO INTKOOUteMTj
FklENO. BELINDA BUNKS /""

99
 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.

100
 [145]

or
COMIC SECTION THE
SAN FRANQSCO EXAMINER
November 14, 1920

Bringing Up FatLer
WONT >kUI_Ow VOO'bE Ifl TOO V/C <.OTT*kCIT
m TO e***"^^ *>N>r ci<.*^Q*) 12 em in tiOMenow
—
1 INTO •^o*-t'
COT A
-^
^ mB^YOO COi-ie'vjlTH
^ 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

102
 [147]
„ "l^rtA, MWE TO \*/a.\T,£AlD MR OoRStT. I^^SV VAll.CO>.M<ZMe )

l^tWuTj^AS (O (MWT.fAlOMR DO«V*.T. . RUBBtR COR&ET '.

"
YouXV H^Vt To VNft'T .5ft>a fV\ ,Don5tT_- j

Internoiionol feature Service, Inc., IW6

103
[148]

King Footurei Syndicate. Inc., 1937

104
 Barney Google and Spark Plug Bill\ Do Beck 1929

Z A'M-r ACT youst Tb 0« muTwm *«eT. u*vt 1 ( y- tl49J

pew
V
K«ei» v€«t ^"^
WOT X vnr
»*"'^«SS't
,
X Teix'*otj&*

mmB
s-§ocax
uAvK you ^j«Ne«. wtA^oo^

C*^zeM '- AND '^

Vi«»*t:vmi« &OVT vow
"^y
I

Barney Google and Spark Plug

CAKTE POSTAlye_ / FeLLER OET lo ste
Tme S»GmT^ here ^
I

\ ANJO, SO FAR.. TmS

OCT ANvTmpSJG rVE

SAO efc^eo^o'^

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

105
[150]

Barney Google and Spark Plug

106

I
CasoUne Alley Frank King 1929-1931

[151]

'^
^\
[152]

Ih« OilcoBO Trlbuiw. 1930

108
 [153]

GB&iAme Alley

Ky ine v_nicago i

109
£154]

£) Tho Chkogo Tribune, 1931

110
 (155)

Th« Chicago Tribune. 1931

111
tl56]

i, Ihc Cli,.jao Iiibu.K- 1931

112
 Boob McNutt Rube Goldberg 1919 / 1920

£\^
[158] \ <cAM Ler you 30,000,000 '

i.

IS FtFTY oe>JTS
\0^ 1 Ap'\RTMexx For.

MOKiey. I
I

THiiOfc I
COMIC SECTION THB
Moye "V
SAN RANQSCO EXAMINER
I'lL

VJP TO MACS
April 18, 1920
R((iii><xi t: e r«t*M ncM*

Boob McNutt

C Slor Compony. 1920

114
 Happy Hooligan Fred Opper 1925

[159]

115
 S'Matter Pop? Charles M. Payne 1929

~| l.i<it1TNiky', IT
TiETvweehj Tf+A KiT^EW
Mt bo MUCrt, /
..':~mrT _._«_"-
I'm too mJ , AI -Tt-R^^OT To'Pt?OTeCT
' "''/ilMSi€L-F Sufficient

.--V*

8 Ball SvndlwH, Inc.. 1959

116
Merely Margy John Held, Jr. 1930

[161]

King Feoturej Syndrcote, Inc., 1V30

117
 Somebody's Stenog A. H. Hayward 1931

[162]

The Back'Seat Driver

118
 The Bungle Family Hany Tuthill 1931 / 1932 / 1930

[163]

THE BUNGLE FAMILY ONE MORE FRIENDLY LESSON By H. J. TUTHILL

MtAVENiy a*rs, GeoRise I SEE aOMCTMrNO
BUNOLE, I JU3T SAWV THOSE ,
MOVIMS.,.. MOVIN9.
NOSy \fl*'^NGLeS V«*£XXJNG VDU KJCK ON TMC
UP TWE WAJ_K AND 1
OOOR, HAROOI..
KNOW TWCVRf !
WW4IU£ I WNO
HERE. AND i

Wef TWI9
HOUSE LOOKS J
wwrLE n-l
»*!y,'5EClXANI'*3._) J

H. J. Tuihill and ^AcNaught Syndicate. Inc.. 1931

119
[164]

>^^^
TROUBLE ALWAYS MEETS CEORCE HALF WAY AT LEAST By H. J. TUTHILL
THE BUNGLE FAMILY

H. J lulhill ond McNought Syndicole. Inc., IWI

120
 [165]

THE BUNGLE FAMILY TUTHIU.

121
[166]

® McNoughl Syndicoo. Inc., N.Y.. 1931

122
 [167]

e McNought Syndicolt, Inc.. N.Y.. 1931

123
[168]

':^ r/cNoughr Syndicola, Inc.,

124
 [169]

CI H. J. TulhlM. 1930

125
 Krazy Kat George Hemman 1922-1923

[170]

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, ^i^cHUcik 6«£>we;^.

To m>AtV 5 P»3«>A , ^OU-S -V IT W6At /V 'THt

fetLATwes ey 6t»'Aj& His 'HAiett

CD Inrvrnotional Faotur* Sffrvics, Inc., 1922

126
p
[171]

Krazy Kat By H erriman

127
[172]

128
Blondie Murat "Chic" Young 1933

[173]

© King Feofures Syndicote, Inc., 1933

129
 Skippy Percy Crosby 1930

[174]

I S1CII»I» I^erey Qrogiby^ |

YfH, BfMfMSfR U)£tt, UIHAT I0K.L YOW; THf ON0«AT0P0«IC VACUfS

M«YMAP. But to cowfiNuf: r

WHICJ r AM WOT AT 5UJ0RDS rwe SIXTH T/ME OF'COtePlOCt, OR, iHAtC Ult SAY THOJC OF A
I KAp'TRfAJoee CONTEMPORARY SOCH AS CMfSTfRTON IN HIS
POiNTi uiTM TMS Cosmic
MCSiACC OF A SHftLtV *S
MANIFEJT60 iN'PBOMfTHfUS
OWeOON0,"wf MOST TAKE
IJ£.AND"I LtHtD
THAT pABTWttflif
W Got his arm
X.MOST SHOT
if PANTO,. OR IINOSAV IN HIS CON 60 ?
m
THfY'S A
C06K>lZANCe Of rut PART IN
OFF VP on TH6
pANTMflSTIC P0CT«IN£S of MAST
TRtASoRE IJtANP
UOOOSu'oerH <<jHeB£ JIM t
Hioes IN A I

BARREL p

M
•iiir

IT Slim MY FBiCnD, that VOO HAVf

TO Mt, MY ONS0tlCIT£0 ADV1C6 THAT YOU C(XT)V/ITT
IS
A PeoCLlViTY TO CO IN fOff Th6 SANGUINARY TASTES THAT CAN M
PUSSOEO WITH IMPUNITY,
Sort of thiws. this roietc. /•wouch for a SOMCTHINC MORE COMPATiece U/fTH THf /
-flMf i IVf P OOnjN, MAY PR0V4 RttRoOtSCfNT ADOLESCENT Mind, cood pay. my friend.

© Percy L. Croiby ond King Features Syndicole. Inc., 1930

130
 —

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-
phasiscame 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
( Tim Tylers Flying Luck 1928), Monte Barrett's Jane Arden
1928), Lyinan Young's (

( 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.

131
 )

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].

132
Out Our Way J. R. WilUams 1925 / 1927 / 1932 / 1935

[176]

[178]

© NEA Services, Inc., 1932 ) NEA S<rvices, Inc., 193S

133
 Bobby Thatcher George Storai 1932

[179] 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

[180]

© Bell SyndicoK

[181] TUE PROCESSOR WAS esGM IM TME

CALASQOSe reHES OAVS, Al«0 STia_ ME
WOMT TBLL. how he OOT THAT SICM DOW>J
1 ?AuT DARK FORCES ARE
jy MOVIMC TO FURTHER ,

NOR WHAT HE DID WITH THE COLD CCXPLIOTE THE SCrE«TlSTS

FILLIMCS HE HOOKED FRO* THE OEMTISTS
TROUBLED AFFAl*2S--- THE
HE WOnV TAKE THE MOHE/ DREADED COVE GAMO IS TO
OFFKie
^ like TO DO EHTERINC THE VULLAOE
HE PlAlO US EITHER. ••• EFFECT HIS RESCUE IM TWE
-/ SO-STHIM' TO MeiJ».HlM^ BUT OOnY
1
eCUEF THAT THEY ARE
vV.__r_—r KHOW WHAT" AIOIMC A PARTMEFi IN
Crime
THE SILEMT VILLAGE IS
WRAPPED IH SLUAHSER AHD
THE Clock im the steeple
STRIKES otte'.'.

ell Svndico

[182] JUST THE SAME weos CONNA. "Tai

lO'FF TOLl.y FOR rOUH. OWK
-' AMD you OUTA TUBOS
THE MOST GOOD--- '"V OLD RAP ALWAVS SAO
RESOLUTE MEMBERS 'A BIRD OH A LIMB S'NCS
A
OF TME DREADED SWEETER THAW OME IN

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--

If' Bell Syndicate, Inc.. 19321

[183]
["XIhestout
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-^^

® Bell Syndicale, Inc., 19: t

134
 [184]

[185]

[186]

[187]

idicaie. Int., 1932

—1 [188]

ALBeRX
PETTIBOHE'.
BEWARE '.'.

THE OUTIAW
CHiEP IS A
v«lC<EOAMO
desperate
mam'
mo cooo cam
COME OF T14e
FRlGWOSHIP
VJHlCX ME
TMRUSTS
UPOM vou'

S B«ll Syndicate, Inc.. 1732

135
[189] ^MEBBE THE PROFESSOR. WHEN HE GETS A LOAO
amo oowt
yS BORROW
WAVIH' "no
A CC^ 86CAUSE "THE"
PROFESSOR WAMTS A CLASS
O SMUT JP
LCX THIS
SWIWC !»
SCOW
THE
CuBtaeMT...
tJ
^^ "
r-',_,»^
I
DO»T V/AKTA PUT IM WitM
US BECAUSG HE TMIMKS
WEtJE POUCH-WSCXS-
WS'ul- ALl_ SLICK
...
>
OP THIS OUTFIT
HEVl KUOW/ TH6RES
OMS CEMTLEMAH 1"
the: PACK
OF MILK FlRS-r THIUC UP Fo« MtM AWHILE
rt3u KWOW Bin=Ll.
WAVE VOO
1M A KITCHEN AP»e?0>4
CAKES
BAKIW ANCeU
> FOB »

[1901

II 5»nd)coi8. Inc.. 1932

Minute Movies Edgar Wheelan 1929

[191] IlONG ACO A CERTAIN SBON

IN
ED WHEEL AH •^iSg IN LA UOOCWA
\;iLLAfiE
prcscorff
IMERE LWED AN OLr> <JEmT UMO
m? COMEDIANS IN * HAD REiiD «3 MANy " -n?UE
fcURLESQUF OF •DTW
OOlltOTE: STO»eS " IN TWE MAGAZWES
njfcr WE WAS AiuiAVs see
DOW K, INCr "WIN&? IN SPiTe OP THE
.

FACT TVIca WE AJEVCl? TonCUFD

A PROP —

[192]

136
 I

[193]

[194]

(aJftcr being, -meoujN fob AM I A CRAVEN,

SlieNOE.POOl,'.' UIUAT [195]
fm^"^^ A LOSS By TUE WlNDMliL A tWAT I SHOULD CEASE
COUIAfsP,
OTTMSfoiriT
OUFS THEME.
WUICH HE MISTOOK FDR A MV EFRORTJ To MAkTEJJE MOJLOJ 50N(1,"C!CIN
'GIN MIU." , DON K. UiAlGV^y. SAPC FiSR'-
k. UAuewTy
THE AJUTT/ KMISUT, «/AS
TUftN H OF 1

I LOVE VOO*
ED UWEELbH'S NO-NO-ATWOU-
SlAPSTiCK PRETT/ UIEIL BUNCrED Si>ND TiMCS IS softlv
BURLESQUE- UP.BUT/loT D)S- I SHOUiDn INTRODUCED
HEARTENEO „.- -SAV NOT-" ON THE OBOE
PART d)
muE faithful
PANCHO STAN2A
l=INAl.Ly SUCCEEDED

pippy DOH
ON HS STKED
AewN AND, so.
OFF THEy KODE
Lookinc, For
rooree TeouBiE -

/iNDnow A coNie ON. Fellers. UTS [196]

GREAT CROWD K>40CK TVllS SOOFy eOV
ED UJUEEIAN'S
FOfe A Row OF ASH '

'&JRiESQUE' OF RUNMEtSS. CANS ;

EN&A&ED IN A ;:
'~^Al
CI?0SS-COUNTtey
DON K. I
MAKATHOM,
APPROACWCP
HAUfiHiy DON k. - _ui. o.

(T. Good Rxncuo, MAyse aj

/'COME TD think: OF
Hut IHFUBIATED [aJfTer it uas
di?ink noui and then /^EVEG HueT/ ^
ATHLETES D(2A<WEC All OWER.TWE VLiTTiE AMVBOD^^
TV4e SELF- APPOINT- FAITHFUL
ED P(?OHlE>niON FKlNCHO STANZA
GATHERED OP / svsrW 4.AA iSj "ysA AGAIN
fiJXHj OFF HIS -i*

High Moi?se THE REMAIN?

/SND Gave MiM And off the/
THE WORKS '- SIABTED for'
MOMC -

137
 ^cuuui i^ay5 »--iare v icror L/\\iggms lyiii / lyzo / lyzo / lii'^b / lyzY

[197]
Vtemoxl tVoW C0I« AIL [U

"^--"
-^ T -

[1991 .^

® McClure Syndicoia. 1723

1 McClure Syndicate, 1953

138
 ® McClur. Syndicole. IM7
© McClure Syndicole, 1926

139
205] vm

207] IMi

McClure Syndicate, 1927

140
 ToonerviUe Folks Fontaine Fox, Jr. 1917 / 1924 / 1928

209]

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.

141
[213]
fl\f. A^ATlVfeS ALWAYS iAY^ASKTMe SMPff k" WHfH
Att-iohle. ASKS WMY THC TRAdKS WSRE UAIP oUT
Zld ZAd oN MAIhl S-r(^E6T ,

Mov^ Lof/a MP IT
-TAKf2!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
^^^^:^^

— Ai^o fVeKi oricf ifJ A WHILE \fji\t.r4

Hc thikIk;* no oNC wilu sre HirAhc ri-AYS
A SArAP OF "t-ET'S rReTfr>/P.*'

142

1
 [218]

[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 ai^o villasf LAMfi.icHTe'/^.

143
 Moon Mullins Frank Willard 1928

[221]

[222]

[223]

[224]

« Th« Chlraso Tribunt. I93(.t

144
 [225]

[226]

[227]

[228]

fcl The Chicopo Tribune. 1928

145
 [229]

[230]

[231]

The Chicago \r.bune. 1928

[232 / 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]
 [234]
NEXT l/7_ ^ __H
TtStlN.
AUMT EMMV-. BETTEO 6eT
I CA.M GET NOU *.
Nice OUTSIDE BOOM ME A
FOB EICiHT OOUUJIS IMSlOe ROOM
ECiVPX-
A OAV AT h»V rr LOOKS
HOTEL. KINOA LIKS

^\ The Chicago Tribune, 1928

—AMD IN THE 0LOAMIN6 HtAVENUY OAVs! > [235]

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 -^^
VHtH MlJt MOMENT FiaUBlN<, OHjJ
MMV Puttimcj him BAS>*^'5>
SCHMALTZ INTO ClRCUljiKgO^ "•
AKJD HGa
LOVtUV
Miece
LBFT
»5WN ,

DIO
NOT
KISS .

euvPTs I

FlANCe'
THE V/CALTWV
MAOOR BLUEPOINT, COOO-evE".
CyPT HAVING LEFT VN A HUFF, A*40
MISS SCHMALT2. NOT SEINCi ABLETO
LOCATE Hlh^ .

