Stripper's Guide

Who needs files when we have the web. I just Googled Leslie Elton and found that he wrote and directed a series of animated cartoons in 1918-1920. Here's the link.

This blogger has to make a business trip. I'm going to be away from all my precious resources -- scanner, research library and files -- for a week. Does that mean no blog posts for a week? Perish the thought! I'm certainly not going to let my streak of daily postings end right after gamely posting on both Christmas Day and New Year. So I've spent a few long nights slaving over a hot scanner to bring you a very special treat for the coming week. Tomorrow we begin this blog's first extended reprint series, featuring Jack Daw's Adventures starting from the very first strip from July 7th, 1922.

Jack Daw's Adventures is, I believe, the very first syndicated adventure strip featuring a continuing character. There are a few adventure strips that predate it but they were either local unsyndicated features (Bobby The Boy Scout) or did not use continuing characters (The Evening World's Movie-Story Series). You can read about these and other early adventures strips in my article on the subject in Hogan's Alley magazine, by the way.

Jack Daw's Adventures is, as the title rather elegantly implies, about a small boy who leaves home in search of adventure. The storyline is all over the map, veering wildly from fanciful fairy tale settings to full-blown serious adventure. You'll see that odd genre-bending storytelling go from one extreme to the other even just in the first eight weeks of the strip that will be shown here over the coming week.

It is, I admit, not a very well written strip. The writer-cartoonist, Leslie Elton, was a passable artist but he seems to have never plotted his storyline out ahead. As you read the strips, you'll get the feeling that his story is seldom thought out more than a few panels ahead. This leads to lots of gaping plot holes, inconsistencies and klunky segues. Elton also has a really annoying habit of previewing what's going to happen in tomorrow's strip, even when he ends on a cliffhanger. Jeez, guy, what a way to kill suspense! Still, he's obviously having fun and I hope you will enjoy reading it, even if only for its curiosity value.

Over the next eight days I'll post one week's worth of strips each day. The first Jack Daw storyline, though it does not end there, does take a breather at that point so that it makes a good place to stop. And, since these business trips are threatening to become a semi-regular occurrence for me over the next six months or so, I'd appreciate feedback from you folks as to whether you want to continue with Jack Daw next time I have to resort to presenting a reprint series or if you want me to go on to some other strip. I also welcome any debate you might have over whether this strip actually qualifies as an adventure strip (I know Bill Blackbeard would say nay to that!).

There's nothing better than getting mail from you blog readers, and it's an extra special treat when you send me neat stuff . Here are some wonderful Christmas presents received this past week.


First, DD Degg sends this sample of a photo-comic strip (known as fumetti to those folks on the other side of the pond) called Says Who. DD says that it was produced by none other than Stan "The Man" Lee and it ran for a short while in 1976. This is by far the most recent American photo-comic series I've seen. This genre of comics never caught on in the U.S. and most of the strips I'm aware of were from the 1920s and 30s. Can anyone supply additional info on the running dates? DDs sample (the only one he has) came from the Modesto Bee. I'll see about getting the microfilm one of these days...


Second, celebrated cartoonist and comic strip historian Alfredo Castelli responds to my Doings Of The Van Loons post by supplying independent confirmation of the starting date based on a run that began at the same time in the Trenton Evening Times. What's particularly neat is that Alfredo's first strip has additional panels missing from the one that ran in the Louisville Courier-Journal. How cool is that? I guess it didn't occur to the brainiacs at the McClure Syndicate that strips can be resized for various column widths, so in order to give their clients the option of running this strips at different widths, they had the cartoonist create drop panels. Now drop panels are a standard practice in Sunday comics later on, but they're practically unheard of in dailies of any era. Wow! I guess I have to reappraise Leipziger's strip in light of the fact that he had to pad his strips every day. That's a tough row to hoe!

And back to DD Degg, he also tells me that Leipziger's first name is Fred and even supplies a link to a caricature of the man here at the Library of Congress website.

Thanks to all who take an interest in the blog, and especially to those who take some of their precious time to comment and contribute!

Happy New Year!

A selection of articles I recently uncovered in my slush pile, all dealing with various phases of poor ol' Bud Fisher's woes at the wedding altar:

Wife Sues "Bud" Fisher (Washington Post, 2/20/17)
New York, Feb 19. - Mrs. Margaret Pauline Fisher, who in 1912 eloped and married Harry C. (Bud) Fisher, cartoonist, today filed a summons against him in the supreme court. Her complaint has not yet been drawn up. There is nothing in the filed papers which indicates the nature of the action. The summons was served on Fisher.

Before her sudden marriage, Mrs. Fisher was a dancer in vaudeville. In June 1913, her throat was cut so that twenty stitches had to be taken in it at an Atlantic City hotel. She said she had fallen in the bathroom on a pitcher and cut herself. In 1914 she received internal injuries in an automobile accident.


