Monday, April 23, 2018
Obscurity of the Day: Cory's Kids
J. Campbell Cory is one of those cartoonists who needed to write an autobiography but didn't. He worked for about a dozen major newspaper publishers in New York, Chicago and elsewhere, ran his own art school and started at least one syndicate and two magazines. When not chained to the drawing board, he went on adventures in the American and Canadian West and in Central America. Yesterday's Papers offers much more detail about this fascinating fellow.
Cory dabbled in comic strips several times in his career, but his last signed series* is Cory's Kids, which he produced under contract to the McClure Syndicate for a one-year stint. The kid gang strip headlined the section from March 21 1915 to February 6 1916. I'm sure Cory's services did not come cheap, so this might be viewed as one of the McClure Syndicate's last attempts to claw themselves back to offering a really impressive comics section. Progress being what it is, though, the ready-print business model used by McClure was slowly but surely on its way out, and not even the star-power of Mr. Cory was going to turn back the clock.
Thanks to Cole Johnson for the scanned strips.
* John Adcock claims that Cory ghosted the Katzenjammer Kids daily strip for a couple months in December 1917 to January 1918.
Labels: Obscurities
Comments:
It's an upscale version of the Hearst daily "On Our Block", which became a Sunday later in 1916, maybe after seeing Cory's strip.
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: 4/25/2018 3:28 PM
: 4/25/2018 3:28 PM 