Stripper's Guide

 

Bert Cobb was a wonderful illustrator/artist/cartoonist, so I bet that's why he rarely took the time to establish a long-running series -- he was always getting offers of work and off he went, hopping from job to job. Out of seven known newspaper series the longest-running one he did, Ambitious Teddy, ran a paltry eight months; it was also his last.

Cobb spent a short time penning material for the McClure Syndicate's newly minted color comics section in 1901. One of his two continuing series was Some Monkey Fun from Jungle Jinks, another one of those jungle animal series. In the first decade of the newspaper color comics section, these things were ubiquitous, easily rivalling the prank-pulling kid strips for popularity. 

This ungainly titled series ran from August 25 to October 13 1901*, appearing just four times in that period.

* Source: New York Press

Labels: Obscurities

 

At the beginning of 1926, when the Hearst syndicates decreed that all their Sunday pages would add topper strips, almost all the cartoonists started off with a topper series that was short-lived, and then, after a few months, they came up with series that would run for years. I have no idea why that was, but you can pick pretty much any Hearst Sunday page and you'll see the pattern.

Barney Google is a perfect exemplar of that pattern. Before he settled on the long-running classic topper Parlor, Bedroom and Sink (later Bunky), DeBeck began with a one-shot on January 10 1926 titled Useless. The next week DeBeck decided to inaugurate a Sunday version of his daily panel Bughouse Fables, a feature he'd been doing since 1920. I can certainly imagine DeBeck had a store of ideas for the feature that couldn't really work in the panel format, so a strip version allowed him to use up those otherwise unworkable ideas.

Bughouse Fables was a delightfully wacky feature in which people would react in unexpected ways to situations. The topper strip above is a perfect example. We're all ready for the cop to go ballistic, and the gag is that he goes the opposite way.  

Although adapting Bughouse Fables as a topper seems like a great solution to needing an extra feature, DeBeck, like most of the Hearst cartoonists, didn't stick with his first series. The Bughouse Fables topper ended on May 9 1926, replaced by Parlor, Bedroom and Sink.

Labels: Topper Features

 

Alfred G. Alblitzer simplified his cartooning nom de plume to Al Zere, but I have to say, I really like the alliteration in his given name. I wonder if, in the way that a flap of a butterfly's wing can change history, could a cartoonist named Alfred Alblitzer have had a different biography just because of his name. 

Well, we'll never know the answer to that one. But we do have an answer to the burning question, "What did Al Zere produce at the Brooklyn Eagle from August 30 1908 to December 19 1909?" The answer is today's obscurity, called Cy! (don't forget the exclamation point!!)

The Brooklyn Eagle offered only one Sunday comic each week during this early era, and Al Zere created Cy! as his second attempt to take up permanent residence on that very exclusive stage. It would be on his third try that he'd stick the landing with Buttons and Fatty, which he penned for nine years before being called off to visit Europe's finest trenches, rifle and Army boots provided gratis. 

Zere's Cy! fails to live up the exclamation point, offering serviceable but unmemorable gags about a kid named (wait for it) Cy. I think he's supposed to be a country bumpkin -- those big clodhopper shoes and patched jeans are telltales -- but the gags don't often seem to have much to do with that. I don't see it as emblematic of the country bumpkin type that our young man goes camping and to fancy restaurants as seen above. Don't bumpkins chase pigs and smoke corn silk behind the barn? Maybe Al Zere, a Brooklynite born and bred, had a little trouble visulaizing country life, but jeez, he could have stolen gags from only about a million other similar features.

Anyhow, the good citizens of Brooklyn would have to suffer through Cy! (don't forget the exclamation point!) for almost a year and a half before Zere put him out to pasture. Or, to keep in the spirit of things, perhaps in the harbour wearing concrete overshoes? 

Labels: Obscurities

 

Here's another Dwig "School Days" card, issued by Raphael Tuck. The oddity with this one is that it is marked as Series 49 on the reverse, while my other cards of this type are from Series 110. Thank goodness I don't really care to delve too far into postcard history, or I'd be off on a research expedition now!

