Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Obscurity of the Day: Perky, Salesman
I've already spent way more than my allotted time doing blog-related stuff this morning, commiserating with Cole Johnson over the ins and outs of the Philadelphia Inquirer. If you have an interest just search the blog for Philadelphia Inquirer and you'll find a number of posts with long comment threads attached.So here's a quickie obscurity. Perky, Salesman - He Can Nearly Sell Anything was by someone named Freeman and it ran in the Boston Post from July 4 to September 27 1913. The strip ran six times in July, then just once each in August and September. I'm guessing that this Freeman chap was another in the bunch of cartoonists who tried out for a permanent job at the Post and failed. The art looks suspiciously like Walter Wellman, though, who also had material appearing in the Post at the time, so maybe I have the story all wrong...
Labels: Obscurities
Comments:
Hello, Allan--This strip is about as contrived a gag as possible. How the devil can you sell a lady a hat by just describing it? Also, what possible reason could there be to leave the hat on an old box somewhere? That's pretty bad.**MY 2 CENTS**---It doesn't look like Wellman to me, he was a great deal more professional than this character.------Perky, Johnson.
# posted by 
: 9/06/2007 9:47 AM
: 9/06/2007 9:47 AM
Hi Cole -
No argument from me about it being pretty bad, but take another look at those faces -- those are Wellman faces. And the Freeman - Wellman names are awful similar. Might well have just been someone using Wellman references for swipes, but why would you swipe from someone appearing in the paper? Wish I knew more about Wellman's comings and goings, but I don't know if he was on staff at the Post or being distributed to them thru Associated.
--Allan
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No argument from me about it being pretty bad, but take another look at those faces -- those are Wellman faces. And the Freeman - Wellman names are awful similar. Might well have just been someone using Wellman references for swipes, but why would you swipe from someone appearing in the paper? Wish I knew more about Wellman's comings and goings, but I don't know if he was on staff at the Post or being distributed to them thru Associated.
--Allan
