Here's one of those features that causes me fits for the Stripper's Guide index. Is it a cartoon panel, or is it just an illustrated newspaper column?
It's certainly set up like a panel cartoon, and it's hand-lettered like a cartoon panel, but it's a pretty fur stretch to call the illustrations cartoons, and the illustrations are really just that - they are not really an integral part of the storytelling.
My decision was that It's Only a Postage Stamp ... But did not qualify for the Stripper's Guide index. Which is a good thing, because the feature was never advertised in E&P, there's no syndicate credit on my samples, and all I have are a small stack of samples from 1935 which were run on a space available basis by the newspaper. Not exactly what you would call solid ground for an informative index entry.
I love this sort of comic. Little kids can be drawn in and learn exotic things about the world from simple items near at hand. Facinating. Thanks for posting this!
ReplyDeleteJohn
Yup, it's too bad that this sort of material is all but extinct in newspapers. Hobby features (stamps, coins, model-building, etc) seemed to pretty much disappear back in the 60s. And of course it gave kids one less reason to read the newspaper. Smart thinking, newspaper editors!
ReplyDeleteLooks like one of many series of newspaper filler cartoons that were offered free to smaller papers. There were still a few like these around when I worked at a pennysaver back in the 80's but most of them were thinly disguised advocacy items by that time ("STUPID LAWS: In some states, lawmakers are actually considering taking away your right to smoke in hospital rooms!"). Some I remember from earlier, growing up in the midwest, would be farm-related, possibly produced by extension services or co-ops.
ReplyDeleteHi Mark&Barb -
ReplyDeleteCould be, though I don't know what they would be hawking with the stamps angle. Some of those freebies, though, as I've discussed in other posts, are tough to pin down as to their covert purposes.
Ever since they stopped letting me smoke in hospital rooms I'm in much better health. Didn't quit smoking, just stopped going to hospitals.
--Allan