Tuesday, August 04, 2015
Obscurity of the Day: Rhinoceros Boys
I fought with myself long and hard over calling Rhinoceros Boys the horniest comic strip ever created. You'll be relieved to know that I decided to keep us on a high moral plane and not stoop to such gutter humor.
So instead I will say instead that you've got to give Chicago Tribune regular Hans Horina some credit. Although this strip is just another Katzenjammer Kids knock-off, at least Horina injected a little bit of originality by portraying the characters as rhinoceri, which I'm pretty sure is the only time that type of animal has ever had a starring role in a comic strip. So while you are recoiling in horror at the idea of kicking a baby around like a football, try not to think too ill of clever Hans.
Rhinoceros Boys, aka Rhino Twins, The Rhino Family, and The Rhino Kids, ran in the Chicago Tribune Sunday funnies section from February 10 to June 2 1907.*
Thanks to the late Cole Johnson for the sample images, and be sure to read these Ink-Slinger Profiles and other posts to learn more of the Hans Horina story.
* these dates could be off by a little -- the Chicago Tribune archive I indexed to get these dates had been cherry-picked for Lyonel Feininger comics prior to it being microfilmed, so some pages that may have had this strip have been lost. **
** Thanks to Laurie Sefton checking a different ChiTrib archive, I can report that the actual start date is January 27. In fact the top sample from Cole Johnson is that first episode. Thanks Laurie!!
Labels: Obscurities
