Monday, September 09, 2013

 

Obscurity of the Day: Rufus


Finally off the list of mystery strips is Rufus by Jeff Keate. I have posted two Editor & Publisher articles claiming the existence of this strip on the blog (7/29/1950 and 8/19/1950), but only recently found a few examples.

Rufus was a filler added to the line-up of the New York Sunday News Sunday funnies section on September 17 1950. This strip, along with a new Sunday version of Salo Roth's Laughing Matter and a few properties that had previously been edged out of the section, formed the extra pages needed to move the section from 16 to 24 pages. If I understand E&P correctly, this expanded section was only included in the national edition of the Sunday News, not the New York City edition.

Although E&P indicated that Rufus was offered for syndication, this seems unlikely. News Syndicate didn't, as far as I know, attempt to syndicate any of the fillers that were added to the Sunday News line-up, and there were quite a few of them in the 1950s and 60s.

My samples of Rufus are all from November 1950, and this may be about as long as the rather flat dog strip ran. Does anyone have later samples?

 EDIT 10/18/20: With the aid of Michael J. Vassallo's NY Daily News collection, it appears that the running dates for Rufus were 9/17/1950 - 1/14/1951.

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# posted by Allan Holtz @ 8:00 AM
Comments:
Michael J. Vassallo‎ (Doc V) found another appearance dated December 17, 1950...he posted on his New York Sunday News Comic History Group over on Facebook.
# posted by Blogger CArchivist : 3/24/2018 10:12 PM
 
And two additionally more, January 7 and 14, 1951.
# posted by Blogger Doc V. : 3/24/2018 10:18 PM
 
Thanks CArchivist and Doc V., I will update my records. Sure wish I could access Vassallo's Fasebook material, but for some reason I cannot.

--Allan
# posted by Blogger Allan Holtz : 3/28/2018 6:43 AM
 
The Billy Ireland Museum at OSU has 15 of Jeff Keate's original Rufus Sundays in their collection. These are dated from September 17 (1950?) through January 7, 1951. Several of the originals are missing the copyright indicia, but the intact ones are all dated from late 1950 to early 1951.
# posted by Blogger Unknown : 10/17/2020 5:10 PM
 
Allan, from Sept 17, 1950 to January/51, the NY Sunday news comics added a Part 2 comics section to outlets outside New York City. Several of those strips added below were already News Sunday strips that had been dropped or carried on and off for a while, like Harold Teen, Timmy and Aggie Mack.

From the July 29, 1950 issue of EDITOR & PUBLISHER:

"In a bid for more pre-date sales, the New York Sunday News will add eight extra comic pages Sept. 17 for circulation outside the metropolitan area, Executive Editor Richard W. Clarke disclosed. The move will provide a minimum of a 24-page comic section for the country edition."

"The additional pages will include four Chicago Tribune - New York News Syndicate strips: "Timmy," by Howard Sparber, "Aggie Mack" by Hal Rasmusson, "Texas Slim" by Ferd Johnson; and "Harold Teen" by Carl Ed. The News had dropped "Harold Teen" to make room for the "Hopalong Cassidy," Los Angeles Mirror Enterprises comic. Two pages are being drawn especially for the expanded section: "Laughing Matter" by Salo, who does the daily panel for the syndicate; and "Rufus," new dog page by Jeff Keate."

Doc V.
# posted by Blogger Doc V. : 7/06/2021 10:51 AM
 
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