The CHicogo Tribune, 1928

fiAO' HOW COULO THAT UNCLE WILLIES BACH OHt I M16HTA KNOWEO [236]
STUPID WOMAN THINK TOWM— WHAT-LL
A
HFD COME BOTTIMO IW JUST
THAT MEANT THOSE IN
I
FLOWERS FOQ HER? HE SAV IF HE FINDS
\
THE MINOTE THE FIRST MAW
OUT -you're GET-nN' , VJITH MONEV EVER TOOK A
WHV DID I UUN LIKE A .

FLOWERS FROM ANOTHEW I

I

FANCY -to ME
COWARD WHEN SHE ^ ODV, MAMIE? 1^ , Orr VOOR U6Uf FACE AWW
STARTED RE^OINO THOT FROM MEVJEl
BIT OF SENTIMEMTAL . ciTAW*«<-
\ SLUSH I WROTE TO ^IHW
\VES.l MUST EyPLAIM THIS!
"-V~OASPta,MT H«cr
_^ V^HO STICK!

£; The Chicago Tribune. 1928

[237]

The Chicogo Tribune, )928

[238]
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
HEOE AND L DOMT WANT KiO
S*_>SPiOOKtS CAST MN- WAV W
I

CASE AKiVTWlMOS M>SS\M' VJHEN

OET3 BACK HIS rAEMORY.
•

^j^ Ni B a N> M .'rc-r*

) The Chicogo Tnbone, 1928

 . -

[239]
OH -THEtre VOU ABE FOB PIXV SAKES! VJELL TO CONTINUE WITH
EGVPT-IVE BEEN /*7 ' r ave too to unoerstano THIS EPISU-E MOONSHINE SAVJj
UOOKIMO HIGH AND IJDW I
"VOUT^O MAN. THKT X WOULDMT
FOR VOU "TO R6AO >OU PAt" TWEhTTX FIVE CE»^TS "tO
HIS LETTER I 005T SET OKI THE THROME
FROM AOONSHINC . WITH THE KINO OF
EMOLAMO, HISSELF'
TWEKTTV-Flve CEKT5- XUf Atr»~^- L NOW ISNT THAT
POO-noOH — J05T k*Y UJCK.EOVPT-THE WEAtTHy
«UCM CRUST. fAAJOR BLUePOIHT HEU>LESSIN MY VEPY.
OWN HOUSE ANO ME AWAV^
TSK-tSV<

•••V.vi3- ''fev..' fca V^*^. CM; l^*r<»^ »

£: The Chicogo Tnbune. 19J8

[240]
MOW, Mr OEaA nephew- ( HELLO. VUkMlE-
VOOSE SHOUUONT TDIN / I OUST SEEN
WE dOWN UKETHAT VOOR DEVOTED
WHEN I AST FERA HOSaANO DOWN '

3UOHT LOAN- I THE STREET.

,

ONE RELATIVE SHOULD

AUWAVS BE HAPPV TO
HELP TCHE OTHER

T The Chicago Tribune, 1928

[241] rr '
WHKT? YOU BACK /weu.>«eoeAB
HERE ae^/att^ACAJM, LITTLE WOMA^ COME ON WTTM ME. BUM
WlLLIAMt MOONSHIHE PCTST I BOU6HT
tM OONMA HUN MOO IN HCV.MAMIC!
SMD HE <yve NOU A ME SELF ANEW '
POKE VER HEAD
DINNER SUIT-
.
WHAT FOR? f W""*.
OFFICER OOTTH'WWBtR
QUARTER VtSTEOOaf. ITHEN AOINNCP
,„^,, „^„r^ FOR BEIN A aOKA THAra WHIT,
NOJ OO WTTM Tt? ANO TO THE - --OAWN N-OU AINT &Crr._/ HOWCAN f
AND LET TH'
-r—l—»r
1

BWMATO ^THEATER AHO A AMY VISIBLE MEANS OF / \OUSe SAY OFFICER TAKV
r^ ^|» /IT-,/ jOLC^< NJOHT CLUB AFTER SUPPORT A LOOK AT
^jJ^T / WHICH I REMTEO MtiELF
J^i>5o VARooM»A^THeom.
I

'^^\

"rr
l^iZ^
The Chicago Ir.bore. 1928

[242]
WHAT nJTHB /^WHy,tAV ^
WOILD 15 EATING , WILLIE, DEAH fAAMIE-
ON -yOUSE. WN OEAH? HOW WOLn.O THAT WOULD
you COT A LOOK VOU LIKE TO SUIT ME _
ON NOUR FACE LIKE OO FOR A Nice JUSTQ^NOY.,
A CAT CAUtjHT IN
"

LON6 WALK IM
CHICKEN HOUSE THE MOONLIOHT?

--_ XI

^-y
M. WK tr n. O*— ^

(243)
A 8UMP ON Hit
i eEAKl. EH?
I W«LL..H«R«hAMOTWeR
1 TO KEEP IT COMFAmy
kj \ 3NAKC t4TX CRASSI

:^^^^

»B^^>MlftlH»iLimn

; The ChicoQO Tribune.

 [2141

[245]

6V CEOQOE.MR MULLINS- [246]

IT NA/A-S WIMO OF VOL)
TO COKAE, SIR*
VOU UMOEB STAND BUODV VOU'BE r ^ -c^
THAT t AM A FADED! J^/jl\\
^TRANCjEC \m\our.
fcAAJOa CITV AMO THEV
Blue POINT
I'VE BEeKJ
HEBE BEFORE,
REFUSE TO ACCEPT
MY CHECK IMPA/MENT
A S1UV.V JlOfiE-FiME-
TTrTTTnTm
LOTS*. TIMES lVJOMDER iF COULD I.

TftOOBLE VOO TO OET

IT CACHED FOR. ME
SO t CAM 6ET OLJT
OF THIS /
BEA-STLN-
^

The CKicogo Tnbune, 1928

A weiXOME HOMe
rv<l [247]
r CALLS -rwiS-NOTASOLn-^
AT TXE STATION TO MEET JM J JAvlL.
Mt VVMBRI IS / -THANK
uit.MULi.iNS,MAMieT A heaven!

[248]
[249]

[250]

[252]

[253]

The ChicoQO Tribune, 1928

 © The Chicago Tribune. 1928

[2;
ma! vjeh. MA><^e WEU-VJEHAve AND t
MV CjOOO WOMAl-i VOU CAN EH-P^JkIN AUU OF THE
t A^A VMIU\_1M<* "TO TH\S NOTE HE MAJOR'S KNOV^ YOU OH SOU POOR OOVl^
TESTIFY »N COURT VJROTE BEFORE TROUBLES VsflUL BE
NECe.55AflV THAT HE COT THAT WITH TOUR HAPPY TO KNOW
IF
THE MAJOQ WAS BUN^P ON H\-S CEQTA1NI.V. VAMPlNO -THATTHE OONT NEED TO TCU.
EMTIOEtN' OUT OP W(5 BEAN, OOC I ALWAVS COOK SETTLtq DOCTOR HAS THE DOCTOR
VJOlTE THAT MISS SCHMACrZ. VINDICATED TO Put a oooo I
'HEAO OUUVMC THE. "TO THE I

-TBM DAVS I TREAXED SWEE"«'EST TOMVSSECVPT. ME. BAMDAtiE OMVOUR /

UlfA MERE-ME DlOMTl I WAS NOTAWAQE A.BNA ANO UEAVE J
EVEN KNOW VJHER& "^ THE THAT 5HE AND VT TIUC TVtE ("^
He WAS.DUETO A MISS SCHfAAin^X S\WEU\_lN4i <*oe5 '

SU<:4HT CONCUSSION , HAD LEFT THE DOWN.

OF THE BOAiM CITY OR I MOST
CERTAIN
VJOU\.0
W
NOT
HAVE CAULCD.

(?) The Ch.cOQO Tribune. 1928

 . .

IZOMJ —WHICH VOO WILL StCN OH

, NOW- SIR — '

THl DOTTED Llh4e BEFORt

I -nwcr I HAVE TMOoouomv THREE MINUTES ELAPSE
EXPUAtfJEO HOW UTTEOli^ am A PCH-ICEMAM WlTM
BASELESS ABE VOUO WAOBAINTT FO« BLACKMAIL WHOM
ClAIMS F0O»S0,00O'« 1 HAVE ITATtONEO OOTSlOt WH4.
FOfJ VOUCl V>'lFrt COME W V^iHE^a I WHISTLE
AFFtCnONS- TVJiCE OUT TMAT VN/IMOOW.
I HAVE HAD KAV LAMvTVED
CQAW UP TX\S STATEMENT
1 COMPUETEi:*' exONOOATIMO
K*E-

© The Chicogo Tribune. 1«8

1260] WILLIAM, V.MEPE IS

YOUR Buimcss
I
HOOT 3MOKE! SAOICITV LA.T
DOWN THEWt A*JD
—
LOCH AT CDCAN umE ATWAT1
UNCLE WILLIE PIPE COClA^J-
WXkLKVsf 0\CKr MAJOff BlUEPOihtS
FCONT OF
IM Ft
tW CAR Af>*0 WE OUGrtTA
TMATCAW!
\tvw liET BIG DAMAGE* FOB
THIS -I WOULOtJT Be
5LIRPRI6EO IF HEDIO^rr
-TVAT OH ^ T~ "
PV^^POSE 71 OW!

© Th« Chicogo Tribune. 1928

[261]
I HATE TO BOTHEO t OOKTT
'*OUSE AT THIS HOoa KMOVSf WHEnE
OF THE MIGHT, SHE'S WEKT^
MISS SCHMVAUTl VWILL16
BUT ME AMO MAMIt TME LAST I
MAO AMOTHEO ONE ISEEN OF HER SHB
OF Oun BOAJS AMO V/AS HEAOEO
WHEM t LEFT SHE FOR TME HIVEO
WA'S THOEAT-BNIN' TO
OO JUMP IM TME PIVER
AND I JUST \A/ANT TO
tOMOW >F SHE'S O.H

I The Chicago Tribvne, 1938

[262]
KVOU MEAN -TO SAN/
TMKT MAJOR BLOePOiNT
I MOPE
TO TELL
5AV
MARRiEO
LISSEKI, MAu>OR-)F
All NOU %WAf4T
[
»5 TO GET
vjOmV STAtJO
MAO -TME CALL TO OFFEO \A I OtO, VOUa WAV-
IM
>0»J ^ffOO-' TO LEAVe CGVPT IT-L PIX THAT-
TOvgN A>jO HEvEO *,6t l>^ molOim" I
UO FOR VOO
ME. AOJ^lN? SUCH CROST/ OUT Fta
A etTTER
WELL I WOPE N-oo . OPPE» >
TUONEO MiM OOWM
COOD AMD HAOO

i<^l^ }
) The Chicaoo Tribuna. 1920

[263] WELL, W«LL WAU.-SO E^vP-r AnQ V,

bUOOi) «LUCPOint MAO A lAAT AND
THE MAJOU ts GOING TO CO lACW
Do 0>4C'»^»J*Ti —
ILL JU5"T GO BV
TV4C oAPAoC AMD BiO HiM 00<X>-«VE
OMt CAfi NtVCR TEI.C
WHAT WILL KA»*P«>4
•bWY AAV 3
TMAT M«
JinT OVIM*.
TO 0«T
MAPRlBD

(Ti The Chicago TribufW, 1928

 -

f ABOUT
ViHArr IS "THtRE
MOSHMOOTM-TMAn" MA.KES
mO [26-

'
tvEQveoov sMiue and
POlMT AT ME WHEN W/E -
> THBOUOM A -TOWM<

£i Ihe Chicogr, T,,Djr,.,, 1928

[265

© The Chicago Tribune,

[266

WEMT AmO VJA-STEO PlFTCCH

OOUOENi hAlNUTES Vs/A»Xih4'
FOR THAT OUO BVJM TO WAvefi
UO ASV< mr^ THE DlOeCTIONS ,

AND THEM HE OOK T EVEM

) The Chicago Tribune, 1928

[267
5HS, USSEM MV OEAR.
MOONSMlME- NOOSE
UNCLE VJlLLlE' WILU C*E.T VOUR TWO
HOVvJ ABOUT
THEM TWO BOCKS DOUUARS OUST AS SOON
><0\J BOUnVED AS MAiOK BLOePOlKT"
FROM ME KVCKS IN VJ>T>t ALL
THEM Bl£j PROMISES
C WEEV<. HE MAOE ME FOR.
FlSMlK W\M OUT
OF TH- RIVER

c. The Chicogo Tribune. 1928

[268]
PCPHAPS TWS 13 USSEM. EGYPT
MAJOR BLUEPOINT IP^U- THAT OLO
TIGHT VJAS>
PHOhilNC- I canV OFF ECHO MV
UNO€BSTAnO wmv UNCLE \AJILLie
Ht wasn't showed FOR SAVING HIM
UP- W£ PQOM<SBD TTIOM DROWN \MO,
TO CALL TO-Nl(jHT WAS A JOa OF WOR«.
AKID BRING Me A VOU GOT A PAT CHANCT
PATQ or KAR Rlf40S OP GCT-TIN- ANVTM\NG
THAT I AOMiRED, GOT OP -THAT eABY FQH
TEY^LING HIM HE OUGHT
TO BE IN THE fAOVlES
W»TH H»* LOOKS - ^PX
HE WOULDN'T £ilV£ VOU
-TH" TIMt

tij The Chicogo Tribune. 1928

 IS XA.T SO? t
(S 1*.T SO? \

[270]

[2711

[272]

[2731

fB Tho Chicooo !nbun«, 1928

 © The Chicogo Tribune, 1928

155
 Bamey Google and Spark Plug Billy De Beck 1930

[278] pr

King Feotures SyndiCote, Inc., 1930

[279]
SeJtflbR, S»4Mtf>PS **^f<tt^ A SUCKER
OUflANou-WUerC WCULO H& «£
~E)D««« IP IT WPSUr POR ^*)Ot
^U&£ WE. "rc»e LEAST WE O^
DO tS T5 PAV Voo BfiC'K ThE.
MCNEf ^*>y SPENT OnIhEM
cisri«'3r scrs we. coulO lcame^

9JSHT M*C.
£u ^ur To
Mrs MOTtL AMD

[280]

[281]

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ng Feolurat Syndkat*. Inc.. 1930

156
 t^ft Google t
t^
<moulO make,
iwOeClSiO^*-A.LL Woo WAvJE
Do
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ft /,

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A^ VOUR LECiAL AO^'SeR 1 "<

~> 111

wy
[288]

[289]

[290]

[291]

.ndcoir (nc 1930

[292]
MAOAME lA Mousse^
AffoRMCV • 1 AM Q0'N6 15

1 AM (N LOVt v*1(TH mi*-' 3. CA»4**ftT

QEAK 7i LOOK.
AT «T

© King Ftofurej Syndicot*. Inc.. 1930

158
 d: Kmg Feolurcs Syndicate. Inc.. 1930

mmsj

Xing Feoturei Syndicate Inn 1930

® King Feorures Syndicate. Inc., 1930

159
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[301]

[302]

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 [303

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[305:
SEMSIOR -MV PRWATE \"1he" MAOAME lA MOUSSE
SECBElAOV. MISS SWCMJERS. > 1«_"II^C FOBE^K
IS CWJ HER V*W OP- She
Will ASREE To VAMP

[30(

[30

® King Feolures Syndicole, Inc.. 1930

161
C308]
To «»ie GOoeLt ANO MADE AW APSC"*4^S*jT
FOR CP-a.i_ -h rv^EET M^M AT
BiS«T OCUOCn: "C41E
tVENIfjES — TwE.
eer TbocTHEa i.
SMAIJ. 'PWOWE.
LA MOUSSE AWO
TwEM 1W A TA1<»

[309]

[310]

[311]

[312]

(^ King F«oturas Syndicotv, Inc..

