Saturday, December 31, 2005
The First "Doings of the Van Loons"
After a long search, I think I've finally found the start of F. Leipziger's Doings of the Van Loons comic strip. For the longest time I thought the strip started sometime in 1912, but then I discovered that there was a reprint book of the strip that was published in 1911. That sent me on the hunt again, and finally I found a run of the strip starting on December 5, 1910 in the Louisville (Ky) Courier-Journal. At least I'll assume this is the start of the strip until I find something yet earlier.
The significance of the strip lies not in its content; it's a fairly forgettable strip, one of the kajillion about a henpecked husband; but in the fact that it ran as a true daily right from the start. This makes it the very first 'contractual' daily strip, pre-dating by over a year what I claimed was the first, Scoop The Cub Reporter, in an article on early daily strips that I penned for Hogan's Alley magazine a few years ago.
To recap the point I was discussing in that article, I defined a contractual daily strip as one that a syndicate paid to have produced 6 times per week, 52 weeks per year. Many think of Mutt & Jeff as the first daily, but in fact Bud Fisher often put the strip on hiatus well into the mid-1910s, so it doesn't qualify.
The samples above are the first two days of the strip, December 5th and 6th, 1910.
By the way, one of the descendants of Leipziger contacted me a few years ago looking for samples of his strip. I did hook the lady up with some material, but forgot to ask her what the "F." stands for. If she happens to come across this blog, I'd sure appreciate her dropping me a line.
Comments:
The Library of Congress has posted the
1905 book "A Gallery of Pen Sketches in
Black and White of Our Michigan Friends As We See 'Em" online.
Do a web search of that book and go to
the loc site. Page two will have a picture of Fred I. Leipziger while he
was with The Detroit News.
http://memory.loc.gov/gc/lhbum/05693/0002.jpg
D.D.Degg
1905 book "A Gallery of Pen Sketches in
Black and White of Our Michigan Friends As We See 'Em" online.
Do a web search of that book and go to
the loc site. Page two will have a picture of Fred I. Leipziger while he
was with The Detroit News.
http://memory.loc.gov/gc/lhbum/05693/0002.jpg
D.D.Degg
# posted by 
: 12/31/2005 11:46 PM
: 12/31/2005 11:46 PM
Alan,
This comic strip was written and drawn by my grandfather, Fred I Leipziger for the Detroit News. Fred Leipziger was one of six brothers who were all immensely talented. Nate Leipzig was one of the greatest card magicians of all time. He could command a huge audience in an auditorium with only a deck of cards.
It was likely my sister Judy who contacted you, although this post is many years old, so I'm not sure if you're still monitoring it.
Rick Brenner
(My mother was Jean Leipziger - Fred's daughter)
This comic strip was written and drawn by my grandfather, Fred I Leipziger for the Detroit News. Fred Leipziger was one of six brothers who were all immensely talented. Nate Leipzig was one of the greatest card magicians of all time. He could command a huge audience in an auditorium with only a deck of cards.
It was likely my sister Judy who contacted you, although this post is many years old, so I'm not sure if you're still monitoring it.
Rick Brenner
(My mother was Jean Leipziger - Fred's daughter)
Ive found many of these strips in an old scrapbook i purchased today, full strips just cut out and not pasted in! Wondered what i could find online about them, glad i stumbled here !
nice to know...I recently came across a framed one page comic strip of his here in L.A. it was from the L.A Times 1912.
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