Labels: Wish You Were Here

 

April 8 1910 -- Herriman both reports and cartoons about an actors' benefit performance at the Mason Opera House. Leading lights in the show include singer-actress Winona Winter, comedian Walter Kelly and actor Henry (Harry) Woodruff.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

Young Artist Cheers Miss Angus

Miss Fay King Presents Her With Sketches of Columbia Players

In Little Fay King, of 830 Raleigh street, Miss Edith Angus has an ardent friend and admirer, and one who does not forget her in her loneliness. When her benefit was given at the Columbia Theater, Miss King, who has marked artistic ability, thoughtfully made color sketches of the various people who participated in the program and sent them to Miss Angus. The note which accompanied it follows:

“I thought perhaps you would like to see how some of the people who helped to entertain looked and how they were dressed, and I hope you will like and accept my sketches.”

Miss Angus was so much pleased with the little girl’s thoughtfulness that she asked The Oregonian to reproduce some of the drawings. Besides those given here there were sketches of Mrs. Rose Bloch-Bauer, Mr. William Bernard, Dot Bernard, Mr. Baume and other, all of them being splendid likenesses.

Miss King is a winsome girl of 14, whose great ambition is to be “a good, all-around artist—like Mr. Murphy.” She has [illegible] had but one month's instruction in drawing, but her ability to reproduce likenesses is great, and with proper [illegible] she will have a future in the art world.

“The first drawing I ever did was drawing pictures of paper dolls and [illegible] of nonsensical things when I was [illegible] bit of a girl. Hilda Garrett and I [illegible] to be great friends and play together [illegible] I was with her when I first [illegible] people. It just seemed to come [illegible] and I liked it so much that I have [illegible] wanted to do any other kind of [illegible] since then,” is her modest explanation of her work. When asked what her [illegible] is she said:

“Oh, if I can just be like Mr. Murphy [illegible] will be entirely satisfied. I would [illegible] newspaper work, though. I’d rather [illegible] draw for people to admire my [illegible] vate. It’s lots harder to [illegible] ing people than others, but I [illegible] want to be a cartoonist. If you [illegible] to put anything in the paper, [illegible] forget to say how much I think of Miss Angus—will you? I think she is [illegible] lovely, and everybody wishes she [illegible] get well.”

Fay King Not To Soar

Young Woman's Parents Forbid Her Proposed Balloon Trip.

Fay King, whose intention to make a balloon ascension with Tiny Broadwick was announced is not going to soar. Several important reasons have developed which make such a feat on the part of the young woman impossible.

In the first place the advance story spoiled it all. It called the attention of the young artist’s parents to the feat contemplated by their daughter, and both father and mother emphatically set their parental feet down and announced that no such action would be permitted. Miss Fay is an only daughter.

Miss Fay King, a very dear friend of Bat’s, has helped to amuse the readers of this book by her extraordinary, amusing caricatures of the Park wonders. …

… Such wonderful artists as Tad (T. A. Dorgan) of New York Journal, Bob Edgren of New York World, and one of the highest salaried artists in the world, Homer Davenport, have commented very favorably on her work which speaks heaps of praise for her talent.

The artist is but a mite of a girl standing only 5 feet tall, weighing 123 pounds—fully clothed. Was born in Seattle, Wash., March 11, 1889, has black hair and eyes, in all she is a stunning little brunette.

Miss King’s folks moved to Portland when she was 6 months old—incidentally she had to go too. She lived there all her life except two years when she was about 8 or 10 years old. She spent them in San Francisco and San Jose, Cal.

… Her full name is Fay Barbara King. At present Fay is doing “Special Cartoons” and interviews for a theatrical paper in Portland, Ore.

Fay King’s Coming; Sends a Picture So Denver’ll Know Her

Fay King is coming to Denver.

Know her? Well, if you do not, you will mighty soon, for she is to join The Post staff on Saturday of this week.

Fay King is the greatest woman cartoonist, caricaturist and “kidder” in the world today, and she’s just bubbling over with fun of the most contagious, infectious kind.

You’ll laugh with her, for you just can’t help yourself.