162
 [313
SMC^ A Mice OLD
GAL, Bur SOOTA
DUMG - "TVC EVEAJIKJG9
I "^ASTt Ckm wer.
ARE. <3KTTI<M' KI^JDA
BlAH - 1-H ASOUr
R&aov To cur OUT
LA MOUCSIN'

II

© King Feoiures Syndico'e. Inc.. 1930

[314:
/ mello.TomTom-
'
NO', no! DomT OisTuRa
WOPt 5ME OOWT
OET ^-M^SC Tf*tfr MADAME LAMOU55et
TCc cooee is
A PMC^^ BdCUSe kMQW VJMERE NtiU CAN MM:K.y
OH. " Those soeahs g yooe^
tALA* Foft. A (.^
DARw eooo ^f ^

C I'X), KIni Fhnra Synfciw, Uc. >}'!&< ituirf litlat n*tr^ u^)^fi£^

© King Feorures Syndicote, Inc., 1930

AU Oe DA OA DC DOO. \^ [315
Of Pice. EARCV, MISS
SHCW6RS - VOVj MdiWE. "S/ J FEEL X woNcea wwtfT V Sdod
WELL. WELL .MR, 21 rzV
tbo'RE ffOlTt A
!

SHS LOOkS LlKC^

AM C»-iaoeEMewT voir?* / So^J£RVOUS evEwiuQ, STRAMQCft ?

MR.QOOGLe "TUlS EvjeWiNQ/ ABCoT MeSTTAJd

ANO IwGois;G /a CTiWUoCE MAW
OfWL SHOWERS.' MR GOOGLE Lootc Me. cwee. -
^_^ J SWE AiwT«3oTA
l-K>PE
V r&^ "'*> SEClCwCT i MR.ZIT2. &EEZER Oj HCR. Like. HOW \% IM €TePOIN( CUT

evEft-YlWlMS?
\AjiTft A MCW
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At>*0 JM
PiMS 0*J' WeeDLE5 I

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TUB. •STIiS&'r
Ar40 VMS LL UM-IE.
A LiTTLC 04AT-
HCMtS HORStf^ee
SCWJOPPS ,

*r ;

g3 <^i-^^
ng Features Syndicote, Inc., 1930

[3X6
A LtfTlE. PEACH - Swe,
OOiJT lOOW: Hk.E TCie.
\ ^ofTwHOD vgont,
V (w*A3U WCfeS To A
sTbAMoe Gut 1

i Gutss r-\v
,
BoeBLE eves
<^ /^ QCTHef*.

© King Features Syndicate, Inc., 1930

ZIT2 - VA 'mem BER. TUAX eeTTEii ARE WCiRKIMQ OuT [317;

JOft.
PfiDPoSlTToW SEMATJJe sewMows
^(bo
Go HOME AND
AMM! T^IKlGS
, BEAUTTFULLV " - J TWIMK SENATOR SCHMO^PS AMD H»S
2ZOCC a'D So Ta c RESrMioRMeBNts!
•ifr «p
jll OUONE. lACW LC^/e,,^lAClAME- LAf-10uSSe.,VA;itL SOOM
ia TAKE IT LAST MIGHT O
!
VOU AffeR 1 BE SVoEeTWEAftTS AJSAlf4 —
OF LAMousse-s JUMeoc- TALK To Tte.
ALMOST Tore Me To RIBBONS EVeWT OP
WOfAiRE.
SGWrtTOfi.'.
L '-^^ SOCIAL "fftC. SeaSOKJ-
lAMOUSSlM'RS Nt,7lT£

© King Features Syndicote, Inc., 1930

163
[318]

[319]

King 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

164
 Wash Tubbs Roy Crane 1933

^iPflNO PMiVEMOMIA. fdREWEU., WUSH ANP

\i/EAS-( SPENP StMERAl tMY, PELIftHTFUL
PASS AeoARP A R\>JE«. BARtie.

/ H«t « -(OUR
( IWIOtn, (ASV.
mes TWx »«t, etPH Foiiy, na ,
le MMUV Ik VMKiX. er SIMWI'MS J
us E«K IE CLAK>£S ^VEJ 0«.

AMI <(U>M MOM OM,

Ht ttfe^ TMt ftO«\.'^ MAT6 — WTW H»S BtMIUACK

"W»S» two Ml» ^
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TMK-T H01UK\«L6 STtSU HOOK, KEAPV ANP WfkrnN&.
hilt
tMtf STM<» -roe is Toe. ittc ulcmu it cexmif.
'^ ^Mojes.

^TV^wt a OMW owe •

(B NEA S<rvJ», Inc.. 1933

 VOU CAN, TMt LOMGIMG Of A ^
/^ '^ /^NO
"Sr^lCTUftE. IF 'ntt 9ACKMED Of WihCil B£C6Mt* ^ MtGHTMARtJ
VPlUL^.OtO ^W^LING CAPTfMW To QETUftM 10
lUe teA FOft OHE lAST VOVA(i&.

NEA Service, Inc.,

337] *(E"LL fXXe TOM'S PlACt IN t^ ROAT, 'N- IF
E«ER 1 SEE >(6 SO MUCH AS TKEWBLt 0.T WE
l"""'^
" ""^^
lU BKt ^R BWtttS
_ I ME, ANE, '
0\)T!
V SIR".

[338]

Tuis GOES ON. SO SlCKENlItt

IS TUe SMELL Of W^^\.E oa AHP
«0 AMFUL TUC oREfLSV SMOKE,
T^fcT THEV MOPE Ito ttCMlEN TWtV

© NEA Service, Inc., 1933

339] VfiHKT A aeilEf IT IS, »I«SN TME lASTOF TWE WM-t OIL VTJUT THEN BE6IHS MORE BOAT 1 BOTAT
S STOWEO KWAN, AV*D TWt PCNUDe.9 CARCASS IS LEFT
CD TV*e SHARKS ANP OUUS.
^
li^PBACTlce, miTW UASW TAK-
ING TOM'S
W
g\*, WHAT A MISERABLE VOVAat!
PASSING SHIPS eeCOME NUMEROUS
NEARIMG The PANAK\A CAHAL. /^"
LAST,
"mtv ARE

PLACE. / BONES,
CRACK VER BACk;-'
ve LArV
LOfvfERSl PULL,
BLAST NE'. POLL'.

340]

[341]

[342]

vti SAILORS HAVE WHAT -mty CONSIDER A

'C)R«AT JOKB C3N TVE MATS POR (T &CCI«
,

1»AT TWE MATS rs lEKV fOMO 0» WPLE ?\i.

£ N[A Service, Inc.,

 M&H IMTTO TV-i VJhniUO VmKV«*
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349] sreuvVi uwt Roiry. 65 wcr

msn'vfs/^ wwetLW^st. 40-000 T1M«

kl UkBjb% KS 1UKT eiG 9M9

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fJoLP. HUM69.V, M*P M\S6RA^», TM»

© NEA Service, Inc., 1933

/%SUN »e(JlNS •WE LON4, UMPI.EASKMT

Vi«(TW TUt PtK^ wMKtl, BUT TUERE « »W vi^TXAK C* COTTIHQ IN, MJO tolLINIi

DNe TV«HK I'M IC601W' !& I^T

NEA Ser.ice, Inc., 1933

(w^S euo&s IS
mis? AN
5«
GO
1
WHME,
'YOWP IN
fioina TO
1

1
I COULPN'T
tvJCN CUWR
IN THE
BOW.
LOKf ER4'. EMEW MAN
1V6 BOOTS.
ff YE TO

WHALE -V we CONTEST?
AlWT aCTT RVPPA
IK lAST 0N6
16T. ,
J

© NEA Service, loc , 1933

, .' .,
[361] ^«t MUTE'S tOKT fUJOB-

ClU«iklH6 -THE seeOKB

mw
K*Tt TO -niE Rescue
Ik BOMB OUH.

[362]

[363]

[364]

[365

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 HOVl OH, NCU,X V6 eLINKlN" OtO
' FROft\
TAKC ORWW FOm MC fWT m ft SCCONP TUt TAeiES TURUflT "mtu t. >ooR gmts-re op&n, om? tHti g£ ow PEeK."^ [367]
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OMt «e>iot\J€R tftfrSHES TO -mt

eArr>>.iN TOiw is Bfre<«MiUEP to Bfc CURSeSl SCKEAMS!
mt MO&Tttk Of W\S OWM SHIT.
-

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^cKntiM
^
POU.V, CUT ftwp eiEEpmo. IS f emc- foft. Hts uFtJ

1 NEA Sc'.co Inc , 1933

'RftOM Hit *Lki% hT TWi WHEEL/ MASH [368]

Ire

€*»T»iN fouv aiues a mufflep sob a,s

Ihe MATE OleRTAKES HIM.

JfTiASH IS SCARED OUT Of HIS WITS. AND MO

WONOERI HE WAS TVE SOLE WITNESS TO
CAPTAIN FOLLV'S TRAGIC BSTTLE WITH THE HATE.
ITS
HEARD -X
'N'
I'M
rt-NoTA

hope TO DIE,
AS DEAF
KADOORtCNOS.
^ rrs A BLASTED GOOOTWlNO.TOOl
WOBO, VE BUa-fKEO BRAT, I'M A'WATCHIN*
01E HEAR-? I'M A'WATCHIM'-ie.
AN' MAOK MV
VE I
[369]

fe^^

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S NEA Service, Inc., 1933

Hemember!
0' -(E,
one vap out
AM- -(ERE SHABK-tAtr.
5^ '(TiE ROLLS ANP Tosses
Vl^HtS BOHK. Mt CAtTT SLEEP.
IV "S ')f9^ASy
\JTrtlN& l&
WATtHeSHlMjMALARM, CCRTMH THKr SOMsA
^^ ^^ ^
[370]
HKONG. / P«ST'. VOU HAMENT^^H^r "^^ *^'''''.
I

lEAME ME

|AtH KNOWS TOO MUCH. »E WAS A WITNESS

TUE SOLE WVTNeSS — TO T«e TRAGIC PEATH PoeSNT PARE COMRPE
OF CA^PTAIM FOLLW. OE
'MS BEST FRIEND.
1
IM EVEN

S NEA Service, Inc., 1933

^/n^ASH, ANP WASH ALANE,'' r^UT \*£.PAR^S OPEN

l*OT HIS C J
WnNOVIt THAT TWE CAP- U/MOUTH. THE CRAFTY,
TAIN UlAi THROWN 01ER- OUTTERlna EVES OF TWE MATS
tOARP. NEMER. l£AME HIM.

©TI1AM6S TO SAV, «0 MEMTION \S MADE Of CAITAlM

FOUVS PlSAPPEAkdAMte. THE tREW SUSPECTS M0TWW6. J
 [373]

[374]

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fftCAUUS WITH TECBOC TMfcT HC WAS

THtSOlt «iT>4t« TO CAPIIUN tOlW'S DEATM.

"^ NEA Servic.. Inc.. I9M

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YE'LL NE.VCft SQUEAL [379]
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© NEA Service, Inc.. 1933

 [385] D04T BE AFKAIO.MA'aO ^ A Bio Soeit-L*. WtTM A HOOK? BIazes.Yes! "=^,
^^ APPEAgS. "M LOOfcTING FORAONE- SuRB, HE WAS MECE - BUT THAT MUG'S ALONE,
AKMEO SCAMP AND A A4oe0WEl.SE. WHV? IS LAOV, THEBE'S
—
,
I
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WHfcT DO LITTLE FELLA WfTM COfilVl
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[386] UMTIV. HE SEtt THE avtU. «««» Ij'TVMt FOB HAtF AM HOUR. ^»1EU., emUE, 1 OFFEBEt 9tF0RE
TOUIAttC HEB. MOTOR BOAT. Tt> TAKE NE WHEgEUtR ^t'Kt eoUMD
FEB.. IT COOK* LIKE NS'U. HAME TO

kAS^ STMCtS OFF iN ttHfttH OF WKSH.

'HE MATt \t BtAMT AFTEK. XIM >"«"°P —

[387]

[388]
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MUTHIN Till we LE*^N, tASV VJMO |
WOSOOY GOIM" TRIED TO MLjROee WASH. Wt
iCW THEY'CT Wl' OS^ S^YEDTMt SQUt»l. OW CAhE e«K TO KWOCK WS CLOCK
68 ft&IM US ^^A MlkTt'S i U'i. Of F. ANOlf Tmi IS A MUTIMW
SOdBE COO*CIW& UP WE '
WANT TO JOIN f

[392]

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^We'-'-. >">' *«>" WAS >t>eu. iMKamt Mg. SLU&&'^ AMAxewfcuT^

® NEA Service. Inc.. 1933

 [397]

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[402]

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 [403]

[404]

VEAM' I COME BACK TO GIT EVEM Wl' THEfA ] [405]

Bloom'in' mutineers, 'w' ve'RE goin'tohelp me. I

[406]

[407]

® NEA Service. Inc., 1933

[408]

£ NEA Service, Inc., 1933

 [409]

[410]

[411]

(4121

[413J

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N£* Ic'.ec. inc , 193

 [415]

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ce. Inc., 1933

[417]

[418]

[419]

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 [421]

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[-123]

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[426] r fVItOOESU'T HW6 \ /

TO COME ArrsB. i I
you. TLL CMtBSy
w
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 had already been touched on humor-
decade. It

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 playgroundwas 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 by William Ritt and Clarence
daily, Brick Bradford,

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 The Bungle Family, Chester Gould's Dick Tracy,
Tuthill's

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 by the furor

great old-timers in the strips continued as before, often untouched
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-
zarreand 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.

183
Notes on strips in this section Dick Calkins drew only the daily Buck Rogers. Despite his signature on the Sunday
thirties, Russell Keaton was responsible for the striking artistry of
pages of the early
the two pages which open this section [427-428].
The realistic or illustrative beaux arts style of drawings entered the comic strip

with the advent of realistic was foreshadowed in the work of

adventure, although it

\\'insor McCay. Probably its most effective use was in the work of Alex Ra\inond in

his early (1934-36) Flash Gordon [430]; and in that of Harold Foster in his Tarzan
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, the
skillfully free-flowing and open style of both artists permitted the full integration of
visually compulsive, multipanel movement and necessary narrative development so
vital to the creation of effective comic-strip color pages.

Subsequent realistic work in the comic-strip vein, additionally hampered by the re-
duced reproductive space available in later years, has tended to be increasingly de-
tailed, with an almost obsessive need to fill every part of every panel with black

shadow and complex linework. Such visual weight can slow down a reader's eye
movement across the narrative panels, and even draw his attention to irrelevant
detail.

