Stripper's Guide

I just got back from a marathon session at the library working through the Los Angeles Examiner for 1906. As you may know, George Herriman worked there from 1906 to 1909 in between stints in New York.

All the stars lined up just right for me today. The microfilm was in beautiful shape, the microfilm printer wasn't being balky, and best of all, someone at the library screwed up and set the copying price on the machine to a dime instead of the usual quarter. With the light of providence shining brightly upon me, I took on the task of making copies of all the Herriman cartoons I found, a task that took all day because ol' Garge was a very productive little worker bee at the Examiner.

So here I sit this evening with a cornucopia of 1906 Herriman cartoons. They run the gamut from editorial and sports cartoons to a previously undocumented comic strip series. It was initially my plan to start a Saturday blog posting series that would share with you folks all the treasures I had found. The series would run for months, posting cartoons at the rate of two or three each Saturday.

But then I got to wondering if you readers of this blog are fans enough of Herriman that you want to see all this material. For instance, today's cartoons (Herriman's first for the Examiner, printed on 8/18 and 8/21/06) are all but incomprehensible because they deal with local politics of a century ago. They're good cartoons, but it would take a degree in California history to fully understand them. Many of the cartoons will fit into this category -- delightful art but impenetrable subjects.

So here's the deal. I've asked you to vote before on things and I usually get just a few responses. But I know you're out there, doggone it, and I need to know where you want to go with this thing. Here's your options:

1. Post 'em all. I love Herriman and I can't get enough.

2. Post just the highlights. I like Herriman but this material is of minimal interest.

3. Go on to something else. I don't get Herriman at all, or don't care about his early work.

4. Hell, take Saturdays off from now on. I really couldn't care less if you post anything. I thought this site would have pictures of strippers on it.

If I don't get a reasonable number of responses in the next week (hey, I do know how many visits the blog gets every day, you know) I'm going to assume the vote is for #4. So post a comment or, if you prefer, email me at stripper@rtsco.com to cast your vote. Voters, thank you for your interest and support!

If you thought Hagar the Horrible was the only humor strip to feature Vikings you'd be close to right. But Hagar was prefigured by this obscurity, Norse by Norsewest, a comedy featuring a troop of mod Norsemen.

The strip was written by John Brinkerhoff (perhaps a relative of R.M. Brinkerhoff?) and cartooned by Bob Campbell, neither of whom have any other syndication credits. Both art and gags bear the indelible marks of the late 60s. The art was good, but influenced by the 1960s pop art craze it looks a little dated today. The gags were on the weak side, relying a bit much on the Laugh-In style when they weren't strictly jokebook material.

The strip, syndicated by McNaught, first appeared in a very small number of client papers on November 17 1969. I can only vouch for the strip lasting a mere month and a half, to December 27. If it lasted longer I can find no evidence for it. Perhaps a strip so tied to late 60s sensibilities just couldn't bring itself to tackle the 70s.

UPDATE 12/15/2023: Lots more digitized papers now, and it can be safely stated that the end date was 2/28/1970 based on Austin American-Statesman and several others. 

Labels: Obscurities

BuckO'Rue, A Wild West Travesty, Appears
By Jane McMaster, 1951

The cowboy trend in comic strips had doubtless reached an inevitable point. Generally speak­ing, what had to come was a burlesque of shoot-em-ups. To get down to cases, come it did Jan. 15 under the title of "Buck O'Rue."

And the new daily and Sunday offering of Arthur J. Lafave syndicate, Cleveland, mixes more than the standard number of satiric hi-jinx. Buck O'Rue, the celery tonic drinking, high-minded, pluggeroo shooting hero (a pluggeroo is when the bullet goes straight down the barrel of the other gun) is about what you'd expect for this type concoction. His dilapidated horse "Reddish," object of the hero's affections nat­urally, is not too surprising either (although he has an exceptionally expressive equine face.)

