Monday, June 24, 2013

 

The Chicago Tribune Comic Book: Gertie O'Grady


 One of the longest running features in the Chicago Tribune Comic Book insert of 1940-43 was Gertie O'Grady. The strip debuted on June 30 1940, shortly after the comic book itself, and managed to outlive the comic book section by a short while, ending November 14 1943.

Gertie O'Grady concerns a middle-aged Irish woman, whose role in life is never really spelled out in any great detail. She seemed to be a maid in early episodes, then a boardinghouse proprietor, but through most of the series she had no clear career. Her comedic foils started off on the zany end, with a mad professor and a giant ape, but later switched to a poor Irish immigrant girl named Fortune, and then she finally hooked up permanently with Uncle Shanty, an Irishman of the old school. The Irish humor in the strip was stereotypical, of course, but 180 degrees away from the coarse, racist Irish humor you would have seen in strips thirty years earlier. In Gertie O'Grady, the Irish are treated as loveable in their picturesque, idiosyncratic ways.

Cartoonist Paul McCarthy was at the helm of the Sunday-only strip. I know little about him other than that apparently he later went on to be one of the artists behind the extremely successful Sad Sack line of comic books.

EDIT 12/31/2017: Just found a half-tab example of Gertie O'Grady dated 3/20/1949 -- six years after the end of the original series. Although there's no overt clue on the tearsheet,  my guess is that this is from the New York Sunday News, and they commissioned this as one of their filler strips. It is apparently new material, because Gertie has slimmed down and prettied up considerably, while Uncle Shanty has become more decrepit looking. Has anyone seen any other later examples?


Labels: ,


# posted by Allan Holtz @ 8:00 AM
Comments:
I recently acquired the original art by Paul McCarthy for an original Gertie O'Grady Sunday dated "5-1" with a copyright indicia stating "(c) 1949 News Syndicate Co., Inc." The depictions of Gertie and Shanty look to match the character descriptions from your 3/20/49 example. Bob
# posted by Blogger Unknown : 11/22/2020 10:40 AM
 
Hi Bob --
Thanks for the info. I checked the online archives of the Sunday News, and the strip is not there on 5/1/49. However, the one online appears to be the city edition, and these fillers generally ran only in the national edition as far as I know. So Gertie may or may not have actually run on 5/1/49. Michael Vassalo, the NY Sunday News expert, might well know. If you are a Facebook user (I am not), you might ask him. Please pass it along if you get an answer. --Allan
# posted by Blogger Allan Holtz : 11/22/2020 5:34 PM
 
Alan, in addition to the "5-1" date in the art, the reverse of the original reads in black handwritten (what looks to be) crayon, "Used by News May 1, 1949". On the front, above the art, is handwritten (again in black crayon) "May 1st" and, separately, "49 9". Not sure any of that helps in determining the 1949 run dates of the strip, but more info is better than less.

I am also not a FB user and so am unable to ask Mr. Vassalo about the strip.

If I learn anything further about the strip, or Mr. McCarthy (1910-196?), I will pass it along.

As an aside, I LOVE your American Newspaper Comics An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. As a collector of original strip art, it is my collecting "bible", and I refer to it on a pretty much daily basis. Thanks for all your efforts in putting it together, as well as with this blog, which is both entertaining and informative. Bob Carlin
# posted by Blogger Unknown : 11/25/2020 12:52 PM
 
Post a Comment

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]