Like Buck Rogers, Tarzan, Flash Gordon, and Prince Valiant [431] are frequently
reprinted here and abroad, and are (or soon will be) accessible to collectors in siz-

able editions.
One man who offered a highly fanciful Sunday page was V. T. Hamlin with his
Alley Oop [432-434]. He was also the first major comic-strip artist to take the reader
back into prehistoric time for his narrative setting, thereby reversing the direction of
Buck Rogers and Flash Gordon.
With Cliff Sterrett, George Herriman, and Winsor McCay, Roy Crane was one of
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, which

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 by Gray through the thirties and
in fact scripted
early forties, and its him
characters were
drawn by for a number of years. This little-
known Sunday half page was an entertaining and gripping strip. Replete with a sar-
donic and often bloody humor. Little Joe was a thoroughly adult strip. At the time it
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 the
time, drawn by New Yorker artist Garrett Price in an often stunning graphic style,
and told by him with many skillful touches of the fantastic and unexpected. It was
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 section
is not only the comic and narrative apogee of E. C. Segar's work, it may be the finest
example of pure comic-strip narration [443-474]. Segar is almost unknown to any
reader under fifty who has not encountered the only extensive reprint of his work
since 1940 (the Nostalgia Press Popeye the Sailor collection of 1971). He based his

humor on the interaction of one of the most inspired casts of comic characters this side
of Dickens. { The inherent conceptual strength of many of his Thimble Theatre fig-

ures is perhaps demonstrated by their continued popularity in the hands of several

successor writers and illustrators since Segar's early death in 1938.) But introductory
words are unnecessary with Segar: the great sequence awaits only the turn of the
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,

184
Buck Rogers Phil Nowlan and|Dick Calkins 1932 / 1933

1 [427]

John D;lle Co., 1932

185
[428] w ><ojcouc> cojTWX 6(awnv 1 voo SuftCiv
fcWOO&M tD UUOV A 1.0TC* yC001.0 ^ASC
-^ TMe*^ T06CTUEP
Tarzan Edgar Rice Burroughs and Harold R. Foster 1933

[429]

187
 Flash Gordon Alex Raymond 1935

[430]
PH! I SEE FLASH-OFiOER TVt
FIRST COMPAMV OF L/WCERS
TO CHARGE. COLOJEl-/ J \r-^

ALEX l^*-* :* Da ?ARKCV AMD A RECWEWT

RAYMOND :" 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 /

WEXT week:
»' cohiat/"
K>ng Feoiurti Syndicot», Inc. 1935
 Prince Valiant Harold R. Foster 1938

mm
[431]
L, IN THE DAYS OF
^ KING ARTHUR

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

191
[434]

® NEA S-

192
 Captain Easy Roy Crane 1935 / 1941

[435]

CAPfAlM
501DU R Of ^ORTUME
k« »•«•««

ni^JO Ta.NKETS OP SRA-^iS AfcJb JADE. OTmeb^ Tviceow 80K£ NECKLACES ACOU*C MIS MECK.
THtrKE M.I UII H I«M6,*M0 MIWOIMG * Li>l60 THAT SOUM05 UK> A BUUCM OF M« tOUEALiMS. i^TTNT
i NEA Service, Inc., IWS

193
[436] r

CAPfAlM
setou^^jwuwE
wo HCURS LATER, THE COMSPlRATORS CLUB A SEWTBi!
A cuse imto a powder MAaAziwe, and u5nr
THsajsr

•U(SlE CALUS.'COJPUSIOJ.' SOLD:eRS

^LEAP FROM TMEIR BEDS AkJD FIRE
J ACROSS THE BORDER. TWSEE /ORE SLAlM.

MOCMIWQ WILD E)43TEMEMT/ EACH COUMTCV

: BLAMES
kT^eCTTMER FOR THE OJTRAQE. BAWDS PlAV "HOOPLA
FOR DER czar: TViERE are Parades, speecmes,
RiCTs, AMD SOWFfRES.

fclPLOMATS BUS'' "rt) AMD FBO, lOoona I

|fW3CRiED. A EAILWAW eCiD<3E IS

BlOWM UP. AkJOTk-ER SEMTRV S SHOT.
ULTIMATUMS ABE MUHLED BACK MiD FOBJU! w
'OOPSVCASIA BECOMES ALARMED
ILIZES,
AMD MOB-
FOLLOWED BV NIKKATEEMA.

H£ia«£6K TROOP TRAINS.

9 NEA S<rvlc«, Inc.. 1935

194
(^ ^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

197
 Toonerville Folks Fontaine Fox, Jr. 1930

oh! v^as 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, 1930

198
Thimble Theatre Ebae Crisler Segar 1933-1934

[443]

© King Features Syndicote, Inc., 1933

199
[444] ^W«M
/"
(
I IKXro EITHER VTOP
GOOF-/ WV^NTIOtft 0« WK D_ftl«>THeB.
MMOH& A RW THW UJIU.
CftUSE f\ PERSON
TO CiROW eftCKUJftRO
weiu. ^Re «o aoMb
TO TrtAT POKER GtSHE?
COME ON. ITS LATE ' ^eEw»iM6 I
iLUSisriaii:^:
IS NOT Sial-HDOR.
; n NOT GooFv: CUT OUT STftCE ANO FILM-
^rrs (V MMJvcuuV SOMETIMES MW<E SLITS WJ>*6 OOTTEO
^TWr4& UNES Ot* SCRE6t*jCtV^N66
HAG HEADS ffy
THROO<iH SLITS
MCWlNCl FILJ-V
o

.^Sids^ti^
<SM VOOTBE NOT CiCHHrt. TO ru fin «Eft-Oo voo Mmo\
TO RN f^l IW EKTION
I

N« POKER GAME ftNOj IF I

IS ,^
THKTS AU. THWt _ >MEM> M. 0« HERt,
-

TO IT u*wr 00 care; 1

Tl«rs VUrtKT SAlO-lUWEN \

1

\UJW« TO PUAi POKER ILU

00 n, Shvv ? 1
—

Thimble Theatre
BLOU ME DOWN, OC / COUNTED
I

/^TWENTI-SEVEN
BILL BARNACLE! I VIRM ,
SuSt GIAO «R IN Towrv. LATIK 0« THE
OlONT ViE HOME FUN I FLOOR.POPt*-

LAS NKittr S LIKE -OL TIMES.

HOW EH .

MANV
TOOCiH

C> King Faoturet Syndicol*. Inc., 19^

200
 [445]

/'rvE GOT TO "^ ,

AVJ, DON'T 8E 40
TIMPERAMtHTM..
JHtRE 14NT f\N
EGG UjnmH
MlV-tS OF
HERt
r8t61N>*lN&

ou
I

mmmf^^
COT COT STWat MAD FlUM -
MAKtsuTs M.ON& ocrreo
l.lNEi> ON SCRtEN
CVtfvNGE. HEM)S 9V MOVINCj
HO.TIUO HV.M THROOCjH SV-ITS —
ANOTHER SHOW
NEXT UDEtK.,
TMIMBLETriEATRE.

^iS:
^ MOVIES ^

:i

_CL
enO

King Feaiucei Syndicate, Inc.. 1933

201
[446]

<S) King fvalvtvi $ynd>COl«, Inc, 19;

202
 [447]

203
[448]

King Ftolum Syndlcolt. Inc., 1934

204
SWIM TO SHIP [449]

^V)W» BWN&
MEN BACK
^^fc. —«VW^Vv
HOUJ

(BE6lNN«^
I MfflMHSfer^
CUT OUT STfVit MAO FIV-M-
THt
MAGIC
BOTUE
MAKE SUTS WJ»te DOTTED
UNES ON SCREEN- BRING
DIFFERENT HENIS OOT OF
TWE BOTTLE eV MOUINt.
Film through slits
^NOTrtER SW!W next week

TmimbleTheatrl
^
a MOVIES jg^

^"3 ^
Pif

PftST6 TO

© King Feofurei Synd-cate, Inc., 1934

205
[450] WOTA<,N02ZLE tf*JENT60
A ptUL THAT SHR»*KS
MATTER- THE P11.1..
AFTER OlSSOWlNt..
[^(iVNNlV46^
MiKfian:;; r^^
Cut Out stage ako F\lm
SPREADS THROUCH THE mf\k.e slits alon& dotted
SfSTEM Af*0 ACTOAlif on screen-chpin&e
CAUSES THE ATOrft TO NOSE^ lines
NDSES BV f-o\)lNCi FILM
SHRINK —A RMJIKnoN THROOOH SUTS o
THROOGrt T«e PORES ANOTHER. SHOVU
Of THE SWr* CAUSES NtXT UJEEK -.
THE CUOTrtlNCa TO
ThimsleTheatrl
_«»^5^ MOVIES ja
Kbut hes so ILL GET A SHEET OF >
AH! THERE 'SMAVL to MASH PAPER AND TR-( TO
HE 15 IF I T151E0 TO J SKOOT it ONDER
PlCki HIM OP

O'
A HOOSEf L-f 5EE%
SAPPO ANOCKCES
TO MAKE A MEAV
OF HIM-
1 1 GONE' MA-( NEVER. FiNO^
1

HIM (\&(MN BECAubE HE b

GETTlNfa SMALLER EVERV >
MIHJTf.
^^
,^.
H'^ PASTE TO
I

pPPOSlltftLn
Co^iTl^^oEO ^*EXT a;EEK

Thimble Theatre

(S) Kinfl Feolurai Syndicoi*. Inc., 19)4

206
 [451]

Thimble Theatre
mtHl THe DOPETTHt SEA HfviS GOON
1^
I _ SUll-6 TOPOPeiESiuP.CM'loRtiUJlMPyoMO
T-nJ RSTuRnS to the P\RM6 S v€SSEL -TWE ooon
^UJIMS BftCK-TlE^POPe-<E kJHiLt ME l^$LtePlNC»
(KK.0OEL>UEB^ HIM TO THE Sef».H^C3- OJIMPV
LEARNS TKftT THE OUO HA& H^S MftNV POONOS
OP FROZEN Hftr-\6URCiER AdOARD
m€ PLATTeR^ KtR ArVO
S"€ FAl.l.% IN L0\* HJITH
Him- POPEVe GETS lOOSE.
AMD STARTS TO CLEAN
UP TrtE CReiU. BOT
lower* HE SEES
UMMPV KISSINC)
The SEAHA& ME
BECOnESiuEAHENeO
U;iTM LAUGHTER ^0
CANNOT FIOHT TMt
Pirates ujho scuart-
UPON HiH

King Features Syndicate, Inc., 1934

207
 )

[452] SCPPO ESCOPtO

iiij:i:iiaii:ferPftSTt \
CROM JVX. SP'OERS BEGINNING \ '
WE8-B0T HES [

FftH FROM
CUT OOT STfvGt ftfAD ^\LM-
DOST PRBTicLE^ MfvKt 'iV\-'> PsLCMio DOTTED
S«50J PAST KM O^* SCREEN-MOVE
Lif^ES
C0NT1NUM.V.V- tiLMTHROUGH SUTS ftNO
"iHf ftae 5tE Popeve SHOOT THe
SOMEiUMAT I
OOCKS - ^^NOTHtR. SHOUJ
UtartTER TKf^N NEXT UJ&tK
tti4BOOV. SOT
HEftUV ei^OCjH
TO DO O'^MACiE

P»*0 UJ»^t«E OO voo SUPPOSE,

SAPPO IMAOS -rt^'. RiortT On
TOP OF "iSUJifE'S NOSE.
^
A ^UOOEN DRtvFT PROM uf^iOtR THE
OOOR CARftlCa rtlM H^tiH INTO THf '^i^^

iM^CiNE mtRTlE GRiEViNC: HERE —

_i <r 6000 HtfMJENSl ^
ftND
FOft HER. MUSBf>sNO UJt SEE A
Him Sitting on heR noi>E- PftftT OF MRS.
of course. she doesnt SAPPO'5 NOSE
hnovj it noo does he. '^NO SftPPO
FOR HE IS NO 8l6(iERTHW< Mft&NIF.ED
AN AOlJLT ONE THOOSWO
GERM TIMES AND IT
PROVES TH^T
HE REfti.UV
IS SITTING
THERE
OPr^^nt f H.M

Thimble Theatre
1 TOUiMR WtMPV,
LIKE
BUT BEFORE ACCEPT 1 i
OH'. 60&0 HEWt»iS / :

/ ' I'M NO
UJMRT An A96yT .il-'r^ 1 \ KWROERES.
1
N
AS A CLOSE FRlENO.J TO OC'. MERC-/.' );V(^?*i. :>j-— ^
VOO MUST niUOOVONT BE All ••A^'''^
PRoye you RltKT TO ^J—
, -M « _ ""
HAv/e nervej BtnehO ^ ) A^tlSv , 5i ,
 \7ou
Mrt(n\.t Hftb LITTUt iNTtRtST IN WtR. *.HD RlCaHT Tmi ^VOMENT X)WN tS
[453]
HOW PROTESSOR. THKT SMtLL NE^/eR SEE JOHN AO^^^^ VjOf*OEa
WHW SHEt)
itijgRiianiife
00 IF SWE CUT OOT STft&E M« FILM-
CfvO'SED S^PPO MAKt SLITS ftLON<> OOTTeD
^NO CLOTMCS
HIS LINES ON SCRtttA-C«(>»<6t
TO SHRlMW. ^tTlo^^ Bv kovincj film
tJJELU.rtt IS
STILL SHRlNKINti.
THROUCsrt SLITS
HE IS IsiOuJ ANOTHEft SHOW
MACROSCOPIC NEXT VJEEK
LAST UJECK (^
POCF OV OJiNO
-*s>.r^Tj^^si^ l^NOED Hin ON
His ujifes Nose

THE. HECK OF IT l^, HE'S ^ ATEf\ftlSR0LUNC3

GETTirHCs SMAatft E\ftRV
SECOND- HOW CftN Y^
IFIND HIM'HOUJ CAN
)

IBftlKCD HIM BACK?/

TO SAPPO
M-(RTltS NOSE
SetMS TO BE
. ft HUCsE.

.^ N N..
Sft?PO
PORE- A
COf^S UPON ^ SKIN
TINV HMR, Cf\N 6E >«<^.l
SEEN IN Tcit BACKCaROOND-
MH&NlFltD'3.000' TIMES Mft.GNIg-iE.D /QOOQ' TIMES

-THE TEftR
ABSORBS
SAPPO AND INSIDE OF TEhR. SftPPO SUMMM*N6^<^W&l.lF6
TO St CONTtlNOEO — -«

Thimble Theatre

King Feoiures Syndicole, Inc., 1934

209
[454]

King Features Syndkol*, Inc.. 1934

210
 GET W.ON0 SO u-ieaj
/ ALU Hfi^OS ON OeCK'. [455]
I

HftGGv IS eecAose / KtLL THE f^f^T'. I OOKT CP^Re

HOW VOO 00 n. aOT ofcTHlH: ^^^
OF MftSCULlNlTV ANOy
VOO ARt THE ACME /^
OC fCMtNlNlTV.
LIT i Kft\;e

etbiNNiCHCa

pop£ve
iiij:i:riaii:R:
COT OOT STAGE AuO tn.H_
r^
^
I
Mf\KLSUTb ALQNtjOOTTfO

^ hE^Os qv movin<j Film

THftOUGH SV-l"T^
ANOTHER Shoo;
NEXT Lueei^-
—

ThimbleTmeatrl
H MOVIES jSl

Bill eAR'^tv-L'.