Fay King is young—very young, in fact—but the hats of veterans in the comic art world are off to her. She comes to Denver from the Pacific northwest, where she had made a tremendous hit.

She not only makes pictures, but she writes and writes well.

She’s a writer, a critic and a cartoonist in one, and good in each and every line.

Here’s the letter she sent to F.G. Bonfils of The Post, in response to his telegram inviting her to join The Post family:

“Portland, Ore., April 14, ’12.

“Mr. F.G. Bonfils, The Post, 

Denver Colo.

“Dr. Mr. Bonfils—Your telegram received. I bought my ticket today and will leave here Thursday (April 18) at 10 a.m., and will arrive in Denver Saturday (April 20) at 10 a.m.

“You are very kind to come to the depot and meet me. You don’t know how much I will appreciate it. That you may know me I will be dressed like the inclosed sketch and will carry a Denver Post.

“Sincerely, 

“FAY KING.”

And the sketch that she inclosed—well, just look at it and see if you can keep from laughing.

…“But—how about this latest rumor about your marriage to Miss Irma Kilgallen, the beautiful Chicago heiress? You admit you were sweet on her—won't you tell me all about it?”

“Well, I think it was a case of love at first sight when Irma and I first met, seven years ago in Chicago, and it was mutual. Somehow we both looked forward to love in a cottage—but, then came her fateful trip to Europe, when she married that bum, ‘Count No Account,’ to please her mother….

…“Do you think you’ll ever marry, Bat?” I asked, remembering it was leap year.

“Well, if I believed in dreams, I should say NOT—because the other night I dreamed (you see, this matrimonial publicity has been on my mind so), I was married, and presented my country with five young lightweights all at one time! I remember that I named them—Battling Jr., ‘T.R.,’ William Jennings Bryan, Julian Eltinge and Carter H. I was just opening congratulatory telegrams from all the dignitaries of the U.S.A., when I awoke. Do you wonder I hesitate yo enter a (wedding) ring career after a jolt like that. Can you beat it.”

Nelson Sidesteps Undertaker As His Life’s Matchmaker

Pikes Peak Summit, Colo., Aug 4. Battling Nelson and Fay King, a Denver newspaper artist, were balked here this afternoon in an attempt to get married.

The former champion and Miss King took the trip of 14,147 feet up Pikes Peak for the start of their honeymoon. To their surprise and consternation they found out that the minister had grown tired waiting for them and had left. Only a telegraph operator and an undertaker were on hand. The undertaker was willing to be substituted, but Nelson decided to postpone the ceremony.

Nelson and Miss King returned to Denver and Bat will there make arrangements for the wedding. After a trip to Chicago and Hegeswich he plans a honeymoon to Australia.

’Ware the Women, Says Battling Dane

St. Joseph. Mo., Sept. 28.—For the first time in his life Battling Nelson has declined to be interviewed. This time the subject of the proposed interview was matrimonial, not pugilism. “Is it true that your rumored engagement with Miss Fay King of Denver is all off?” Nelson was asked.

“The only match I know about is the one my Chicago representative is trying to clinch with Packey McFarland,” replied Nelson, “and he is pretty slow about it, too.”

“Miss King says she loves you like a brother, but that she has not considered you for a husband,” Nelson was informed.

“If McFarland thinks he can lick me, now is his chance,” replied Bat.

“Didn’t you and Miss King go up on Pikes Peak and engage a minister to marry you? And didn’t the minister fail to show up?” were the next questions.

“I’m not going to talk about marriage,” said Bat. “I am leaving the matter up to her. What she says is right, no matter if she’s wrong.” Then Nelson got serious.

“There’s no use in my talking marriage,” he said. “Any man who says he’s going to marry a woman is crazy, unless he has her right at the altar—and even then he’s liable to be fooled. She may not like the color of his necktie and call off the match. Miss King is a fine cartoonist, and she’d make a fine wife for anybody. If I’m the lucky fellow at the finish I’ll be tickled to death, that’s all. But I’m not saying a word one way or the other on the time, the place or the girl.”

