Thursday, October 12, 2006
Oddball Photo-Comics
The New York Evening Graphic was really enamored of photo comics. In addition to Antics of Arabella, here's two that appeared in the paper in 1926. The Hall-Mills case photo-comic went on for a long time, describing in minute detail that sensational case. You can read the lurid details of the case on Wikipedia here. This 'strip', by the way, doesn't qualify for the Stripper's Guide index because I classify it as more of a heavily illustrated news story. In the oughts and teens the big papers got cartoonists to do similar duty, illustrating the details of certain stories in strip format, but to my knowledge the Graphic was the only one that regularly committed their most sensational stories to photo strip form.
The other photo comic is a serial summarization of the then new movie The Return of Peter Grimm (imdb link). These photo comics were supplied by the movie studios, and it's an advertising gimmick that was used sporadically right through the 40s at least. They seem to pop up in fits and starts; there doesn't seem to have ever been a standing order at any studio for films to be serialized in this way.
Labels: Obscurities