( )

PASTE TO
OPPO-iiTC

© King features Syndicote, Inc., 1934

211
[456] UJiMP-y
aLIJ!l2llllli:^!
CUT OOT 6TA6t '\kO PlL(-\S
-

CUT SL1T5 iM-ONib OOTTtO

LINES ON SCReeS- MAKE
OLD UJiMPN EAT SPAGHETTI
Sf PULLING FILM OP THROUGH
SLITS — TRIM BLACK LiMES
FROM PiLMS '^NO PAST
.
-rKer-A TOGE.Tt^eR

OOUT IRtTOTeU- .
- I'HEf. LUHAT S
INVISl&UT* TO fKl.L KIHD^OF AHlHPiLS Mt ''Ou CAN fAAKE
Mf J : RftV — THE "
J RM lb UtftU't P^HO "TO AtL ASIMAL PROOOCTS - A PeRSO«lNVftlBL.t. (lOlTrt Twe
A Pit Irt U.MEl^Of* RftV- TOO UjOUtOWT -1SOCrt Pi's - WOOL Cl-OTHlNti - SlLK' IliJONiT USIEN TO
[ > t>RAPes
1
LEMHtR. tTC - J SOCM TAUK-VOU ( HANGING
,7J-N.-^ SEE-M^M>MS^ LC^T VOOR ARM^-
i KNOUJ
OtTAltS

iNviSlQluTV IS Ari 'it*^- mEm; MtH!

(NSiOE AND T- lMPOi>SieiUTY h£h: tAtH' h€w. heh:
JFlNO OUT ^
f>^iii/

Thimble Theatre
AW LET EM SCRAP SALTV
LE'S GO ON OCCK AN'
Clean op the rest of
THEM SUi^ABS

Me
 [457]

© K.ng feolurei Syndicore, Inc., 1934

213
 SO "^OO CDHT BEUtve CCOLD GOT H£^ ITS~
^
I (IF rvE 5T1LV. ft
INvEKT RA>-^3 THM UJOClD OKM
CM>4£ iNViSl8ll.tT¥- REMEMBER
UJHEN fOU STUCK yOUR HEf^O
SORE- iTS JCST
INVISIBLE. THKTS W.
f-lf SPeClftL UP'"^.
lieP-ICAN |'Bc6»W*lK0 >
S VEELIT
t\mu\K^. L]
INTO THM TMl^4G UlUTh pRhPE'S Q"-fo3-R-7J- LUiLL, CUT OOT STfv&E fwiO P\U^-
ftftOUNO t-lAKE IT VISIBLE GOOFV MftRE SLlTi ftLONdOOTTeO
LINES ON SCREeN-CH^N6E
FACES PA.CeS 8V MIXING f ILM
THROOGM SUTS
ANOTHER. SHOUJ
ME>.T UjEeK —
p
^£(t^e^ ThimbleTheatre.
;
MOVIES
me CAT* plm poker
MR^SAPPC- IHtRt'S IS MO '

5APP0 COOLOHTr^'SAV, ?^£*VSO»A R5ft. VOOR.

%T0P -OU- ^ SEiNCj in SED
DOMT TEH.)^
HER »eo</7^~.

OPPCSiTe PlLM

Thimble Theatre
HA- WMCr^ v-Z-PV iS SCAPED
Hf CAN corr^w f* rashit

<£ King Feotyre* Syndicate, Inc., 1934

214
 [459]
BlOlNNl^4G»
^ iij;i;waii:feY^
U5E ^)OfT COT OUT STft&L WAO f ILM-
ftLC^K. MRKE 5LITS AV.OM6 00TTEO
LINES ON SCB.EE.N .

(VMO FINIirt CHANGE HEPOS 6^ MOV/lNCj

Film through SLns-
ftMOTHER SHOW _1_L.
-NEXT IDEEK-
ThimbleTheatre.
MOVIES ?'
_LL

PM 0-,

V
WE'LL lOuJ
ft

v^-

rn^ fpV.
_LL
pASTe TO I

'tlridiUir rv. Cm- Aoii-

Thimble Theatre

© Kmg Feotures Syndicate, Inc., 1934

215
[460]
[StGlNr^NO
I iLij:i:ria»;K r^
Ui>e SOFT COT OUT STftCE WO FIVJI.
Bl-ftCK.
fAM<.t SLITS fvLONG DOTTED
Pencil ano
LINES ON SCRtEN
Change heads By mov/inCi
fihvsm faces; FILM THfiOD&rt SLITS—
ANOTMER SKOU^
fSEXT LOEEK —

ThimbleTheatre.
1^
i^ 1^ MOVIES ^
o

^<
-LT
.v<>

PASTE TO

Thimble Theatre

King Fealurai Syndicol*. Inc., 1934

216
 [461]

-\ r '11" r
r !r rii

UX>OL0NT JMSgSS^^S^^
1
'
1

—\\WyA,V
1 1

ON THIS I^^^^^^^^S
[462]

Wlt^PW. VA KSOW UJHfVT

THE euftSTEO SEA H^CsS
GONER DO f-HftH'. SEED
SPlNftCH TO THE GOON (

SOS IT KIN LICK MtjW

ftN' If THE GOON f-:XZ
LICKS ME THE rV^ '
Of HAG UJILU yO^T^
GET ALL Of r*~A^'?A5
 [4631

cP\c^e^G

King Features Syndicote, Inc., 1934

219
t464]

® King Ffroturei Syndicote, Inc., 1934

220
 [465]

THIS WttH. DRWgi) CWE PlCTORtS OF PtTG /COM€ OK,K>D'j

IN DlFf ERENT PO-bES— CiET vf^ f\ XJFT
1

PENCll. ft.N'
DRhvo PvTCKtRS

tt

«!>1

K
[466]

1 1^ * «»** "^ »*r^~ St3H

^ King Feature) Syndicoi*. Inc., 1934

222
 poPevE'5" '^-"^'^it- .- [467]

VOOR UJiFE TO r^ V^LC.THfb AND A\.L

303333:^^013]

rv€ ftttN UJAIT1N&

FOR NiNETV YCARS
50 TneOE SURELV
OUGWTA Be ONE.
AvoNG PeRTtxrrC-

Thimble Theatre

© King Feoiures Syndicote, Inc.. 1934

223
[468]

King Featur«i Syndico'r. Inc , 1934

224
 riTO]

Thimble Theatre
THE GOON IS 6S i^9ntb »s) / LISTEN, itai. 1 NOT |
[470] 'POPe,v&'5'
aaacdiPDszE A CaOT TO
1-t.P.R.M TO Dftf>MJ
PcT FACE.5 ** EM- ^ 5i. ^ t/ ttt^ei-^aeO-.iF vA COT A <

® King F«otur*i Syndtcoi*, Inc.. 1934

226
 'ft*<rf.KiDS.C>tTl [471]

© King Features Syndicote, Inc., 1934

227
[472]
POPL^LS CARTOON &I.VJ&

(0 King Footurcs Syndicot*. Inc., 1934

228
 ArtQW,BKL*).TO DM [473]
UJC got ftKOTMtR.

*\ IP >A GtT*i ATAV

ShOUJ TOUU.S
HOUj TO OO
en UP— iF
EVJERBODV
Do Right me''
ujOolONT be
MUCM TROUftLt
ON THi*. ol:
tAPT'

<S> King Feorures Syndicate, Inc., 1934

229
[474]

King Feoiursi Synd'COte, Inc.

230
 m
Shadow Shapes
in Moving Rows
Extended Narrative in the

Daily and Sunday Comic Strip,

1928-1943
There is doubt that a day-to-day narrative continuity was attractive to the
little

reading public in the comic strips of thethirties 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 The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician; Briggs's daily
Brick Bradford; Falk's
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.

Notes 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

231

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 Gray devoted the majority of his waking hours to researching, writing,
strips.
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].
232
 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

IWRCTTE THE OEAN OC THE COU-ESE [479]

THAT OUR SOKI WAKPTED TO QUTT
ANO THAT WE WERE C0N>S10-
1

SO-OCH.
S2!iS' iil? «EQIJES.T. HE IS COfAlNS
tgae TO SEE LTS- KKJCW HEU. TKV
1

TO COMV1I.JCE US (OCT TO OO IT-

WkMT VOU TO SEE HIW t^ 1 CA.M'T
1

(^ George McMonui ond King feoiufei Syndicate, Inc., 1936

233
[480]
WE MUST FIX 1*5 SO*MS
Roo»A e£(=OREHE ©ers
&ACK FPOM COLX-BSG-
>^'S SUCH A voME ecrr-
l VrfAMT HIM TO PESU

e King Features Syndicate, Inc.. 1936

[481] yCXl kWJSTHURRV TO TVE STACTIOM

ANO *AEET OUR SOKL AS KKOW v-e
t

WH-U BE LXADSO COMM WITH HIS

eootce AKo stuoes. i-cui- meeo
SOME 1-El.P

[482]

[483]

[484]

<£) King Feoturct Syndicot*, Inc., 1936

234
Abbie an' Slats Raebum Van Buren 1937

[485]

[486]

[487]

[488]

[489]

i. United Feature Syndicate, Inc., 1937

235
[490] {-HE AINT FOOLIN'ME.' HE HATES
IT HEPIE, ALREADY— BUT HE WONT
LETO/V. SO-/ GUESS —
l-l BETTER
NOT LET ON -HOW TEmiBLE
MUCH- WANT
I TH- BOY
TO trAY.'-)

[491]

[492]

[493]

[494]

Ci United Fwtyrt Syndicat*, Inc., 1937

236
 [495]

[496]

© United Fealore Syndicate. Inc., 1937

Our Boarding House Gene Ahem 1929

7] £ Some taV ue>eX loeex cuRikis Jusf DoiJ' (f GREAT HEAJEtJS; MAlJ, J
[498]
•VoUR LUklCH HOUR, BBoP foR A LAUSH, aJ' see o-/ 14IS MASTERPieCE,
iii -tW RummleV art eAa6«y
£H ? WELt, — ru so iJTo tVlE STATuc //_
"
To see Aki EXHiaiTioKj ot= TH'' Bcflfl <*^ okJe <X^ TMoie „Vol) HAVE IT
MaV WIVlD ARTisTic TAClJS TiJE IDEST,
600FV MoDERti Asr.'— Ttl' MAJOR Vol)

HAS ekiTeRED A sfArue hs UP -TbVkJ' To TRAJCES, All'

START -RAOlOS
— AkId IT SHoUlT>
MABe OF -PLmV, tMat looks LA1I614 A Face -*£ South-
LIKS Me BID if U)HI1.E •FAaiJa peSK SERSEAjf 0\)ER TH' east / (7UICK,—
TJOWkJ STAIRS /— He Atl^ I «>lro LETrill'
'STATUE UliflL
THeV TtN To
TURkJ'iT ARoU>lr>,
3EfoRE vou caJFiise
ABE PtAVlJa A 6AS 16 WORK ibJ-Piir iJT>
SELL iT Tb MS, ART vJlBRAtiokls/
A lOAT> OP lAUtSrtS OFF oJ SotAg HAf/ IT'S

•W (Jlir EXHlBlfiok), Ke'^ Tor -BAIL /.

~vixeu
BESAltl
I'll
MV — aJd The sTaTue
S'POSSP Ta CotAB "RJOM MJST -REST o4
"FiJlAjJI. COMPOSURE '.

in AiJTiqJue "RoJe
Arf His MAklASER , ms
Work: is usrei>
vJEUVET/
• oHiTHiy
IS
Au)T=UL

® NEA Service. Inc , 1929

© NEA Service. Inc.. 1929

237
 — '

[499]
Art-ri- MlSTAlR VIlSTADJ, —
-I AW OV^ERCOME VOIZ JoV/ MeVL what
SoO WlJ SRAkJ'
l^AvJE AUARD V'gOkJJA
AT?e
OT -FlfTV DoLiAlRE, AllP 26 pa^ him off.
TiRST PRiie OkI VqdR VAR
MASkll'FlQLie. STATlIE OP \k1,— cash,'
ART MODERJE / — KISSES?
ZE JURV 'PROCLAIM VOUR
STATUE AS BEST WAkI OV
ALL E^HiBiT weeTH MilChl
MERlT '-I SALUTE

NEA Se.-..ce. ^nc , 1929

[501] lOORD fiEvJiJS

yes siR,->>-rriE ouRvar TU' SAS/_J>oiJ'T
M01>eRJ ART CRlT-iCS DoESiJV m6* J
To-DflV, T«RSeY Vod MADE
VoTEO The Tirst pbize AklVTMlUS it's.'
TMAT UieHTMARE
oJ mV S-TaTuE,— AdD A T?uBBeR TiTlE sTaTlie Just fbn
AvOA-RBeP M6 # 50. Iki THAT uliu. TiT A UUGH., Akl'To
CASM /— iJouJ, ur M£ AiJVBolW '-~~- RiB TrilS
HEAR >)faJ aTYemPT To -MEAklTo' SaV MODERiJ ART
E6AP /
SCO'P? TtJA-r,—
»,*xl CAU ulOiTE
CRATE ; VoO—
—— TuRYhiePMORE ,
VouR tJAnE
uJder mike
DID rr To PRoxJE
That Aiiseopy
YheV said MV STaTuE AlJSEtb'S ?_
WAS utiMlsrAK-ABuE CodLP po iT /—
"fte
— VoU COULD - Akl' liou) WoO'RE
lOoOlf OV GEkJiUS ' owl A Bom
_~ AWiRk- THAT, -^
TAKiklS A "BEllD OU
:rtEC(f '. 3£li)6 A SEklioS '
THey HAIL ME AS
A (JEtJlUff /,

® NEA Service. Inc . 1929

T, NEA Service. Inc , 1929

(smj
M -M - UM - A«_ 6o
yuJn "FT HMf , —
u)haY a Rime
AUlAKEklljG Vod lOiLL '

\ f
/ SloD SCREEcMiiJg,
BflPkJ OlOL / _
Stoil BiS

l l^y
CtRTAlljLV 1
Took «35.'oijT OF *oo TtocKer/.^ '
•'"Sig;;
W^ //- TilTeRiJg I
A MALI'S Pocket
SLUMBERS,
HAVE, MV SlEEPIiJG
'

EGAD,— OM"- Z-zz- <• :// — TMAT'5

a Wirt's P0101LE6E WHILE HE
IS llJPEEP THE
I MADE *85. out' BeAuTV/ TIiE otJLV / I SlklCE TilE DAVS OF THE CAWEMeJ, SlU <* SiklS', lb
Twe -DEAL WITH mV TIME i PaV A<JV \ ulHEki Wn/ES Ficsr sEuJED pocxers
<SF MW WAW OF ThiiJkiJg.'
Sfylite , — HErf-HEH-MEH ATTEkJTioiJ ro
CoJUERSATioJ, IS
VojR /• OJ CtJlJMP HUSBaOd'S TiGER-SKiJs ',

XWRlkiG VotJI? jJaP SATURDAY

— AvJd were
A JJDGE, With a
I
AM-.60lZ-7-z„^_ iDHEkl -fed Talk I
Ev/etJifciG, "ibd Talked v^joR
1 ikl Wife ARRAieoED
•enT Tme madam ^^5^ 1
iJ soiJR Sleep <
V Sleep about <seTTiKjG $85. Top
AJof LEARU fHAf r HA\/e
/ (^^ A STaTuE, _~
y(J|, v/oj hem-mw-p
BEfoRE ME Okl TMAT
MOkJSTeoUS TELOklV,
wiTh sJopes, twat I SMouirij'T
TiiJd out about iT'r
— E6AD, I WOULD
Ho/_^v4_ M-H-. J *u'eE luckV
IMPOSE A SEllTEklCE
OF "SilEllTV WEARS //
"''°- oo I DiDkj'T TAk-E
i
AUTWE MoJeV,
AlJD SET A
; MOUSE -IfeAP ;,/ (
, s Ikl youH , '•
V

S NEA Service. Inc .