Miss Fay King, Cartoonist, to Be Battling Nelson’s Bride

Fay King, the clever cartoonist and artist, who has been a member of The Post staff of artists for several months, and Battling Nelson, former lightweight pugilist champion, are to be married at Nelson’s home in Hegewisch, Ill., tomorrow. They left Denver last night, informing only a few close friends of their departure. They will return to Denver the first of next week and may reside here.

Personal friends of the couple have known for some time that Fay King and Battling Nelson were in love with each other. But there was no intimation on the part of either that an early marriage was contemplated.

Miss King had not anticipated any such quick move on the part of her fiance, but after his arrival she decided with him that there wasn’t any use in delaying the marriage, so she obtained a leave of absence and joined in with his plans.

Nelson’s winning of the clever artist, though it had its inception long ago, was really a matter of a four-days’ campaign, conducted with whirlwind speed. The former champion arrived in the city on Monday, determined that when he left he would take Miss King along with him. He was not prepared for any long stay, and he wasted no time in completing his conquest, for on Tuesday evening the young artist had yielded to his forceful wooing and agreed to accompany him back to Illinois. They are on their way now and by Thursday night will have been married and have held their wedding reception in Hegewisch.

Nelson Succumbs to God of Love

Brass Band Plays as Minister Unites Bat and Miss Fay King

Chicago, Jan. 23.—Oscar Matthew Nelson, once famed as the lightweight champion pugilist, and Miss Fay Barbara King, a Denver cartoonist, were married today at the fighter's home in Hegewisch. The ceremony was brief, but as the final words fell from the minister's lips the bride, overcome by the nervous strain, swayed and toppled over into her husband’s arms, sobbing violently. “Bat” soothed his bride, and pretty soon she smiled and said, “I feel much better after my cry.”

Rev. W.E. Pearson, a Lutheran clergyman of Moline, performed the ceremony. “Jack” Robinson, manager of the fighter, was best man, and Miss Ida Nelson, sister of the groom, was maid of honor.

Outside a brass band burst forth into “Moonlight Bay.” A report said there was to be a double wedding. Miss Ida Nelson, it was said, was to have been married to a young man of the town immediately after her brother's marriage. The story run that at the last minute the young man, fearing bad luck if he married on the twenty-third, insisted upon a postponement. Miss Nelson denied the story.

“I'm the happiest guy in the world.” Bat said. Asked about his wife’s future, the groom said:

“She’ll probably devote her time to illustrating my map. But I’ll stay in the ring. I’ve got to, as that’s the only way I have of making a living.”

The couple came to Chicago after the ceremony and a wedding breakfast was served at the Wellington hotel.

The trip downtown to “Bat’s” home was a gala affair. A special car on the Illinois Central was chartered and a band hired.

On the train Miss King drew a cartoon of the pugilist. The moving picture men were clamoring for some pictures and set up their machines before, the happy pair. The band played and “Bat” leaned over and (kissed his bride to be twice, and the picture machines got it all.

A big crowd turned out at Hegewisch to greet “Bat” and his fiancee. There were vigorous cheers as the party stepped from the train. The band played as the long line of friends, townsmen. newspaper men, moving picture operators and photographers started for the Nelson home behind the bridal party in a big automobile.

Tonight the couple entertained friends at a theater.

Nelson’s Wife Says Pugilist Kidnapped Her

Former Lightweight Champion Will Be Met at Denver by Summons in Divorce Suit

Denver, Feb. 28.—Battling Nelson, financier of Hegewiseh and erstwhile champion lightweight prize fighter, will be met with a summons in a suit for divorce when he arrives in Denver March 5.

This announcement was made tonight by friends of Mrs. Nelson, better known in Denver as Fay King, a cartoonist on the Post.

That she was kidnaped by Battling Nelson on the night of January 20 for her marriage three days later at the fighter's home will be the charge which the suit will be based.

Fay King remained three days as Nelson’s wife. She left for Denver on the Sunday night following the marriage and then went on to Portland. Ore., to visit her parents before resuming her work on the Post.

