Obscurity of the Day: Professor Fakem the Naturalist

We just turned the spotlight on Everrett Lowry a short while ago, and here he is again. Today we highlight Professor Fakem the Naturalist, a McClure Sunday strip that ran from July 7 to December 8 1907.

In the 1900s one of the favorite 'go to' genres for the newspaper cartoonist was the nutty professor. Lowry's take on the subject has a member of that club researching animal behavior and coming up with discoveries at odds with conventional wisdom. While the idea might have had possibilities, the execution just wasn't all that funny.

Professor Fakem the Naturalist was a feature of the Otis F. Wood-administered version of the McClure section. Wood seemed to be based out of Philadelphia and his McClure section eventually included strips that also ran in the Philadelphia Press, where Wood seems to have been an editor. There seems to have been some sort of agreement between McClure and the Press to do feature-sharing in 1908-1910.

Tip of the hat to Cole Johnson for today's samples. Thanks Cole!