1929
-; NEA Service. Inc . 1929
 Barnaby Crockett Johnson 1943

[505]
N«//o, Bomoby. Hwett Intriguing . . . Gloomy old mantton .

again tonight! Thai light* Dork night . . i»tl» lightt fiathing

I saw ft 01 / fitw wf hfm! in th9 window . . . Wind howling . .

Jtj$t tht sort o' thing your fairy

Godlalhtr findi itfuttibh ...til
^Oo»h,Mr.O'Mall9y hav to tolvt lhi$ mysttry, m'boy.
I
Nobody ffvti in fhot
aki ruined hovt«.

-^ Mom ...U
II v^
it all right for me fo kind oi look
around in that hauntod house vp the road?
^
Svf yov stoy owtry from
one thing, ond H you prowl
far, for
it . . . ffs too
II \\
Thof « right. ff you're curious obout
. .

if yov con invettigato H when some

!5 Field

is:
Publicationv 1943

1 [506]

Olmy.Mr.O'MaHcy. Mom
around in a ramthackh building by o/der, responsible person with you.
ss: yourtoH. you'll tall and got hurl . .
it
tayt I con 90 wrfh yov.
The Joeksoft p^oce? If$
nof hounfed, Bornoby.
Peop/e soy fhor obout of/
o/d deserted bvtfding*.

H^lloJai-.
I or* <Mi ovr
My f oiir eedfarlwi>rand
way to a hauntud fiovM'
lovte'
M
^^
Of course / don't wort of fraunting
houses, littlo girl f don't work of

onything. Fm, or. rotirod. Not thof

. . .
And at present am engoged in o
mission fraught with
irrvestigotion of
I

danger— an
a curious psychic
ail my humanitarian ond scienffAc phenomenon in a haunted house.
infereefs don't heep me occupied .

Mr. CMalley is aduatly

going right up to the
front door and gain...
[510]

[511]

[512]

[513]

[514]
 .. — . — «
.

[520] Pop'i foofhbfusli. Of

Do yo« ntod onyf hing?
f m torrf I <oul<in'l ptnvode Mom to O'Moffey Air f xpress Compony.' Here's
up th« 9u«lt room tor you Did . . your bog, Gus 'Morning, Sornoby.
. . .
fix
No. And I won't have you
.

yov ^—p wcfJ h«re in rh« ce/lor? going toalolot froub/e.

Your Foiry Godfothtr is
V#iy wtH, »/»onii yo« And geffing my bag from tho
( hod f h« iov«(i*sf dfoami.
hauntod hous*. Ihavt
ovo/ything in H fU n«od —
chains, c/*an sheers

r Field Publi

C»»,.f»" l»«3>.»M^itli n ii.M

[521]

[
Ah.'Af /osf o break in fhi$ baling
COM of rhe havntod house.' A cfew.'

This b*g bog o< coWee?

IX
1 But I ahalt vanquiih rhe Ihnd

. .

/ittiebeds . .
This
communiry will fee/ secure once more.
. Chifdren will go peace*u//y fo fheir
AndGus wi/f beobfefogo
bock fo his haunted house, vnairaid
. . .

. .
Obviously, m'boy. A coffee fiend! J

Certainty, Bornoby. Now we know

ihe fype o* evi( creofure your old
fairy Godfather hoi pitied his w'rtt
agamsf .A diabolicai opponenf.'

^c) Field Publicotions. 194

[522] (ve ore fo flr*d out what tha fiend h

ShouMn'f wt »•(/ Itn copi oboirt rfiof Co*m CoW In tfit poDo? TfioM burtfhnlt
MTtiof? If

H»n6 in rt. <Jd (lountW txwim, Mi. CXMoMty? When /ovr f oiry Codtof»«f Uonlhm tom7 vptawe can't have any cfumsy pof Jcemon
Hon—n—, toinabyl My ^alhlkt, baM<< on vnwHtingty Informing him of our intent.
my 9xhovsthf ttudy ol trlm» /fforofuro, show .. No, m'boy. A problem like this caffs
.

rfiof rh« mystoWM Miv«d b)r coppora can b* for the brilliant anafyticat brain of on
rllb* glod to inok> Q cminrod pra<ficaffy on fovr fjfno flngor . . Augusfe Dx/pin, an Hercule Poirot, o
formo/ cortiploinf onrf— Doctor Ihorndyke, a Nero Wolle, or o
f hifo VorKO . . . iucUcy I'm here, aren't we?

Field Publicafion?, 19<

[523] H Gvt is very onidoui for you to anafy>* ff he searches the house for
Who would expect ro find
what the fiend il doing in hit hauntod rve thought of a hidJrtg p/oce for that H, naturally he'll rip down all a twenty-pound bag of
house, Mr. aMof/ey ... Did yov find out? important eviderKe f unearthed fn . . . the woodwork firti, looking Coffee on a pantry theW?
cose the Fiend in desperotion, attempts far secret panels Then
J_ OhgosK'ooA ...Hele/ios^eepogoin.
to rogain H... brittg the bag upstotrt . . s/osh rhe upholstered chairs
. . . he'll

artd pry -jp rhe Aoor boards . .

So I shall put il where he'll

never expect ir ro be hidden.

^ Field Publlcaiions. 194

[5241
AiSfcorfocANofmeeof w9e tttavght tt wrot itty Aome, o* course
White we're fn the Aifthen, omofcy,
.

fmtt Fairy Godfather, 'Allmentory, ory He dedwcod ft ... If was dork in the (order
/ t/iink o bit of bodi/y nourishweni Mr. (y/MoOeyf I know how yov
dear WotMn' Get H. m'boy? A devef at hh Baker Stroet flot. Tou see mv good
mighf aid my ar>alyti<ai thinUng . . .
con fir>d out whor the fiend
on that hounfed hovae myifeof • pun Ho/met said, "AUmentary, my — frfertd Professor Moriority, who ofwoys ota

^
• . . .
Is doing in the haunted houtet
there, forgot his fontern tfiat night arid
Whot Ivckl TufM nthi Iralii feorff
oitfy the light of my Arte Havaf*a wond

^^^Ir ^^
hold Publicolioni. 19'

242
 Yt. d eouf«», my faiiy Godfath*/* Th*n you tan 90 righf Info ffw
Handy Pocfcaf GuM* tWf* how to haunted hou$m and find out
VQnqulth fiundt ...rll look In thm what rh* fitnd it doing th^fl
ind9X "^anqviMhing of: Demons;
. . . Jvtt wova yout magk won</ of
tvil Spirit*"— tfs an o/p/»ab«f Jcof him and mofc* him CONFf SS.'
IhHng . . . H»n!—''fi*ndt, pag* 2$."

. . . 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? Doar mo
bvf I keop focallirtg
. . . What a
yovr sura fhJng of BWnfonf whan

Oh, THAT
thing to think of now,

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
 . h

[530]

Ws a vBPf good thtng Mr. 0'A1o//ey, my

Foiiy Godfaf her, 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.

[531]

fm looking for o Wend

He's got o long tail and
my Foiry Codfother it
going to vanquish him
wifh his mogic wand. .

What will wdo with

Ihit Krewy brot. Boss?

MM
He $*0n all them bag*.

Field Pi.'blicQiions, 1943

[532] 1

See, fcJd. IVe got to fceep you down here

in the cellar tomorrow when we move
'til

all the coffee we got hid in this spooky

old joint ... So you won't tell the cops.
 [535]

[536]

[537]

[538]

[539]

® Field Publicolions. 1943

245
 The Bungle Family Harry Tuthill 1936

[540]

^
 [541]

® McNouohl Syndicote, Inc., NY., 1934

247
 Mickey Mouse Floyd Gottfredson for Walt Disney 1935

[542]

[543]

© Wolt Disney Enterprlsei, !935

[544) ^ VtS, INDEED, Miss COW, ^^

^sO^ERE AlNTA aAL MERE \
Wy ^ pi CAN TDUCM VEl ONLV
J
^ //^'JVy\ ENOUtSM TO STEP /
/ ,^ WlSHT WAS M3LJNG
I
 10U SHOULD H*iVft [548]
KNOWN BETTER
{0UINCH5 THAN TO TELU
lONSTD CLARABELI.E THAT
SOUINCH IS CROOKECl^
CLARABEU-E IPONLY \t)U KNEW
HAVB SOT ANVTMINa ABOUT
TM« WMOLB women!
-TOWN
TALKING!
HIR FRIENDS
THINK TMCREiS
A CATCH
IN IT
BUT THEV
CAH'r CONVINCE
clakaselle!

[549]

[550]

[551]

[552]

CAN'T vfe \^BLn: ELI T rr^ .such a > [553]

(ty Wolt Disney Enterprises. 1935

249
[554]

[555]

[556]

ICKBV BUTT>.I!?e\
COULO BE
TWcT S«(jiNC« soMe<>V< IN
TH«T -nnjNK /
-THAT ttouV
o^ vAiAjm >VOUlONY
AMOHa XKE KNOW HAD
RBUCS OP ANY VALUE,
c.An^aeu.b
e«ANOm<TMER.
WHEN e^lNCH
WOnV OPKN
IN MlCKmV%
He I* auvs
OP IT I
 [560]

dARABCLLE
RESENTS
MlCKffS
SUSPICION
OF SOU INCH
AND INSISTS
THAT ME
UOOK
TXROUGM HER
SRAHOfATHERS
TMINSS,
HIMSELI"!

(
[566 J OM, MERCIFUL SOODNeSS! VBS, ITS MSUF?
I tMOOSKT MERC MS
WE BentR . , ,

MOirtBAaE —I
TALK OVW? OOUfiHT IT F??UM ,

SOMfc WAY TM« bank! now

"IbSET HOLD WILL Va TALK
OF VDUR .TURKEY?/
SRAN'DAOS
solo"

^
Wolt Disney Enterprises, 1935

[567] HAVBItJU I'm ooiN'visn'

rhally TO oia ui» iwin
@gIQUINCH
HAS
sen-
PL AN?
aRAN'ChAIJ's OOLOl
WHEN I SET
aoucvfr uc>
CLAKABELLlk
""^^ USB
BACK V CAN
rr-ro Pixt'
MorraAsi OFPTHAT
ANO wsaobl!
THRCATEN*
HBK wiTM
UNUBSft
SHE
MARRIES
HIMl

>t' Wolf Disney Enterprises. 1935

[568]
TrtJlCKBY
''what 1 ^
TWUL.S
HORACa.
ABOLTT
60UtNCH
ouvit^ta
CLARAOELLES
MORTisAae
IN OROERTO
K>RCH HBR
-TO atvk
MlM TME
treasure
map!
 [572]

[573]

[574]

[575]

[576]

[577]

Uisnev Enterpriiei, 1935

253
 [578]

[5793 IT LU
COUP-wE O'
TAKE A
DATs Y HAD AN ^
"TO lyA>CVDENT?i
Put THAT CAN
<?UNNiM'OROEl?.'

[581]

[582]
 ^HAVE V Y^
SEEN An K
AND . AIRPLANE /
^ORACK
REPAIR 2P\ OVER '

fY\^ERE?|;
CAR AND Several
BET OUT HOURS
ON V^HAT
8BEM6 A LATER
HOPELESS
PURSUIT
OP THB
VILLAIN S'
PLANE 1
 [590]

)ICKBV
AMO HORACm
ARKPORCED
TO USE
"me STOLEN
POU&E.
MOTORCVCLE,
AJSTEH
PHTt AND
QPUINCM
«o oft: in
HORACe'S
car!

[591]

[592]

[593]

[5941

[595)

(D Wall Diinty Entsrprt

256
 ?
WA'AL.AtioRBiM'-ib the ^^^^r
WlR£ fRUM THE PO" LEECH
T YDU ainT TME
FBLLER5 WHAT
TME
i.

MOTOR-
,
CYCLE
 (£) Wall Ditn«y Ent«rprii«i. 1935

258

i
 /^ P^BTB AND SQUlNCH "X
( ARC aOlNTO &e AWFUL
A DISAPPOINTED "TMAT
*i^,we DIDN^ FALL FOR/
[614] ''
HURR^ Uf»'
WHERE DO WE J
MICKEt' AND Dl©?^
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;

[615]

[616] rTME MAP S/Vr-STHERElS \

'
A SMALLEI* TREE '

[617]

[618]

[619]

© Wolt Diifiey Enlorprii«i, 1935

260
 [620]
Bnra&ed and
ILL-HUMORCq
S&CAuSE.
Of" -TMSIR
FAILURE
TO FINP
THE BURIED
SOLD.
PETE AND
SPUINCH
START A
OUN BATTLE
WITM MICKEY
AND HORACE!

Woll Diincy Enli'.prno-., 1935

*\1 [621]
\Jjo«Ace
MOLDS PETB
AT bat;
MICKEV
-TRIES
-TD as-r
WHINP HIH
UNOBSERVED.

® Walt DisneY Enterprises, 1935

[626]
 [632]

[633]

[634]

[635]

[636]

[637]

Wolt Dime/ Enterprises. 1935

263
'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

[644]
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
leading citizen. put on his hat.
pocketed a loaded pistol. and
went out "for a little walk'- "out
of sight. out of mind: thevsaf
how true- already pubuc interest
in his whereabouts is almost nil

Chicago Tribune-New York Newi Syndicor©, Int., 1938

265
 ! -
[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
THAT NEEDS DOIN-
-- —
LIKE RLLIN' THAT OCO
WELL. FORE SOME KID
Fax INTO rr - too hard
WORK FOR ANYBOOV ELSE
BUT NOT FOR SHANGHAI
I WORKED AS IF HIS LIFE
DEPENDED ON fT-

f /fsrtri -"
J Chicago Tnbune-New York News Syndicole, Inc., 1938

[646]
WELL. DRAG -SHARK". IVE GOT SHANGHAI. I WHERE I* GOT" OFF DOWN T HAt HAI 1 GUESS
A CARGO OF RKXT WE GOTT I AT THE WATERFRONT WE D ONT HO/B TD
I
^MY KEEL FER A
SCUPPER- SUJPP1N'
SON OF A SEA-WTTCH!
PRIVATE BUSINESS
I WONDER COULD
PLACES
HERE OUST
I
I
DID ^TXJ
LEM/E AND HEADED INTO
TW TOUGHEST. MOST )

I
1
1

i)
WORBY ABOUT THAT
OLD iEA- GOING
SHANGHA\ WE HfJS A UTTLE I MADE FBJ I SHANGHW? ORNERTV DIVE 1 ',WILD-<AT- HE^ DOE
BUSINESS SESSION SECH-COME EVER StEN- HOPE - FOR A VACATION AND
\

• I

OUST YOU AND ME - '

HE KMEW WHAT MEANS TO HAVE ONE.
HE WAS t>0»*'- IMAGINE-

t£ Chicogo Tnbwne-Ne/^ York News Syndicate, Inc., 1938

1647]
HMM"
f.
CEE.
SURE MISS
HMnN'
SHAHQHAt
I
VES-HTS THE
%. /
SORT OF VITAL
V
PERSONALITY
WHO MAKES
HIS
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
lE'S
V
TURH.^H
BEEN SO SORT OF TAOTURH.
UP UNTIL OUST THE
^H
BUT

