Tuesday, February 07, 2006
Albert Herbert Hawkins, Short-Term Import
Albert Herbert Hawkins (subtitled The Naughtiest Boy In The World) is a long-running British strip, still popular in the UK. The creator, Frank Dickens, is a successful syndicated cartoonist, illustrator and writer. Unfortunately his one shot at American syndication fell flat. Field Enterprises added the strip to their lineup in late 1979 (12/2/79 is the earliest I've found), but it was gone within a year (my latest example, the one shown here, is 11/2/80). Does anyone have any earlier or later examples?
Frank Dickens has a pretty extensive website of his material, at this link. His syndicate can be found here.
Monday, February 06, 2006
Information Please?
This is my sole example of a panel feature titled, obviously, The Doonks. It's by Walt Scott and from 1933. Unfortunately the tearsheet I have doesn't 'fess up with the name of the newspaper, and the copyright is to Scott himself, so I'm at a reseach dead-end.
Does anyone recognize this series? I'm guessing Scott was doing it either for a particular paper or was trying to self-syndicate it. If someone can identify a paper it ran in, I can probably take things from there with a microfilm request.
Walt Scott was a workhorse in the NEA bullpen starting around the mid-30s. His best remembered feature is The Little People. He also did many of NEAs closed-end Christmas strips.
Comments:
It ran in the Cleveland Plain Dealer between (at least) 1931 and July 8, 1934.
# posted by 
: 8/26/2009 2:22 AM
: 8/26/2009 2:22 AM
Hi Fram --
Since I wrote this post (three years ago) I checked the microfilm of the Cleveland Plain Dealer at the Library of Congress. There I got dates 2/19/33 - 1/5/36. Do you have samples from 1931? Did I miss two whole years of the run?
--Allan
Since I wrote this post (three years ago) I checked the microfilm of the Cleveland Plain Dealer at the Library of Congress. There I got dates 2/19/33 - 1/5/36. Do you have samples from 1931? Did I miss two whole years of the run?
--Allan
Well, I probably misinterpreted a comment I read. According to http://www.kokoonartsclubofcleveland.org/club-members/scott-walt, he was known for his Doonks in 1931, and I thought that had to be from the newspaper. So the figures existed earlier than 1933, but I have no other indication that they were published in any newspaper before your date... I'm a Belgian, I have no American newspaper clippings at all, but like many of your comic strips. I'm Fram at Wikipedia, I wrote e.g. the articles there on Winnie Winkle, Polly and her Pals, HH Knerr, McNaught Syndicate, ... but mostly based on what I could find through internet sources (Google books and so on).
# posted by : 8/27/2009 1:34 AM
: 8/27/2009 1:34 AM
Hi Fram --
Considering the lack of depth in that bio, I'm going to stick with my date for now. I'll make a research note, though, to check the 1931 Plain Dealer next time I have access to see if I missed something. Thanks for the info!
--Allan
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Considering the lack of depth in that bio, I'm going to stick with my date for now. I'll make a research note, though, to check the 1931 Plain Dealer next time I have access to see if I missed something. Thanks for the info!
--Allan
Sunday, February 05, 2006
Lost and Found Part III
Here, last but not least of the goodies I found in the 1903 San Francisco Bulletin, is a comic by none other than Russ (Tillie the Toiler) Westover. He would have been about 17 when this was published. Perhaps his first newspaper appearance? His early, pre-Tillie style is already pretty mature here, so he was definitely ready to be put in harness.
This nice piece was used as a heading on the Bulletin's Sunday kids' page, where most of the art was submitted by readers.
Saturday, February 04, 2006
Lost And Found Part II
Here's the other series that ran in the San Francisco Bulletin in 1903. The 'official' title, the one used most often, was The Adventures of Ping and Pong. This one's by a fellow named R.O. Yardley. He not only did this series but a lot of the one-shot color comics that ran in the Bulletin that year. This series ran from February 1 to March 15, missing only one week in that interval.
Tomorrow we'll have one last 1903 Bulletin item - probably the very first newspaper appearance by a cartoonist whose name would appear on the nation's comics pages daily for the next half century.
Comments:
R. O. Yardley would be Ralph O. Yardley.
http://www.edanhughes.com/biography.cfm?ArtistID=752
Known by me for his Stockton Record work - for years after he died The Record
still ran a panel by him called "Bygones".
Don't know if it ran during his life or
if they just took his old illustrations
and reproduced them under that title.
D.D.Degg
http://www.edanhughes.com/biography.cfm?ArtistID=752
Known by me for his Stockton Record work - for years after he died The Record
still ran a panel by him called "Bygones".
Don't know if it ran during his life or
if they just took his old illustrations
and reproduced them under that title.
D.D.Degg
# posted by : 2/05/2006 2:49 PM
: 2/05/2006 2:49 PM
Thanks for the ID and the link, DD! As much newspaper work as he did, I'm kinda surprised that I don't recall ever hearing of him.
--Allan
--Allan
The Haggin Museum has 1,200 original drawings by Yardley--all from his DO YOU REMEMBER series that ran from shortly after he joined the STOCKTON RECORD in 1922 up through his retirement in 1952. These were later republished in the late 1960s as BYGONES. We also have an illustrated bio of Ralph, along with a number of print examples of some of his SF comics and Sunday Supplement work.
