Wednesday, February 13, 2008
News of Yore: Jeanie Strip to Debut - 1952
HT Syndicate Offers Jeanie, New D&S Strip
By Erwin Knoll (4/12/52)
Comic strip topics tend to move in cycles, and we think we've spotted the latest one— young and pretty girls cheerfully making their way through a fairly grim world. At least it looks like a cycle from here; there have been several new entries along those lines in recent months, and some of the older strips are showing signs of new life.
Anyhow, the Herald Tribune Syndicate is getting into the act with "Jeanie," a new strip which makes its bow in daily papers April 28. First Sunday page will be for May 4 release.
"Jeanie," in the words of the Herald Tribune Syndicate's enthusiastic promotion department, is as "natural as the girl next door ... A gay, intelligent honey, hailing from Marshalltown, Iowa, and dreaming the dream of every stage-struck youngster in the country: to take the main stream by storm!" The strip will be set in New York and will center around the efforts of Jeanie and her roommate, Susan, to break into show business.
The daily strip will have a continuous story line, but will feature a gag clincher in each day's release. On Sundays, the strip will be in the form of an illustrated letter to the folks back home in
Iowa, recounting the week's adventures. The Sunday strip will be half-page standard, but will include a "postscript" which may be dropped for optional third-page use.
Author of "Jeanie" is Selma Diamond, one of the writers for NBC's "Big Show," who presumably knows her way around show business. While attending New York University Miss Diamond worked as a reporter for the Brooklyn Eagle, then broke into the theatre by way of New York's straw hat circuit, where she wrote, acted and sang for the summer shows. She went to Hollywood in 1942 and wrote for some of the top radio comedy programs. Her background also includes a fling at movie script writing.
Art work on "Jeanie" will be by Gill Fox, who has been freelancing cartoons to newspapers and comic magazines. He has edited Quality Comics and contributed sports cartoons to the Long Island Press. During his wartime Army stint Mr. Fox drew "Bernie Blood," "Blood and Fire" and "Dogface" for service publications and contributed editorial cartoons to the Paris Stars and Stripes and to the now-defunct Paris Post.
[read more about Jeanie, and see a sample, on this blogpost from February 2006]
Labels: News of Yore