“Nelson heard of my reported engagement to a Denver man and ho stopped his fighting engagements to come here for me.” said Miss King tonight. "He took me by storm after I was weak and a nervous wreck from resisting him and his proposals he forced me into a taxicab and rushed me off to the station.

“I realized that I had made a mistake the day of the wedding and the first opportunity I got I hurried back to Denver. I will go right on working on the Post as though the affair had never happened.

“The marriage must not and will not stand.”

Fay Has the Say and Battler Will Retire

Chicago, May 5.—Battling Nelson, hero of many ring battles, the receiver of many a lacing, “…and former lightweight champion of the world, today announced the date of his retirement from the ring. Bat is going to quit. There’s no idle boast connected with the announcement. It may not be the wish of the once durable Dane to put the gloves on the shelf, but it is the request Mrs. Battling Nelson, Fay King, and Fay has the say. Labor day will be the Dane’s last fight—this because it will be the eighteenth anniversary of his fighting career. He would quit now but for that. There will be no fights between now and September, however. Nelson and his wife are now in Bedford, Va., resting up. Bat plans on settling in the far west.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

 

Yesterday we ran a 1976 Editor & Publisher article about the comic strip Kisses and its creator, Vivian Greene, so let's extend our coverage with a history of the strip. 

Greene says that around 1971 she was signed to a development contract with a major New York syndicate  to create a Kisses-like strip. Greene wanted to create a strip that would appeal to kids, and though she was not herself a cartoonist, she wrote the material and worked with anonymous artist collaborators. Just shy of launching with a healthy list of clients the syndicate went bankrupt. I don't know what syndicate this might have been, Bell-McClure? Or maybe Newsday Specials? 

Greene made lemonade out of those lemons and adapted her ideas to greeting cards. Selling them herself to distributors, she soon had a multi-million dollar business going. But that comic strip bug just wouldn't leave her alone, and she started shopping Kisses around once more. 

In 1974, the Register & Tribune Syndicate listed her strip in the E&P Syndicate Directory, but it turns out nothing ever actually became of that. In 1975, a few newspaper articles claimed that her strip would soon be syndicated by the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. Never happened. What did actually happen was that John Dille's National Newspaper Syndicate picked up the strip and it debuted on May 4 1975*. 

In contemporary interviews Greene seemed happy with the syndication of her strip, and she should have been as the strip might not have been putting up huge numbers of clients, but it did have some quite high-paying ones. But unfortunately it would not last long. In early 1976 NNS was in the process of shutting down, and Greene says they sold off her contract to United Feature Syndicate without her input. Specific reasons are unknown, but Greene was unhappy with the arrangement. United got their syndicate stamp on Kisses for a very short time, from February 9 to March 20**. 

From then on Greene self-syndicated, handled the business end of the strip as well. For such an accomplished self-promoter, she was well-suited to this task. I say that notwithstanding the downright creepy marketing promotion discussed in the E&P article run here yesterday! However, a self-syndicated comic strip is rarely a well-paying proposition, and by 1979, evidently the businesswoman saw that her time was more profitably spent elsewhere. Kisses ended on December 29 1979***.

PS: Greene's reminiscences would make for an interesting article, but after a very promising start to an email correspondence, she inexplicably disappeared. Ms. Greene, if you're out there and want to talk about the Kisses strip, I'd love to hear from you!

* Source: Miami Herald

** Source: Miami Herald; Sunday syndicate stamps lag several weeks behind these dates. 

*** Source: Tampa Times.

Labels: Obscurities

 ‘Kisses’ postcard approach piques editors’ interest

By Patricia Roberts (Editor & Publisher, April 17 1976)

It's not your everyday sales pitch.

A card arrives in the morning mail, no return address: “You're so sexy you drive me up a tree. Love. Avalanche.”

At four-day intervals, similar cards follow: “Let's monkey around! Love and kisses. Avalanche.”

“I'm getting ready for you. 'Cause I heard dirty old men need love too! Love. Avalanche.”

And, finally. “We could have wild times together! Missed you. Love. Avalanche (305) 558-.xxxx“

The cards went to newspaper editors all over the country this spring, and most of them were intrigued enough to ring the Miami, Florida number and demand “Who's Avalanche?”

