Monday, June 15, 2020

 

The Long Slow Demise of Buster Brown, Part 4 -- January - March 1916

1916 starts off with a seemingly all-Outcault strip, a good gag well told but the art is rather indifferent:
1/2/1916
 On January 9, though, Penny Ross seems to have done the figures of the two guests in story panels 1 and 11, and maybe others?
1/9/1916
 On January 16, Outcault once again draws indifferently, but breaks the fourth wall in a fun strip:
1/16/1916

January 23 has Outcault drawing better than he has all month. 
1/23/1916
 On January 30 Outcault is drawing well enough, but the script is instantly forgettable. Well, except for the horse threatening to have a cow bite Buster on the eye. My goodness!
1/30/1916
February 3 offers us a very energetic action page. Seems to me Grandpa's poses are more like something I'd see from Ross than Outcault, but the art style still seems Outcault. Maybe Ross did layouts?
2/6/1916

February 13 looks like Outcault except for that strange delivery boy. That doesn't look like Outcault or Ross to me. 
2/13/1916

February 20 seems like a tailor-made page for Ross's help. He's so good at depicting women in action like this. Yet I see no evidence of his style at all. 
2/20/1916

On February 27 I'm not seeing any evidence of Ross, but these first two months of 1916 just in general seem rushed-looking. 
2/27/1916
Here's Ross again, this time supplying the body and even at least once (story panel 2, and maybe 3 and 5) the face of Buster Brown. What makes this doubly weird is that Outcault is a character in this strip. Why would he get a ghost to draw a strip in which he appears? Just seems very counterintuitive to me. Did Outcault draw himself !?!?!
3/5/1916
 We seem to be back to Outcault on the 12th, but it is very poor work. Some of the faces are just awful.
3/12/1916

Another apparent Outcault production on the 19th, this time showing considerably more effort, though the faces are still rather simply drawn. . 
3/19/1916

On March 26 Outcault introduces a new character, Smithy. Smithy manages to out-prank even Buster, all while maintaining an over-the-top sunny attitude toward his victims. Poor Buster can't figure out whether to love or hate his new  neighbor. Looks like Outcault throughout to me.

3/26/1916


Comments:
1916 was a leap year, and so the Sundays dated March 6th and March 13th here should be dated March 5, 1916 and March 12, 1916. The subsequent Sundays shown (March 19th and March 26th) are correctly dated. Bob Carlin
 
Thanks Bob, dating errors fixed.
 
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