IN
LATEL-Y HE'S
ACTED AS THOUGH HET>
FINISHED SOME BIG OOB-
FACT HE SAID THE
OTHER DAY HE FELT UKE
A MAN WHO'D DONE HIS
BIG TASK AND COOLO RETIRE
-f
HIS BIG
RETIRE"
'WHOrO DONE
TASK AND CCXXJJ
THATS SC3RT
OF A FUNNV REMARK TO
COME FROM HIM, ALL THINGS
C0NSI06REO - THAT COULD
MEAN---HM-MM--
I

PAST THREE WEEKS

OR SO-

[648]

[649]

[650]

® Chicogo Tnbune-N«w Yo'k N«wi Syndkot*. Inc.. 1938

 [651]
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
TO MOST- WHERE DID HE GO? WHY? HOW?
APPARENTLY NOBODY KhWWS AHU AFTER OKE
MONTH. NOBODY SEEMS TO CARE— SH-H-H—

© Chicago Tribune-Now Vofl: N«ws Syndicols, Inc.. 1938

267
 1

[652] DOWN- ROLL OOWH TO RIO-^

«fE. rro BERX< -TO ST»C ft BTT- A JOB WELL DONE - AS POR MIS •ROU. i

BUT NEVER WAS Or« "TO TARRY MISSUS. FOR ROSE AND JACK, OR ROLL REALLY DOWN TO RlOl *»
OH. I'D LCWE TO ROLL TO R»
I

W»«^ MY *Joe WAS CX)NE - CAP>* LTTTLE ANMIE--THEY CX3N~T NEED J^

ALDB1. SUEEP1NG ON T>C HIU.- HA', OLD SHANGHAI - NO - PTS TIME SOME OM BEFORE I'M 0LD1' ^S
HEX) ENJOY THK- HE WAS ALWm^
j
TO GO. AND I'M OFF WHO AHOy, THE'f^'
ONE FOR A GOOD JOKE - PERHAPS CARES WHB«E? ffT" LAST I'M FRffi
SOMEWHERE, SOMEHOW, HE KNOWS-]
j
AiGAlN AND OFF TO SEA- SCHOONER*

© Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicole, Inc., 1938

irYEAH WHY irEH? HWE

_ 1
[653]
TK PUCE GOT A
NOMYMOOS lETTtH- I
W THE
LOOK IN
BorTOM
ha! Ha( I'LL SAY
HE DID- WTTM ROCKS KS
YES.
AND ^ - SAID THAT
WAS SO FOLKS WOULD LOOK IN THE
1 BLTT
rr
VOL) FORGOTTEN?
WAS THPT Niorr when
I

rr SAID -LOOK IN OF THE AND OLD IRON AND HE FORGET IT. -STEAD BOTTOM OF 1 ACE GOT KILLED, TK NIGHT
I O REMEMBERIN" THE OLD JOST BEFORE TM' MORNIN' ,''
,

TME BOTTOM OF THE I OLD WELL? A FEW BAGS O' CEMENT

lENT EVEN I IT- ( „
OLD WEU--- GEE. A WHY. HOW WHEN NO ONE WAS SODDED OH. BOY' THEYT?e I WELL? WHAT Tl-WT SHANGHAI STARTED { EH '.

rrs GOT EM QOIN' n CAN THEY? LOOKIN", AND TONS ANO f IT MEMBERIN LOTS O' TKJ COOLD BE FILLIN THAT WELL, THAT MR. 1

ABOUT CRAZY- / SHANGHAI TONS O' DIRT- CLEAR:ar f I THINGS SHANGHAI THERE"? FOLKS SAW THEIR LAST i GUOGE? I

. TO TH' TOP NOW- MR. GUDGE -

1

SAID O'

[654]

Ji Chicago Tribune-Nev.

[655] THKT TOUGM SHANGHAI? SHANGHAI SHOW THESE ^M aye! this

IP MY
WE BROADCAST
•THEALARM ALL
OWER TVC COUNTRY
RY-
\ THEORY
IS RIGHT
I
M
THIS IS
WATERFRONT
DIVE THE TRUCK L
LOOKING PLACE
ALL RIGHT-
PEG? ONE-LEGGED BIRC
NOPE. NEVER HEARD O'
,
I HERE GENTS ^ WAtY- WATCH
AROUND. STINGER-' YER STEP- GOT
WITH THAT PEG LEG
FG I

WTLL
lAlF-l 1 I
!

DRIVER TOLD OS WE'VE BEEN NO SUCH SWAa- BUT AND BE SURE A MITE O" DEEP
I

HE CANT GET FAR HA»/E HIM SEEN- COME LOOK AROUND - YOO THEY OQnT Wirz\ WATER UNDER
BEFORE HE'S
PICKED UP
THE
NEXT TEN
I
DONT NEED NO SEARCH
WARRANT- MY BUSINESS
I

1
NO ACCIDENT ^ HERE T
HAVE YE STEP
- HATTE

MINUTES IS A OPEN BOOK- ON A LOOSE

1 HEY— STINGER- BOARD MEeee-

t£ Chicago Tribune-New YofW Newi Syndicote. Inc., 1938

[656]
WELL. WELL- BEEN
ALL
C MY
Ov/ER EVERY INCH
>4
^H
9 KNOW I
BUT
WE
1 HO' ho! YOO COOLO BE
RIGKT, FRIEND- I GCTT A
COME ON-
WE'RE NOT
WELL. SO
LONG. MATES-
SORRY YOO
"whew! I'M
SWEATIN' ICE
WOTER-THAT
/ YES- RIGHT
YOO ARE-BLrr
LET'S GET
PLACE. EH? I SHORT MEM'RY- FERGIT ME GET-TING ANY. \
BACK AND ea
M4D VOU AINT FOUNDND S HE WAS I OWN NAME. ONLY IT'S WHERE HERE- GOTTA PUSH OFF- PLACE GAVE
HIDE NER HAIR O' TH'
•H' HERE r TATTOOED ON ME STUMM»CK
I SHANGHAI'S DROP IN AGAIN ME THE CREEPS- HOW THE
SCOL»«>REL YER LOOKIN'
iKIN' A WEEK WHAT WAS TH' SWAB'S
I
*'
NOT HERE OR |
ANY TIME - IT ) WHY, A MAy DIGGING IS
FER? CHKl CHK I
,A NAME AGAIN? PEKING 7 WE'D HAN^ AINT ALW«YS COULD DISAPPEAR COM*NG ON-
FOUND HIM- OUtl.-HEftE-; IN THERE AND

[657]

1938
^ Chicogo Tribune. New York News Syndicate, Inc.,
 [658]

Maw Green

Chicago Tribune-New York Newj Syndicate, Inc.. 1936

269
 [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]

gj Tnbun«-Nftw York N«wj Syndicate. Inc.. 1938

 [665]

Maw Green

Chicago Tribune-h4ew Vofk News Syndicate. Inc.. 1938

271
 -
[666]
BOTTOM OF THEWELL.m" VEAH-
UiST AND THi3!E---ONLY A •KXTRE JUST
MET?1. CftH. SEALED, AECRESSED TYPeT>«rl
TO JUDCE SILAS BUTTON WOULD BE FOR f
THAt e»iqTVB? -

[667]
YES- I AM FAIRLY !BUT WE I EH''THAT SHANGHAI. THE nonsense! O.K.--Y0U AH-H-H-- I

FAMILIAR WTTM THE

CASE AS EVERYONE
,
FOOND
FOR YOO.
I
METAL
COMT AIMER?
MMM-M---
OLD PEG-LEG?1
PRINTED THAT
ADDRESS -WETJE
rrS NOT HEAVY
AT AU.---HERE-
SEE YOU HAVE
1
HOLD IT. CHIEF
WHILE CUT
1

THROUGH THIS
THOUGHT SO-"
PAPERS- -DEEDS
TmjES - HM-M-M'
KCREABOUTS IS. I
I
I
\
-

BEUEVE--HA\ HA'. JUDGE 8 MY NAME, ALL CERTAIN O' TOOLS THERE TOP END- AND WHAT-S THIS?
NO CORPUS OB.ICT1- BUTTOM- RIGHT— COO THAT-- I'D BE READY---OPEN WHAT--? GREAT
QOITE A DSAPPOINTMBfT OOO INDEED- CAREFUL WHEN rrUP AND WEU. I GOSHEN". THIS IS
y
/

TO THE MORBID rrS OPENED HAVE 1^ LOOK- SOMETHING-

DARE SAY

[668]

[669] r

[670]

[671]

c-Nc* Vofk Newi S/ndicole. Inc. 1938

 [672]
HERE IT IS. PRINTED HE GOES ON TO CONFESS
IN RX.LIN THE PAPER HOW HE THEN GOT HOLD OF
'•
I, URIAH GUDOe, OF NEARLY ALL O F CA PTAIN
MY OWN FREE WILL. ALDEN'S PROPeirrY--HE
CONFESS THPrr 1 PLANNet) EVEN TELLS HOW HE HAD
AND DIRECTED THE MURDER HIS MEN KILL THREE OF
OF CAPTAIN CALEB ALDEN-" JACKS TROCK DRIVERS

VNTI-CUMAX? PROBABLY-- CERTAIKLY IT

'WAS A TERRIBLE DISAPPOINTMEHT TO
THE MORBID ONES WHEN DEAR MR. GUDGE
WAS NOT DISCOVERED RECUNING AT THE
BOTTOM OF THE OLD WELL- ONLY Aw
SEALED METAL CAN FULL OF PAPERS
WAS FOUMD THERE— BUT WHATT PAPERS

Maw Green

Chicogo Trtbvne-New York News Syndicol*, Inc., 1938

273
 TerT>- and the Pirates Milton Canilt 1940

[673] -ajjgg_

^X... T r^a^.A^' T HPAPn ^^S

 C676]

[677]

[678]

[679]

© News Syndicote Company, Inc., 1940

275
 [680] 5

News Syndicote Company. Inc., 1940

[681] HE 15 HERE.' TXE HANPSOME ONE^

WE SHOT POWN THE WAS ABOUT TO POLLOW HU SHEE.TD HELP '
CAIC SICINMED ONE, HIS Y0UNi5 PEIENP BUT TWO 6JCH
. . .

VOU ALLOWED A , MAP CASHES COULP NOT BE 60 U^JKy.'

WO/MAN TO RUSH HE IS TOO SAUUABLE TD THE PEA60N
OUT OP THE HOUSE LAPV TO BE WA6T6P THU6... SO I
AMP CARKV HIM STeuCC HliM ON THE HEAD JUST—
AWAV IN A CAR.' ^HARP ENOUSH TO SAVE HIAA PDR
PirrWE REPERENCe.'

I? Newi Syndicate Company. Inc.. 1940

[682]
 [683]

[684]

[685]

[686]

© Newj Syndicate Company, Inc., 1940

277
t687] 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

278
Dick Tracy Chester Gould 1935

[688]

CO AM£AvD, AR'30M-SMA>P ^ \^JHtKJ- DO THIS IS OME JOB ^

C3UR. PICTURE ST*^^^1D1MC HERE Sou TMIM^C WERE GOIMC TO SEE
Llt4E TWlS. U.BZP THAT CiCAJJ. IM -touR. OP- OUR CWAMCES. THROUCM RC^T - .

MOUTI-t.TORA. I'LL S>EMD SOME TO TRACS? THIS THERe WtU. BE t40

THE PAPERS ME>a TIME I'M IM TCrv^M. COUkirRWS TURKIIKIC BACK
Uk.& POR 'EM TO PRIMT COOP CETTIMC VJILDER
TILU THE ^RSON
I

PICTURES OP ME AS LOkJC *>.<=> \MITH EVERW

TMEW'RE PRiwtimG TMEM. ^!Ti"«i\ r^lLE OOO IS CAUGHT.*

Chicago Tribune-New York Newi Syndico'e, Inc., 1935

279
[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]

rork News Syndlcols, Inc.. 1935

 [695]

® Chicogo Tribune-New York News Syndicare, Inc., 1735

281
[696] guioeo BV VH.IOW>OHV, OtCK
TRACV, P« PATTOM AJJO TH6
.

INOl^U HAN'S OSMe TO THE

,

VERV DOOR OP ••CL)TI6"

DiAjvtoNDX Hiosioe c*>/e.»

[697]

[698]

[699]

[700]

[701]

) Chicago Trtbune-Now Yoflc N«wi Syndkote. Inc.. 1935

 TUB PIRST CA.VE DOOR, DO< TR^CV OBSERVES TMfc [702]
CJPeKJIMC
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& .

©NJLN BW MURLISJC MIMSSLP SUDDiMLV B^CuC- Ov<1W - QulET MOW.'

~
wA,RO AJJD PulLIMC TVIE C300R CLOSED, DOES 'CUTI6"f BOR\S.» WB'Re
TSAC-^ AtJOID DEAT)-I, "CuTiE" CXJMTWUES TO GOIMC TO R3RC& YOU TO
piRE TMROUCM TME OUTER DOOR MOWEVER
.

AT R6CUL^R iWTERVAiS SO THAT TRAOV AWD COME OUT. .Wt'RE COIMG

MIS MEW D^RE NOT ATTEMPT 6MTRAMC6 TO TO DRIVE VOU our WITH
TME CfcVE BUT AT LAST A PLAW HAS BEENJ CARBON t*OHOXlDE CAS/
wORi^ED UP TO DRiVt THE CRIMIMALS OUT. .

rTH^VET 1 WANT ^
[703] iijONOXIDE CPS FROM THE
EXKAOjrr OF THE potice c*kR
\s oaNCITS vwoRx! 'iirne''
D(A>«N3.'ZORA.AND BORIS
ARSOM, W!£ FORCED TO WOTE
THE O.VE.»

[704]

[705]

[706]

[707]

(£) Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicote, Inc., 1W5

[708] Am ok* last c668Le ea:oRT

S'fc«s TO Tv.e sec<:»jo cusoa TO v.jfcHD OCC 4E-ViTA8L.e
CAtnuRE. WE £kjtE«=. TWfc
l~^<5WTN 'CLmt' CMJ^ONO StN^eS BOOM «JllT>«9T DOUWI TH6
TMt OOAMNG OC Tve CHEAT MAU. AWO POBTIPCS WIKOSB-C
BLACK CUtTA»J CatX BEH>MO
g6Xuttj~iS
 [709]

© ChicoQo Tribune-New York Newj Syndicote, Iac, 1935

285
 ,

[710] Atrrsa ewtERimS TWE WOUS6

DIAMOND
V^ WILL, '^
AjX> PMOlKXa 'CUTIE' IC I CAJs) CSET
SENOJO ML>.^AjsJ Ua.P, DCii
TRACW n»a«ES aioc -ra t^je OC THESE BARS
C'GLiaEO OUT ^
CA-PaJHE 80RS iiRSOW. W-O >S I MA' THERE w£ ARE
ST.-L UO l-o TWE S6CO»JO IVEGOTTWE

[711]

[712]

[713]

[714]

[7151

<£) Chicogo Tribun«-N*w York N«w» Syndicate. Inc., 1935

 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.

Notes on strips in this section The first three selections in this section are all by one and in-
of the great original
imitably individual talents in the strip field, whose Nize Baby, Count
Milt Gross,
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 was at a creative peak from 1934
strip, 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

287
 )

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 Pogo [734-737] was a brilliant newspaper adaption, in
insouciant
daily and Sunday format, of a major strip which was originated and essentially per-
fected in comic-book format —the only moving
instance of a comic-book creation
wholly and permanently into the newspaper medium. Pogo became the first
strip

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-

288
 Nizc Baby Milt Cross 1928

(716]

NIZE BABY lUa U > Fi. o*

By Milt Gross
 Count Screw-loose Milt Gross 1929

[717] r
OIL!!.