By the time they found out, 27-year-old cartoonist Vivian Greene managed to talk them into taking a serious look at her cartoon strip “Kisses,” syndicated in about 90 newspapers in the U.S. and abroad.

Avalanche is the “Kisses” character most like the strip's creator. Deceptively innocent-looking in jeans, a halter top and mod platform shoes. Into health foods, yoga, horoscopes and woman's lib. Flirtatious. And with a philosophy that you can get anything you want if you're cute enough.

Vivian Greene has a reputation for getting what she wants, and right now it's to make her cartoon strip as successful as Charles Schulz's “Peanuts.” And, if possible, even more profitable.

As a University of Washington Journalism major, she decided to become a syndicated cartoonist—an unusual ambition, considering she couldn't draw.

She dreamed up a kind of elementary school soap opera—involving Avalanche, a dizzy secretary named Gabee, fat Rotunda whose diets always fail and Montgomery C. Roebuck, a sixth grade Phi Beta Kappa. Making rough sketches of the characters, she commissioned artists to do the drawing, and by the time she was 21, landed a contract with a New York syndicate.

But a few weeks before the strip was to be released, the syndicate went bankrupt. A series of part-time jobs proved disastrous, and Ms. Greene finally poured a cup of hot coffee on an insulting boss, was promptly fired, and decided that “If I was ever going to get anywhere
I had to do something on my own.”

Transferring the cartoon characters to a line of 48 greeting cards, she moved to Miami and founded Vivian Greene, Inc.

Within three years the company was doing a multi-million dollar volume of business and Ms. Greene was signing contracts to market Kisses toys, clothing, and gift items.

Her technique of bombarding editors with risque greeting cards signed “Avalanche,” (from her own “Juvenile Delinquent” line) may be unorthodox, but it gets both attention and results.

“But what counts is not the number of papers you sign up," Ms. Greene says.

“It's longevity. Dozens of comic strips don't last past the 13th week.”

 

 “Kisses” has run a year in three large markets—The Toronto Star, Miami Herald, and the Philadelphia Daily News. And, says Peter Morris of the Toronto Star Syndicate, response has been unusually favorable.

“We had an extremely heavy response to a recent readership survey.” Morris said. “There were 1200 replies, with three to one favorable. ‘Kisses' is reaching the youngsters, age five to teenage,
and above that age it's reaching women. Readers seem to feel a strong affinity with the characters.”

Newspaper comic strips tend to be male-oriented, Ms. Greene believes, “because the editors who choose them are middle-aged men.”

“There's very little on the comic pages for children.” she says. “'Kisses' is designed for children. They like the characters because they're really with it.”

The strip's contemporary situations—a child's parents getting divorced. sex education classes, black and white children placed together—have sparked controversy, including a couple of cancellations, she says. But most response has been positive.

“I really relate to children. I never had much of a childhood myself. I only had one parent, and I was just about the only white kid in my neighborhood,” she says.

A native of Seattle, she worked part-time jobs from age 12 to contribute to the family income, including writing articles for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a high school column for the Seattle Times, and a “youth news bureau." Her idols were Charles Schulz and Walt Disney. Her mother, a divorcee, earned only about
$4,000 a year as a department store saleswoman.

She never took an art course, still can't draw, but designs and writes her strips, employing four artists to draw them. “It's not a new concept,” she points out. “Walt Disney's work was drawn by staff artists.

“And why not be another Walt Disney?” she asks, giving a big smile, much like her cartoon characters. They're eyeless, she says, because “ 'Kisses' is about love and happiness. When you kiss
somebody you close your eyes and smile.”

“Kisses” characters never hit each other, because she doesn't like violence. Nor will their faces ever appear on packages of candy, soft drinks or sugary cereals, she says emphatically, because those things can harm children.

Success has brought little change to her life style, except that it's enabled her to make up somewhat for the childhood she missed. She bicycles to work, flies around the country to appear at autograph sessions, not infrequently turning up on roller skates with an “Avalanche” doll tucked under her arm.

