Here's the rarely seen Sunday version of that long skinny daily strip called Little Sport. The Sunday ran from 1950-56 in only a few papers, while the daily version flourished and ran 1948-1976.
The daily version was a favorite with newspaper editors for the same reason that Peanuts was initially successful. The features were so darn small that they could be used to plug a hole here and there in the paper (yup, Peanuts was marketed as a throwaway filler, as sacreligious as that may sound now).
John Henry Rouson, the creator of Little Sport, had a fascinating life and yet was also a real workhorse at the drawing board. He juggled three daily features (the other two are Boy And Girl and Ladies Day) with, apparently, little assistance. Regarding his fascinating life I'll have to demur on that story; too busy (or is it lazy) to pull out my files on the gent - some other time.
Thanks for this; although our local paper, the Aberdeen Press and Journal ran Little Sport for years, there was no Sunday paper, so I never knew the Sunday version existed ’til now - come to that, I never found anyone else who remembered it!
ReplyDeleteIf you haven’t done so already, can we have the story of the author?
Almost 250 of the silent Little Sport Sunday strips were published from 1952 to 1957 in Montréal weekly LE PETIT JOURNAL. https://la-bd-de-journal-au-quebec.fandom.com/fr/wiki/Pit_Fait_du_Sport_-_Le_Petit_Journal
ReplyDeleteAccording to the July 1956 Writer's Digest Al Morrison wrote Little Sport for three years.
ReplyDeleteHe also wrote the Shafty comic and a whole bunch of gag cartoons.