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Friday, August 20, 2010

Obscurity of the Day: Jennie and Jack, Also the Little Dog Jap

Margaret Hays usually worked as the writer for her partner Grace Drayton, but here's a rare instance where she worked alone on a newspaper comic strip. Her artwork is sort of a hybrid of her sister (?) Mary Hays and partner Grace -- notice the Campbell Kids style faces.

Jennie and Jack Also the Little Dog Jap ran in the Boston Herald Sunday comics section as a late entry in their third go-round of producing their own comics. The strip began on March 8 1908 and ended either on August 9 (end in the Boston Herald) or August 30 (end in some syndicated papers). As was usual with the Hays productions, the strips read more like storybooks than comic strips.

Thanks to Cole Johnson for the scan!

1 comment:

  1. Margaret Gebbie Hays was Grace Gebbie Wiederseim Drayton's sister; Mary A. Hays (later Mary Hays Huber) was Margaret's daughter.

    http://lambiek.net/artists/d/drayton_g.htm

    http://home.comcast.net/~bluepatch/Biographies/Grace_Drayton_web.htm

    I have a particular interest in Mary Hays Huber, but it's taken me years to discover who she was. She did many holiday illustrations/designs for both the Gibson and Dennison companies, but she's very very rarely credited (I've seen one piece initialed "MH"). She also did a few "children's pages" for women's magazines; her name is more likely to appear on these.

    Regards,
    Elizabeth Hall

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