"Bud" Fisher Marries Countess on Liner (Washington Post, 10/25/25)
Harry C. ("Bud") Fisher, cartoonist, was married at sea today aboard the liner Leviathan to Countess Aedita de Beaumont, of Paris, according to a message received by the United States Lines. Captain Herbert Hartley, commander of the liner, performed the ceremony.


Bud Fisher's Wife Gets $26,000 A Year (Washington Post 2/9/27)
New York, Feb. 8 (By A. P.).- Mrs. Aedita S. Fisher, the former Countess de Beaumont, was awarded. alimony of $26,000 a year today from her cartoonist husband, Harry C. (Bud) Fisher, from whom she was granted a legal separation last week.

Mrs. Fisher had been receiving $250 a week temporary alimony and Justice Tierney doubled that amount in setting the permanent figure today. She asked $3,000 a month or $36,000 a year.

The Fishers were married at sea aboard the Leviathan, October 24, 1925, by Capt. Hartley. They lived together only a few months, the former countess sailing for Paris the following April, saying she would "never, never" return. About two months later the separation suit was instituted, Mrs. Fisher charging the cartoonist beat her and threw her out of their fashionable apartment on Riverside Drive. Fisher vainly attacked the validity of the marriage, citing an opinion by Judge Parker of the shipping board, that commanders of American boats have no power to perform. ceremonies. Fisher was at sea when his wife was granted the separation decree, his attorney explaining he was on his way abroad to procure witnesses. Fisher, it developed at the trial, receives approximately $280,000 a year from his cartoons.

Fisher Separation Suit Will Be Tried Again (Washington Post, 3/18/27)
New York. March 17 (By A. P.).- Harry C. ("Bud") Fisher, comic strip artist and turfman, won a point today in the legal tilt with his wife, the former Countess Beaumont. Justice Tierney ordered Mrs. Fisher's separation action, which was decided in her favor by default, returned to the trial calendar.

Justice Tierney granted Mrs. Fisher a separation on February 8, awarding her annual alimony of $26.000. The hearing was held over the protest of counsel for Fisher, who said his client was on the way to Europe to get witnesses who could refute the wife's charges of cruelty and abandonment.. At that time counsel for Mrs. Fisher suggested ironically that Fisher was going abroad probably to get Mutt and Jeff, the characters of his comic strip, to testify for him.

After hearing Mrs. Fisher's story of her life with Fisher, Justice Tierney said from the bench that the cartoonist apparently was the kind of man who drew pictures to amuse children during the day and then went home and beat his wife at night. He also characterized Fisher's drawings as puerile and senseless.

"I don't see how any one can pay money for that nonsense," he ejaculated when told that Fisher made $250,000 yearly from his comics.

Today, however, the justice in ordering the case opened and setting it for retrial March 28 said that when he
granted the separation he was of the opinion that Fisher's "sudden and unannounced departure for Europe" was to escape jurisdiction of the court. The Fishers were married aboard the liner Leviathan October 24, 1925. and in April of 1926 his wife sailed for France saying she would "never, never return" to him. When she later brought the separation action he raised the question of the validity of a marriage performed by a ship's captain, but Justice Ford ruled the marriage was legal and binding.

"Bud" Fisher Ordered To Pay Wife's Board (Washington Post, 6/23/27)

New York, June 22 (AP) - A jury in city court today held Harry C. "Bud" Fisher, cartoonist and turfman, responsible for the $1,942 bill his wife ran up in the Mayfair Hotel from May 17 to July 8, last year.

Mrs. Aedita Fisher, the former Countess de Beaumont, who is suing the cartoonist for a separation, was codefendant in the action, but the jury placed the burden upon her husband, Mrs. Fisher testified had an income of $850,000 a year, maintained a 60-horse racing stable at Lexington, Ky., and a $20,000-a-year horse trainer, two automobiles with two chauffeurs, and a valet. At one time, she said, the cartoonist maintained, in addition to his Riverside Drive apartment, other suites at the Ritz-Carlton, the Marguery and the Mayfair.

Bud Fisher Suit Set Back By Referee Fee (Washington Post, 9/20/27)

New York, Sept.19 (AP) - The separation suit of the former Countess de Beaumont against her cartoonist husband, Harry C. "Bud" Fisher, received a setback today when Supreme Court Justice Crain refused to confirm a referee's report recommending a separation and $400 weekly for Mrs. Fisher. The court ruled that the referee, Herman Joseph, had disqualified himself by prematurely demanding his fee for services.

Affidavits submitted by Fisher's counsel stated Joseph had demanded his fee at the time counsel for both sides submitted briefs. Denial was made that the amount of fee ever had been fixed, despite assertion of counsel for Mrs. Fisher at the time of the referee's hearings that compensation had been fixed at $25 per hour.

Justice Crain, in holding that the referee had disqualified himself, said Joseph's demand was "understandable."

Labels: News of Yore