Stripper's Guide: Obscurity of the Day: Mister Batch

Wednesday, November 02, 2011

Obscurity of the Day: Mister Batch

Jimmy Swinnerton used Mister Batch as a recurring character in several strips. His schtick was that he had survived into old age without ever being caught in the bonds of matrimony, and his experiences only served to confirm the wisdom of his philosophy. First appearing regularly in Bad Mans (1908-11), then in his own Sunday strip (1912-13), we're focusing today on his third and final go-round, a weekday strip that ran sporadically from January 17 to July 25 1916.

In the New York American the strip ran pretty regularly through the beginning of March, but then only five more times through the end date. I suspect that the strip was produced much more often than that, but only ran in syndication. The Hearst bullpen was really cranking out product at this time and the American and Journal just didn't have enough room for it anymore. This was basically the beginning of a trend that would snowball in coming years, for syndicate flagship papers to run only a limited selection of the syndicate's output.

Labels: Obscurities