By Milt Gross
COUNT SCREWLOOSE OF TOOLOOSE
rrr

(B Pr«»> Publlthins Co. (N.w Ywkl. I9»

290
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. V\U£T
TO TV(e -meA-nirE. ora
n^^E. PCJR Tvie.

K.ng Fea'ures Syndcafe,

291
 Felix the Cat Pat Sullivan ( Otto Mesmer ) 1931

[719]

Nawtpopsr Feotur* S«rvict, Inc., 1931

292
 Li"! Abner Al Capp ( Alfred Caplin ) 1938 / 1940 / 1942

[720]
AdYicre ^o' ChillLiT^
jLIX SEE THAT LI'L KID
IPASTED HIM ONE
YfiTIDCflf'-FOR
NUTMIN
MY KID .
BROTHCR.'J

by t CARCTUL WHEN YOU'RE SPEAKlNft TO OC

"^^c^^^:^^^^^ AL CAPP H*i)cuN€PC)L^T.cwKLANC>.Ha»imi-^mrrnoim?

^^HOW
^m
KIN A GAL
A YOUNG
G.IT
HAS BEIEN ^^MANI ROMANTICAL
TRYING TO ^F^ 'BOUT HER WHEN
HELP HER HE. THREATENi>
SPINSTER COUSINS
MAY AND JUNE.
*
7^
T'
A
BASH HER V;F
CLUB efshe:
HUNKS CATCH -fCOME5 NEAR HIM?
A couple: of
HUSBANW.
UNFORTUNATELY
THE VICTIMS
SELECTED, HAIR-
LESS JOC ANP
LONESOME.
POLECAT FAIL
TO CO-OPERATE-

t. United Feolu^e S/ndtcole. Inc.. 1938

293
[721]
AayJcTc f!o' ChiUcm
LIL
Chiixuh which holos back each shoulder
AL CAPP dont get nolmd ome5 when they-re older-
sevr^tayGeoffSf TAKsry*. s^ff^ h^ula. cmih

MOTH ER, OLD THIf«3 , MATTER or FACT, IF HER FAMILY IS REAUY

PREPARE YOOR'SCLF MOTHER, OLD BEAN- ARISTOCRATIC MAY.
I

FOR A BIT OF iMAVE^f r ASKE^ HER CONSENT TO YOUR

A SfOCK.'-YOUR ABOlTTHER TAMILY MARRlAGEr-IF HC.
CEMUC IS IM YET.'-BUT FROM HER YOU MUST FORGET
REGAL MANNER, IM HERr-MAKE CERTAIN

<0 Unil«d F«otura Syndicote. Inc.. 1940

294

L
 [722]

SISEJ

AL CAPP ILIUN. DO YOua SCHOOCWORK ON TIME.

OR SOMEDAY VOU rWh' BEG A DIME
SENT IN EST RKHAAO A/£LSOK SIOUX fAlLS. j.q

G-GULP.'-HYAR'S THANK VO'.'.'

TH-FO'TEEN TSKr-WAS AH
CENTS, . SHOCKED WHEN
SAM .'/ ) AH SAW VO'
TRVIN'T'SNEAK
OFF WIFOUT
PAVIN' ME.AFTER ,
AH MADE VO' /
INVISIBLE.'/

si. Unit«<l r«ijiwre Sv^orcoi*. Irx., 1942

295
 Hejji Dr. Seuss ( Theodor Geisel ) 1935

[723]

WATOQF has STRANXSE WAVS IN)

TV-\EMOOMTAIMS OF BAAKO.
IM LAKES ON) OLD \<XX:ANa TOPS,
WWALES SPLASH AND SPOUT. . .

»0,000 LEAGUES FROM THE

WEAREST sea/
WHAT A COUMTCy/^ WHEW.'two
tmis land TURTLES THAT cjOAts that
COMES WEAR ONE.
MEJJI BETWEEK) r /•
A ;C.
SnZANGER

It^^^L 1.
AND MERE'S y </- «^
SOME snjNT, ^ "^^ A *^
A FLOWEK ^-~>y•'-
BROAOCASTING
MUSIC
 Abie the Agent Hairy Herslificlcl 1938

[724]

MEs. This owe is> from

'; SA^AE v;oLUME inJ The Public uBRARy =
WouR Bookcase ,
\ l^tK^ SHOOLb 1 RUIN)
'
hKi FiKie EbiTioros? y

c. King Fco'yres Sy

T^ ft FtLU^R MWASO Minsk li [725]

COMlM<i HB»E TO BORBOUJ A
HUN^BEC OOLIARS - : CuAflT
^OU 1UX> Ai VJlTWESiES.THAT
I (5A\m IT TO

AMb WllMSV: MBJER. REPAIb ME Fx QOT SBJEM lAllTMEStE^"'

I VOUR HOWOR.TC SMOul VOO
THE »OMt>REB *OLV>Rl - ' '^^ WHO SAW ME RETURM WHAT A LIAR THIS MlHStC
TUlO WITNESSES UJHO SAUJ THE MOkJEv TO ABE. \«>-I'M TELLIMQ "VOU NOW
A WEEK
I

ME LOAN HIM THE AAONEy k LATER T>*AT I NEVER LENT HIM

,jrVIE MOMEy

\ti King fca

 Krazy Kat George Heriiman 1936-1939

[726]

Kmg f«otur«i SvndiCOTe, Inc.. 1936

 [727]

(?e/Mpe<s —
OLE. TT^Xfe'S
m^.
rut 4^ Ji^c? ^Ji' ^e. '^>' '^fex 'WV f*'^ >^ ^^ —

~\r '
CouCr CCHG, A(yo
,

[y iw^s-A ^/^ppy Dw<H^-

^'^^

[D06e fOftTJVfe P0iePU6. Pb&/B

ALL IN F«VC>^, t>AV /^y^

/
[728]
 [729J

<.vniiiff*»m !»• 10^7

[730]

(T;. King Fcaiufei Syndtcole, Inc., 1937

 [731]

-**^^^^'*««V»^-

•^4> ._^-.:;.5S)/S.v^v

) King feolures Syndicate. Inc. 1938

[732]
 [7331

£ King Feafurfls Syndicoia, Inc., 1939

 Pogo Walt KeUy 1950

[734] ©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

'

I
306
 [735]

(V Post-Hall Syndlcoie, Inc.. I9S0

307
[736]

PoitHoll Srndicai*. Inc., 1950

308
 [737]

(ij Posi-Holl Syndtcoto, Inc., 1950

309
 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

[741]
 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
isnot 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 inwidth 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

313
 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.

314
 Peanuts Charles Schuiz 1972

2j,z(zeia)

(imS ©11"

ATaeof Two Cities

 King Aroo Jack Kent 1956

-me picTUKEi),
MK.EUEPHAKVT?

(£) McClure Newipopvr Syndicol*. 1956

316
 [748]

[749]

© McClure Newspoper Syndicate, 1956

Tumbleweeds Tom K. Ryan 1971

[750]
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
© The Register & Tribune Syndicote. 1971

1751)
VEH...SN00K1E'5 A MITE
Lit 0NE,1LDW/ ME T' INTERPUCE PA WY'S CHRISTENIN, OUR OIL
...AT
URGE FER HIS AGE!... A MAN, IN HIS EXUP'RANCE,EMPLOY'P
ME PA^V CRUPPER ^SNOOKlE'YA&e HE'S PHENOMYNON PRUNfrAWUT
12)i...SN0OKlE, PEAR, MEET PIS ONLY
1

PY A ALTERATION r HIS
A MAGNUM 0' CHAMPAGNE INSItAP
WEE 0ROAP WHAT GOES PV PA NOM 12?! P'TUITAR/ aANP WHILST
C PA USUAL CHIANTl POTTLE!
PEPLOOMO' HE WAS A PAPEi!
«ECHO"i

Jkl
]M-- ii ca
© The Rttgiiter & Tribune Syndicot*. 1971

317
 Beetle Bailey Mort Walker 1953

[752]

® King Feoturei Syndicote, Inc., 1953

Hagar the Horrible Dik Browne 1974

[753]
Yoj'pB iM A Very
SPECIAL- PLACE ... FULL
OF AG'S. AMD MYsTeCY..

(^ King Feoturci Syndtcole. Inc.. 1974

318
 Doonesbury C. B. Trudeau 1971

[754]

^
^Dooqesbury
^(5^^^
ruMKS NO
FCHK PICKING PROBLEM,
t^e UP...
AiACK.
I

YVU KNOU),lve OH, Lue'/zer ReALCr? AfiE WOL, BA5ICALLX, FINDING AMOilCA HAS
ACWAYi> kJfiiNTED pperrr much YOUR GOfidJ> THE r 6U€SS I'M 3ecoMe KiNP OF A ouesr
TO FtNO our THC sp^e AS SAMe? k/HAr LOOI^Ne FOfi FOR MF. Z" /refi^ THlNfclNe>
.

mAT A TRUC^ ANYBODY ei5t eKf>UT~Y ARE yvU AMORICA... it's eoiNe TO bf akovnd
PI?lU£R. /S Uke.. COOfaN6 FOfi. rue NEXT BeND.. but XU-
IN uFeZi F/A/P IT, T frNOU) IT.

FA/^TASTIC! our., you CAN

PCEASe TAkS MF JOIN MF IN WFLLFHANKie
WITH YOU, MR
mua^ pRiveR. MYFOR^
SFARCH BOY, YOUVB
X, TOO, hJANT TO TRUTH.
DONE IT
FINP AMFRlCA'
I
again!
/

£ 1971, G. B. Tfudeou

Distributed bv Unlversol Preii Syndicate.

319
 B.C. Johnny Hart 1965

[7551

© Publiiheri New»pop«r Syndlcote, I9AS

B.C. by p«rmitsion o< Johnny Hon ond Fi«ld Enterprisei. Inc.

320
 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

321
 The Wizard of Id Johnny Hart 1976

[757]

S>>

i
f\6WT\

> /

[758]
 Broom Hilda Russ Myers 1974

mmmm [760]

The Chicago Tribune. 1974

Sam's Strip Jerry Dumas 1962

[761]
SAM, yi> -iOO
PeowiSE To ^UT UP AlOV I AwyotJE
CACTCOO GHA2ACTEK lOHO
SHOUDEO UP F02 TWe

King Feoiurej Syndicote, Inc., 1962

[762]
IT'LL TAKE SOME A PECSOIO UOITW MV lUTELLl&EOCE.
WHILE All TUE^E \ ( S^^\..) BUT SAM... AfOD IMASlMATIOtJ SMOULD BE ABLE
OLD CDfA\C dWAEAJTEK \ V^
*'
^ THilOKIlOa-,
CM PROBABLY
I

TO TWifOk: OF SOME WAV/

A2E W£(2£, I'D SUKE iOOEK THEM ItJ
Lik^E TO JSE ThEU
b
SOMEHOuJ
IM W
STS\P

[763]

€ Ktnj ^cMum S)ndxHt. Iih I'^r.J IB «M f.|fM

(S) King F«alures Syndicate, Inc., 1962

323
 )

A Selected, Introductory Bibliography

of Books and Articles on Newspaper Comics

Note: The editors do not recom- Abel, Robert H., and David Manning White, eds. The Funnies: An American Idiom.
mend all of the titles listed as
New York: The Free Press of Glencoe, 1963.
equally informative and factual. A
number are perfunctor\' and sketch- Aldridge, Alan, and George Perry. The Penguin Book Harmondsworth,
of Comics.
ily researched, and the data given
are often contradictory. But these
England: Penguin Books, 1967.
are the best known and most readily
available titles in a shallowly
Becker, Stephen. Comic Art in America. New York: Simon and Shuster, 1959.
covered field.
Blackbeard, Bill. "The First (Arf, Arf!) Them All" (on Popeye).
Superhero of 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 Comic

Inge). "American 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.

'
Donald Phelps, one of (he most Phelps, Donald. "Rogues Gallery/Freak Show." In Prose (no. 4), New York, 1972.°
perceptive critics of the comics, is

listed here for onl) the most readily Robinson, Jerr\ . The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Strip Art. New York:
oi>tainahle of his inaf^a/ine pieces.
G. P. Putnam's Sons, 1974.
Mis other essa\s on the comics ha\'e
l)ei*n pnl>hshe<l largeU in obscure,
Sheridan, Martin. Comics and Their Creators. Boston: Hale, Cushman and Flint,
ephemeral, sometimes mimeo-
);raplied little niu^a/ines like 1942 (paperback edition: Luna Press, 1971).
Giwxis or Till' Mi/nlfriinis Barri-
tildes. His work on the .American
Waugh, Coulton. The Comics. New York: Macmillan, 1947 (paperback edition:
comic strip cries out for anlliol- Lima Press, 1974).
ogizing.

324
 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 Newspaper Enterprise Association feature in 1933

his life as a
[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

325
 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 The Saturday
in such publications as
—
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] and narrative invention and pace between 1927 and 1937, after which
acterizations,
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

326
 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 in 1924 as a humor strip but soon began its journeys to the far comers
began
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 ( was one of several zany strips by Milt Gross. He began it in 1929 and
of Tooloose )
[717] continued it bottom or top Sunday feature until 1934, when the Count
either as the
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.

327
 Doonesbury began as Bull Tales in the Yale Record in 1968, moved Yale Daily News the
to 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 an animated cartoon, the work of Australian-bom Pat Sullivan, and moved
as

[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 had previously
Rochelle, New York. Ra>'mond
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 He was also the only artist to suspend
cartoons. 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-

328
 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 theMule and Alphon^e 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 LittleJimmy, 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 ( German slang of the time "the hangover kids" was begun in 1897 by Rudolph
in )

[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

329
 destructive brats Max und combined strip continuity and
Moritz. In the result. Dirks
time in comics history. Dirks was bom in Germany in 1877,
talk balloons for the first
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 was surely his innate artistic ability that kept those panels from look-
activity. It

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 boy at the Los Angeles Herald before he was t\venty. He rode the
office

rails toNew 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'IAbner 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 own feisty variation of
offering his
the favorite American story of the yokel (or, in this case, Yokum) who exposes the
foiblesand 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,
who wrote and drew his own comics for the amusement of his family.
to a father
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

330
 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-

and was put on as an apprentice animator. Until 1938, he

ney's, 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.

331
 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 and a narrative pace of its own, it became one of the classics of the
^^'illie)

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. was approached
In 1903 he
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.

The 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

332
 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 Sunday color page), appeared in the New York World (and
first

[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 by a correspondence course before he graduated from high school. He
art

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
initiallya 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

333
 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 be a cartoonist, and three years later he began four different strips for the
to
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. was created by Harold R. "Hal" Foster, bom in Nova Scotia in
It

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 Sunday episodes from 1931 until he began Prince Valiant. He
later did the

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 stylewas 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 was drawn variously by several cartoonists, most
strip,

[30] notably by its originator, Charles Frink (who died in 1912), and his successor, Ray-

334
 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 Sunday feature in the New York Herald Tribune (and its syndicate) by New
a
[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 most notably Dickie Dare, before approaching Captain
several features,
Joseph Patterson of the York News with Terry. The strip was his answer to
New
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-
Oyl and her husthng brother. Castor. Popeye the
acters, chiefly the spinsterish Olive

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

335
 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.

336
I
Bill Blackbeard is the director of tlio Sail Fran-
cisco Academy of Comic Art, a nonprofit educa-
tional institutiondevoted to the study of popu-
reproduced in this
lar narrative arts. Tlie strips
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 hisdismay 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 (Macmillan). He has written on
Transition
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.
 ii

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