Incidental Nonsense
But unusual is the generous sup­ply of incidental characters and the strip's use of humorously macabre trappings. In Mesa Trubil, ruled by Badman Trigger Mortis, the hero talks to Skull-face Skelly (who obviously came straight from an iodine bottle) while a quiet black-coated char­acter, not previously introduced, takes the hero's measurements. Four panels later (next day to readers) the sombre measurer of­fers Mr. O'Rue a delooxey funeral for 20 bucks payable in advance.

The scene of this sideplay was Club Foote, Trigger Mortis' head­quarters in which the badman, boots and cuffs bulging with aces, gambles with his tough henchmen (called "Guardian Angels"). In a one-panel view of Club Foote ("Shore a on-healthy lookin' place!" says the hero) Buck and the reader see 10 incidental char­acters, each contributing mainly atmosphere and a different be­nighted expression.
All's Well with Deacon
In the tussle between good and bad, perennial adventure strip theme, the hero naturally lines himself up with Deacon Duncan, the leader of the decent and re­spectable folks, and his daughter, 'Dorable Duncan. The plot op­portunities seem unbounded. Mesa Trubil (which has civic slogans like "Not responsible fer bodies left over 30 days," and "Come visit our cemeteries") is in the West but is not part of the U. S. It seceded in 1861 and Washing­ton said "Good Riddance."

Ob­viously Buck will have to do some­thing about the "town without a country" and election notices that read: "The annual election for mayor will be held in the usual place, at the usual time and with the usual result."

The Wild West travesty was composed by Dick Huemer, who was born in Brooklyn and was a Walt Disney staffer for about 20 years. Mr. Huemer writes the con­tinuity and does the layout.
Paul Murry, another former Walt Disney man, draws the com­ic. The two work in Hollywood.
The starting list for the strip, which hasn't been widely promot­ed yet, includes the Los Angeles Mirror (which took it as a re­placement for "Hopalong Cassidy"), Detroit News, Cleveland Press, New Orleans Times-Picayune.

Possible TV Show
Before it had been running a week, an advertising agency had shown interest in a possible tele­vision show based on the charac­ters and one paper that had signed for nine months had requested a two-year contract.

Arthur J. Lafave believes from his own survey that the strip has a Charlie Chaplin audience:
"Some see the satiric overtones, others take it at face value."

Mr. Lafave himself is inclined to fall into superlatives when dis­cussing the characters in the strip. Some characters worth watching: girl named Lillian Rustler who manages to rustle because dumb beasts as well as men follow her around; some paleface Indians who speak with a British accent, have tea every afternoon at 4.

Labels: News of Yore

Erwin L. Hess made a cartooning career based on nostalgia. His long-running weekly panel cartoon titled The Good Old Days featured homespun images and reminders of the past. Though Hess could not be classed as a master cartoonist, he more than made up for any technical lack with the obvious amount of research and painstaking effort that went into getting every prop and costume absolutely correct in his intricately drawn panels. For Hess every detail in every panel had to be as accurate to the times as a vintage photo.

The Good Old Days was inaugurated in 1946 and ran until 1981, so it is certainly not an obscurity. However, I recently discovered these samples of an earlier version of the feature, titled Do You Remember?. It ran in the Milwaukee Journal in 1938. A little biographical sleuthing turns up that Milwaukee was Hess' hometown, so presumably this was produced as a local feature for them. Unfortunately in the scant material I have on Hess there is no mention of the feature, so I have no idea how long or how often it ran. With the few samples on hand it appears that the feature ran more often than once a week. Given the intricately drawn panels, I can't imagine it was a daily though. Does anyone know more about Hess or this panel series?

Labels: Obscurities

Blondie, Alley Most Popular In 2,500 Votes

Roanoke, Va.—Two weeks of balloting among readers of the Roanoke Times and World-News in the "Comic Strip Popularity Contest" ended with 2,500 votes being cast.

