Obscurity of the Day: It's a Natural

Western Newspaper Union, a premier supplier of  comics and features to many small weekly papers, got it into their heads to expand the syndicate offerings after World War II. A number of panel cartoons, in particular, were added to the lineup. For one reason or another, very few papers ran these panel cartoons, limited space being paramount, and most of the panels were cancelled before the memory of the war was a half-decade old.

Here's one of those panels,  It's a Natural. I can't offer anything like definite running dates. I can only say that a few panels ran in 1948 newspapers. I assume it was offered every week but I've only seen isolated examples in March and August of that year.

This factual panel about nature and ecology was produced by Bob Hines, who by 1948 was already a well-regarded wildlife artist. In addition to It's a Natural, he also reportedly produced a series of public service newspaper cartoons for the Ohio Division of Conservation. A bio and photo of Hines is at Ohio's Yesterdays.