Tuesday, February 18, 2020
Obscurity of the Day: Precocious Peter
Paul F. Brown is only known to have produced two newspaper strip series, both for the Boston Globe. His second, Sawdust Sim, was a virtuouso performance. His first, Precocious Peter, on the other hand, was as forgettable as the second was memorable. In this series which ran occasionally from May 7 1905 to February 3 1907*, a little boy dreams of some job or activity in which he'd like to engage. In some strips, like the one above, he comes out the hero; in others he gets in some very mild trouble, seldom his fault. In still others, he just plays at it and the strip ends without any real conclusion. I guess since the Globe had Billy the Boy Artist, they needed a little angel to balance out that more mischievous boy.
Note that in the episode above the Globe typesetter has had a little flying finger trouble spelling Precocious.
* Source: Dave Strickler's Boston Globe index.
Labels: Obscurities
