Obscurity of the Day: King Jake

In October 1907 Hearst star cartoonist Fred Opper, or his editor, decided that it was time to put that irascible mule Maud out to pasture for awhile (well, not quite -- she continued to make semi-regular guest appearances in Opper's Happy Hooligan). Opper was then faced with creating a new Sunday funnies feature to appear in the space usually reserved for And Her Name Was Maud. His first attempt was King Jake, a formulaic tale of a dour king and his new jester, Sam Tub. Most of the strips in the series follow the bare-bones plot seen above -- Sam peppers the king with jokes to no avail, but then a little unintentional physical comedy has the king ROFLing.

King Jake ran in the Hearst Sunday sections of October 20 1907 to January 12 1908.