Still single, she's not sure she'll ever marry because “there're so many neat men in the world, it's hard to choose just one. . . . Too bad marriage can't be syndicated.”

[Tomorrow ... more about Kisses]

Labels: News of Yore

 

Here's another card from the popular series of Out Our Way cards issued by the Standley-May company of Albuquerque New Mexico. This one has the distinction, I think, of being the first card in the series, since it is designated W501, the lowest number I've seen.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

 

April 7 1910 -- Anyone who reads George Herriman's work knows that he has a great fondness for peppering his works with references to Roman and Greek history and mythology. Today, faced with having to produce yet another strip about the upcoming Fight of the Century, Garge goes off the deep end and produces a strip that you may need a degree in Ancient History to decode.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

 

W.W. Denslow's signature feature in his stint with the McClure Syndicate was Billy Bounce, but he did try out a few other series. This one, Strenuous Bobby, is certainly the least of them. It ran just three times* from April 20 to May 18 1902**. 

Our title character's name comes from Theodore Roosevelt's famed admonition that people should seek the strenuous life, overcoming hardship and succeeding through hard work. In the context of the strip, it merely means that Bobby will enter battle with superior forces and come out the winner. In the first instalment of the short series, Bobby meets and captures a goat, Willie Whiskers, after an hour-long battle royale. In the second, Bobby breaks Willie Whiskers to harness, and in the third the pair, now compatriots, take on a mean bulldog (shown above). 

It seems like this would have been the jumping off point for a longer series, but perhaps Denslow, or his syndicate, realized that he wasn't really suited all that well to creating his own material*** -- he was much more successful adapting the works of others. It is probably for this reason that Strenuous Bobby was dropped and Denslow began adapting The Water Babies into comic form for the syndicate.

* In Douglas G. Greene and Michael Patrick Hearn's biography of Denslow, they claim a fourth episode, but I can find no evidence of it in the New York Press or Boston Post, my best sources for early McClure material.

** Source: New York Press

*** Although Denslow is the purported writer on Billy Bounce, my bet is that he worked with an anonymous collaborator.

Labels: Obscurities

 

Gin has long been a spirit that could benefit from some positive press. In the 18th century, England practically became a nation of raving alcoholics because of its unregulated cheapness, prompting William Hogarth's famed print "Gin Lane". Then, during the raj, Brits in India needed to take the infamously bitter quinine to stave off malaria, and it was found that the only drink in which it could be sufficiently masked was in rotgut gin, for which they eventually acquired a masochistic fondness. 

So coming into the 20th century, especially outside England, gin was saddled with some baggage. The liquor might well have been practically ignored had it not been for the gin martini, that most famous of cosmopolitan cocktails, which came into fashion in the 1920s. If you wanted to appear sophisticated, no other cocktail carried with it the high-end man-of-the-world panache of the martini. 

American gin distillers like Kinsey Distilling Corporation knew that people want to drink martinis, but that the strong and bitter taste of gin tends to weed out the weak-willed. So their advertising tells us that Kinsey offers "a genial gin, smooth, delightful and delicious."

Kinsey's newspaper ad campaign "It's a Wonderful, Wonderful Feeling", which debuted in November 1944, sought to reassure the public that they could reap all the social benefits of drinking martinis but without the pain of so doing if they would opt to make them with Kinsey Gin. In order to reinforce this concept of diffident sophistication, they made a brilliant choice in recruiting William Steig to add cartoons to the ads. 

Steig was the perfect choice because he was well-known for his cartoons in The New Yorker (there's the sophisticated angle), but among the alumni of that magazine he could be considered one of the more accessible and approachable (there's the genial angle). Exactly the virtues Kinsey was looking to mirror in their booze.

Evidently the ad campaign was a real winner, because it continued appearing in papers regularly with new episodes until April 1947, a tremendously long run. 

Kinsey Gin is apparently still available today, but the name has been sold and resold to various companies, so it may bear no resemblance to the spirit offered in the 1940s.