The winners:
Blondie in the World-News.
Gasoline Alley in the Times.
Uncle Remus in the Sunday Times.

The Bumstead strip received 1,920 votes and piled up 7,551 points (on a placing basis of 5-4-3-2-1) while the Alley folks got 1,665 votes and 5,685 points.

Other Favorites
Others in the top five favorites were:

World-News: Dick Tracy, 1,734 votes, 5,872 points; Smilin' Jack, 1,291 and 4,195; Henry, 1,249 and 2,856; and Little Orphan Annie, 942 and 2,814.

Times: Joe Palooka, 1,508 votes, 4,729 points; Grandma, 1,240 and 4,521; Terry & Pirates, 1,132 and 3,750, and Steve Roper, 1,323 and 3,698.

One of the surprises was Or­phan Annie's edging out Li'l Abner in almost a photo-finish for fifth place. The Yokum lad got 921 votes and 2,686 points. Another oddity was that Mickey Finn re­ceived more votes (948) than either Orphan Annie or Li'l Abner but so many were third, fourth or fifth position votes that Mickey wound up in seventh rank with 2,306 points.

Trailing in the World-News poll were: Moon Mullins, 662 and 1,523; Toots & Casper, 361 and 721; and The Gumps, 232 and 460.

Back of the top five in the Times were: Rip Kirby, 1,172 and 2,934; Dotty Dripple, 884 and 2,553, and Mary Worth, 932 and 2,505.

Uncle Remus got 973 votes and 3,626 points in capturing the honors among the "Sunday only" comics. Others in the top five were: Barney Google & Snuffy Smith, 828 and 2,910; Donald Duck, 864 and 2,364; Steve Can­yon, 658 and 2,266, and Mickey Mouse, 675 and 1,892.

Most Ballots from Papers
Trailing in order back of the top five "Sunday only" strips were:

Rusty Riley, Bringing Up Father, Ozark Ike, Buz Sawyer, Smitty, Katzenjammers, Tim Tyler, Polly & Her Pals, Flash Gordon, Popeye, Elmer, Room & Board, Tillie the Toiler, and Just Kids.

More than 1,000 women cast ballots in the poll, about 850 men, 325 boys and 300 girls.

M. W. Armistead, III, assistant to the publisher of the Roanoke newspapers, found the contest, which he directed, proved so popular he had to increase his staff of tabulators. It was conducted with minute attention to details.

The ballot was carried several times in each paper, and ballots were placed in the lobby of the newspaper office, along with a ballot box. The bulk of the returns came from ballots clipped from the papers and mailed in but several hundred ballots were left in the ballot box.

Least Popular
At the opposite poles from Blondie and Gasoline Alley, which won the "most popular" titles in more than 2,000 reader ballots, came Tillie the Toiler and Flash Gordon.

Tillie, who ran 36th in popularity ranking, got almost the same number of votes from men and women, but boys disliked her more than girls.

The newspapers' pollsters said the order of the unpopularity "'amazed" them because some of the "most popular" funnies drew many negative votes. The order of unpopularity was given as follows: Tillie the Toiler, Flash Gordon, Room and Board, The Gumps, Ozark Ike, Toots and Casper, Just Kids, Steve Canyon, Elmer, Polly and Her Pals, Dotty Dripple, Rusty Riley, Barney Google, Terry and the Pirates, Little Orphan Annie, Li'l Abner, Katzenjammer Kids, Popeye, Tim Tyler (tie), Grandma (tie), Moon Mullins, Mary Worth, Rip Kirby, Bringing Up Father, Buz Sawyer, Smilin' Jack, Smitty, Uncle Remus (tie), Henry (tie), Steve Roper, Mickey Finn, Joe Palooka, Mickey Mouse, Dick Tracy (tie), Donald Duck (tie), Gasoline Alley, Blondie.

Labels: News of Yore

Labels: Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics