Tuesday, August 03, 2010

 

Obscurity of the Day: Hazel the Heartbreaker

Harold MacGill's Hazel the Heartbreaker is essentially a mirror image of his Hall-Room Boys strip, wherein the would-be Casanovas Percy and Ferdie are always on the make with pretty girls. Here the pretty girl is the titular star, but we still have a pair of bumbling suitors who get hoist by their own petard.

Hazel the Heartbreaker ran in the New York Evening Journal as a weekday strip from March 8 1910 until an unknown date in 1911, during the same period when the Hall-Room Boys were also appearing there. I wonder if readers were able to tell the difference?

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Comments:
I notice that this strip has captions below the panels to explain the story, in apparent duplication of the illustrations and dialogue. Was this a common practice in that era?
 
Unfortunately it was Joshua. This style is an antiquated hold-over from the 18th and 19th century style that used speech balloons merely for asides and little wisecracks, leaving the story or explication to text printed under the picture(s).

Why some cartoonists continued to use the style long after others had amply demonstrated that it wasn't necessary I don't know.

--Allan
 
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