Labels: Marketing Madness

 

Dwig's greatest period of invention and production of comic series came in his years with the New York World, where he was a dominant force at both the Sunday and weekday evening papers from 1909 to 1913. 

From the middle of that period we have Them Was the Happy Days, a strip that ran in the New York Evening World  from March 16 1911 to May 10 1912. Dwig's run on this strip was in fits and starts; in the first few months it ran 2-3 times per week, then ramped up to practically daily for awhile. At the end of October 1911, though, Dwig apparently tired of it, and it is rarely seen from then until April 1912, when it retruns for awhile appearing about once a week. 

If the frequency changed a lot, the gags most certainly did not. The strip concerned two old 'friends', a big galoot named Alf and a shrimpy fellow called Jimmy. The vast majority of the strips cut deeper and deeper furrows in the same plot; Jimmy is reminded of some past mistreatment by Alf, and then Jimmy goes ballistic on Alf with the tagline, "Them was the happy days!" A perfectly serviceable gag, I'll be the first to grant, but beaten to death by the constant repetition. 

Thanks to Cole Johnson, who provided the scans.

Labels: Obscurities

 

Here's another one of those giveaway hidden picture cards that were offered in Hearst newspapers of 1906. This one doesn't say whether it is the type where you reveal the picture with water or heat. I think the former, though, were limited to the 'blackboard' series, so I guess this belongs to the "Li'l Arsonist" series. 

Looks like this card was cut from the sheet with garden shears! I have a whole bunch like that. Here'[s a tip -- if you are planning on saving something for over a century, go ahead and use a little care cutting it out.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

 

April 7 1910 -- Mrs. Molly Magarigle is suing her neighbouring duplex resident. Seems the duplex has a small barn out back, divided so each tenant has their own half. Mrs. Magarigle keeps a flock of chickens in her section while the neighbour uses his half as a garage for his automobile. 

The automobile makes quite a racket causing a major fuss among the peace-loving chickens. Mrs. Magarigle claims that this disturbance of the peace is responsible for 56 out of 60 unhatched chicken eggs in her last brood, plus adds extra damages to cover setting hens now afflicted with a nervous condition, making them useless for nature's purpose. 

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

 

From roughly the second half of the 1950s and through the 1960s, a cartooning style came to prominence for which there is no set name that I know of. Often used in animation and in print cartooning,  especially advertising and greeting cards, it seemed to be everywhere. Dave Rusch's Oscar, above, is a great example of it. But what's it called? Beat cartooning? Cool jazz cartooning? Proto-underground? Help me out here, folks. 

Anyway, the 24-year old Dave Rusch came out of basically nowhere to land a contract with United Feature Syndicate for his strip Oscar, which debuted on September 12 1960*. His bio in Editor & Publisher tells us that he was brought up in the suburbs of New York City, made quite a splash as a smart kid in school and college, was art editor of a fraternity magazine, and on graduation had recently gone to work as an art director at an ad agency. He also claimed proficiency in painting and playing jazz on various instruments. 

This is, as far as I know, Rusch's only known newspaper cartooning work, and it showed good promise. The art, for its time, was strictly downbeat and in the groove, daddy-o. The writing, well, let's say that it was occasionally a bit square, man. Strictly cubesville. He obviously wanted to be edgy and modern, but on his off days he wasn't above cracking open Joe Miller's joke book for hoary old gaglines like "Don't forget your toothbrush."

The dysfunctional family comedy started off with a decent if unspectacular client list, and United Feature must have had high hopes, because they said that a Sunday version was in the offing; but as best I can tell that never happened. 

After two years on Oscar, either Rusch or the syndicate decided to call it quits. I'm not sure why, because the client list seems not to have tanked all that badly. The strip ended on October 13 1962*. Interestingly, United Feature's own records say that the strip ended on  February 24 of that year, an unusual error in that resource. 

What happened to Rusch after Oscar I have no clue, but I imagine the bright young man with the hip cartooning style landed on his feet. 

 ~~~~~~~

 * Source: Editor & Publisher, 8/20/1960.

* Source: Daily Northwest Alabamian.

Labels: Obscurities