Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Quints' Christmas -- Day 1
Beginning today we're running the 1940 King Features Christmas story strip The Quints' Christmas. The title children are the famous Dionne Quintuplets, the first quints to survive infancy. The Dionnes were world famous at the time, and sadly were exploited unmercifully by their caretakers to make a fortune off their fame. You can read their sad story here on Wiki.
The strip was written by Brandon Walsh who handled the scripts for at least four of King's Christmas stories in addition to his regular writing duties on Little Annie Rooney. This 1940 Christmas strip would be his last and bears some marks of being a rush job. The first couple weeks of strips read as if there are parts of the narrative missing or out of order, and the story sort of oozes around aimlessly in a haze, almost like what you might expect a comic strip would read like if it was written by William S. Burroughs. Near the end it evolves into a truly bizarre anti-war message. Walsh was obviously deeply affected by the war raging in Europe, especially the merciless air bombing of England, but his attempt to weave this allegorically into his Christmas story -- well, I'll let you see how it plays out.
Art was provided by Royal King Cole, another regular on the King Christmas strips. He, too, would make 1940 his last year on this seasonal task.
I hope you enjoy this year's Christmas strip offering from Stripper's Guide. While it's no holiday classic, it's definitely worth a read for its unique strangeness. Enjoy!
The strip was written by Brandon Walsh who handled the scripts for at least four of King's Christmas stories in addition to his regular writing duties on Little Annie Rooney. This 1940 Christmas strip would be his last and bears some marks of being a rush job. The first couple weeks of strips read as if there are parts of the narrative missing or out of order, and the story sort of oozes around aimlessly in a haze, almost like what you might expect a comic strip would read like if it was written by William S. Burroughs. Near the end it evolves into a truly bizarre anti-war message. Walsh was obviously deeply affected by the war raging in Europe, especially the merciless air bombing of England, but his attempt to weave this allegorically into his Christmas story -- well, I'll let you see how it plays out.
Art was provided by Royal King Cole, another regular on the King Christmas strips. He, too, would make 1940 his last year on this seasonal task.
I hope you enjoy this year's Christmas strip offering from Stripper's Guide. While it's no holiday classic, it's definitely worth a read for its unique strangeness. Enjoy!
Comments:
Good summation. This is pretty dreadful, even for the era. Serious continuity issues, and that's before we get into the silly insipid pointless story. Never had a chance. Poor kids.
PAM D.
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PAM D.
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: 5/11/2012 9:12 PM
: 5/11/2012 9:12 PM 