Obscurity of the Day: Bill's Friend Tom

Here's another wacky strip from the demented mind of Eddie Eksergian. Bill's Friend Tom stars cats for no particular reason (except that maybe they're easy to draw) and the plot concerns the travails of poor Bill, who has the misfortune to have a 'friend' Tom who loves to play practical jokes on him. Invariably these jokes get Bill in dutch with his wife, who then does great bodily harm to poor Bill.

Eddie Eks produced this strip for the St. Louis Star and it was also distributed to a few other client papers by what may or may not have been World Color Printing. The strip ran from November 1 1903 to April 17 1904.

All samples from the collection of the late Cole Johnson.