This is the first time we've featured a Magic Slate card on Wish You Were Here Friday. This series was a giveaway from the Hearst newspapers in 1907, and the gimmick was that the slate originally appears to be blank. The postcard recipient wets the slate and magically a chalky looking cartoon appears. This process was brand new, with a "patent applied for" note on each card citing the A.B. Woodward Company.
The only problem with this bit of hocus-pocus is that the drawings had to be very simple. On this card I would never know this was supposed to be Little Jimmy if it weren't for the caption.
These cards must have been in the printing pipeline for awhile, because they are undivided backs, which went out in 1906.
https://www.comicskingdom.com/trending/blog/2015/12/17/ask-the-archivist-post-cards-i
ReplyDeleteThe above email address is to one of my old King Features Blog entries, where you can see another in this "slate" series, and some others in a similar vein.