Monday, March 26, 2007
Obscurity of the Day: Snooks and Snicks
The Philadelphia North American was the most receptive paper in the country to female cartoonists. Why that is I dunno, but here's another distaff cartoonist by the name of Inez Tribit (nee Townsend).Inez had two known series, a decade apart. The first was Gretchen Gratz for the Inquirer which lasted a year. Her second, Snooks and Snicks, was more successful, running from February 23 1913 until the North American's homegrown comics section ended on July 4 1915. According to one online bio Tribit moved to California in the 1900s, but they also claim she did Gretchen Gratz for the Philadelphia Tribune, a paper that would have had little interest in strips about cherubic white children since it was published to serve the Philadelphia black community. Take with a grain of salt.
Snooks and Snicks were another in the endless procession of Katzie clones, their claim to originality being that they wore (for no obvious reason) clothes associated with the Dutch. The strips were done in rhyme which was slightly better than the typical doggerel usually found on the comics pages. Tribit's art style was pleasant, done in a style often seen in children's books of the day. Our sample today marks a minor change of focus for the series as the newly introduced Clarence went on to pretty much take over the strip.
Labels: Female Cartoonists, Obscurities