Tod Ruhstaller
CEO/Curator of History
The Haggin Museum
Stockton, CA
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Tod Ruhstaller
CEO/Curator of History
The Haggin Museum
Stockton, CA
Friday, February 03, 2006
Lost And Found
I have some good news today from the exciting world of comic strip research.
A month or so ago I reported to you that the San Francisco Bulletin ran their own 'homegrown' Sunday comic strips in 1904 - I knew this because of some auctions for a few pages on eBay. However, I ordered the microfilm of the 1904 Bulletin and found no evidence of the strips. That led me to assume that those pages had been stolen out of the bound volumes before they got filmed (unfortunately not that rare an occurrence). I bemoaned the apparent conclusion that the Bulletin's strips were probably lost forever.
But hold on there, all was not lost. I ordered the Bulletin microfilm for 1903 just to see what was going on that year, and lo and behold, the Bulletin's comics are all there, including the very ones I saw advertised on eBay as being from 1904. That just goes to show you why I have to see things with my own eyes (or those of trusted advisors and researchers) before information goes into the Stripper's Guide index.
Most of the 1903 Bulletin material is one-shot strips, but there are two series. The one shown today, Race Track Expressions by the great Tad Dorgan, ran three times between 2/22 and 5/24/1903. I'll show the other tomorrow.
Please excuse the image quality, it's the best I can do from microfilm.
Thursday, February 02, 2006
A Second Helping of Elza Poppin
Elza Poppin, though supposedly written by the comedy team of Olsen & Johnson, was more likely written by the cartoonists who drew the feature. The first artist on the strip was Ving Fuller, a cartoonist who drifted in and out of syndicated newspaper strips on several occasions. His more famous strip, Doc Syke, was definitely straight out of the screwball school, so Elza Poppin was a good outlet for his talents.
However for reasons unknown Fuller left the strip after just six months, and his replacement was another cartoonist noted for his screwball strips, George 'Swan' Swanson. Swanson created one of the first, and best, screwball strips, Salesman Sam for NEA in 1921. He handled the strip until 1926, then switched over to the Central Press Association where he started the daily panel Nonsense and the comic strip High-Pressure Pete. Both features folded in 1937 after respectable runs. In 1940 Swanson returned to a byline on the comics page by taking over Elza Poppin, a perfect fit for his talents.
In 1943, with the pay for Elza Poppin probably slipping, King Features had him start The Flop Family, a Sunday only at the beginning. The new strip added a daily when Elza Poppin finally burst its bubble in 1944. The Flop Family continued on a monumental run that ended in 1982
Comments:
Any idea what Ving's real first name is?
I have always assumed Ving was a
nickname.
Actor Ving Rhames(sp?) name is actually
Irving, is that possible for Fuller?
D.D.Degg
I have always assumed Ving was a
nickname.
Actor Ving Rhames(sp?) name is actually
Irving, is that possible for Fuller?
D.D.Degg
# posted by : 2/03/2006 7:56 AM
: 2/03/2006 7:56 AM
Hi DD -
I've always assumed it was Irving, don't know if that's cause I read it somewhere or came up with it on my own.
Allan
I've always assumed it was Irving, don't know if that's cause I read it somewhere or came up with it on my own.
Allan
Hi,
I have an original charicature done by Ving Fuller, dated 1924. Is it valuable?
Thanks, L. Logan
I have an original charicature done by Ving Fuller, dated 1924. Is it valuable?
Thanks, L. Logan
# posted by : 2/21/2008 2:37 PM
: 2/21/2008 2:37 PM
I am Swans nephew. I have over 200 pcs. of original strip art in good condition draw by George Swanson.Iremember Swan coming to Cleveland from New York in the summers to draw his strip w/ me sitting on his lap.
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# posted by : 3/09/2011 10:15 AM
: 3/09/2011 10:15 AM Wednesday, February 01, 2006
Obscurity of the Day: Elza Poppin
The zany comedy team of Ole Olsen and Chic Johnson began a successful vaudeville career in the 1920s, parleyed that into a string of successful Hollywood films in the 1930s, and then set Broadway records in 1938 with their madcap stage show Hellzapoppin. Known in their heyday as the biggest competition for the Marx Brothers, the screwball duo had about the same career arc as their better-remembered rivals. The 1940s brought a string of lackluster films and a television show in 1949 fell flat. The 1950s found them in Las Vegas, where they both died in the early 60s.One of the more obscure souvenirs of their career was a comic strip supposedly penned by them and named after their hit Broadway show. The H-E-double hockey sticks was considered too risque for the comics page, so the strip was instead titled Elza Poppin. To explain the name change, a goofy girl character was featured by that name.
It's pretty doubtful that Olsen and Johnson ever penned a gag for the feature, but their names were enough to put the strip in a pretty respectable list of papers. However, as their fame quickly waned after the Broadway show and a 1941 film version didn't do the show justice, the circulation of the strip plunged. Starting on June 19 1939, the strip gets harder and harder to find after the release of the movie in 1941. Amazingly enough, it held on through April 29 1944, though by then it was only being run by a few papers, like the New Rochelle Standard-Star.
You'll find some good material on the Olsen & Johnson team at this website, and here at Wikipedia. An interesting discussion on Hellzapoppin can be found on this blog.
Tomorrow we'll have a few more samples and discuss the cartoonists who worked on the strip.
