Thursday, January 01, 2015
Mystery Strips: Whose Duck Izzit Anyway?
Happy new year's day folks! Welcome to 2015.
Today we have a mystery feature, sent in by comics sleuth Mark Johnson. He tracked down Chatter by Doc Duck in at least three newspapers, the Buffalo Courier, Mt. Vernon Argus and the Portsmouth (OH) Daily Times. The running dates he found for this daily panel are from November 10 1913 to December 20 1914.
Now I generally have a rule that if a feature isn't signed and no syndicate is credited, as is the case here, I figure that if the creators cared that little, why should I? But look at the art on this feature! Wow, it is delightful. It looks to me like it just might be the work of Walt Kuhn, who loved cartooning birds when he wasn't making hoity-toity modernist paintings.
What do you think? Is it Walt Kuhn or someone else? And does anyone have any ideas on tracking down the syndicate that distributed this? Was it Life Publishing, perhaps, who earlier syndicated Kuhn's Funny Birds? Got any earlier or later running dates?
PS -- Be sure to watch the American Experience program "Ripley: Believe It or Not", airing at 9 PM on January 6 on most PBS stations. Check it out at their website.
Labels: Mystery Strips
Comments:
Hello Allan- I notice that above, you mention Funnybirds by Kuhn, but you don't have a posting for it. If you ever do, I have spotted it running in the Meriden Morning Record from 20 May to 23 November 1912. It is replaced by titleless gags until 14 December by misceleneous artists like Crawford, Mayer,Sullivant, Robt. L. Dickey, etc. But these all have the copyright line Chas. Scribners sons.
It is replaced on 16 December with what is more or less a clone of the Funnybirds, "The Feathers Family" by Bob Addams. It lasts until 18 January 1913.It has no copyright line, and captions are drawn by the artist, making it look like a self-syndication item. It would seem possible that the Addams panel was created to directly compete with "Funnybirds."
Looking at these, I now think maybe, despite you and Cole's opinions, "Chatter By Doc Duck" might be by Addams and not Kuhn.
Sad to notice that's Cole's input was one of his last acts on this plane, but he enjoyed debates where we'd guess the artist.
It is replaced on 16 December with what is more or less a clone of the Funnybirds, "The Feathers Family" by Bob Addams. It lasts until 18 January 1913.It has no copyright line, and captions are drawn by the artist, making it look like a self-syndication item. It would seem possible that the Addams panel was created to directly compete with "Funnybirds."
Looking at these, I now think maybe, despite you and Cole's opinions, "Chatter By Doc Duck" might be by Addams and not Kuhn.
Sad to notice that's Cole's input was one of his last acts on this plane, but he enjoyed debates where we'd guess the artist.
# posted by 
: 11/27/2021 1:44 AM
: 11/27/2021 1:44 AM
Hi Mark --
For my book I considered The Feathers Family to be a continuation of Funny Birds, since there was only a ten day gap of miscellany between them and they were both syndicated by Life Publishing. You'll find a more complete run of the whole series in the Brooklyn Eagle.
--Allan
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For my book I considered The Feathers Family to be a continuation of Funny Birds, since there was only a ten day gap of miscellany between them and they were both syndicated by Life Publishing. You'll find a more complete run of the whole series in the Brooklyn Eagle.
--Allan
