One of only three magazine cover series drawn by Leonard T. Holton, Two Innocents Abroad is the earliest of them and the only one he drew for the Philadelphia Ledger Syndicate.
Holton later became a comedy writer, so it is unfortunate that for this series he was assigned only the art duties. The writer was Margaret Ernst, whose ability to write comedic verse was quite nearly nonexistent. I don't know if this is the same Margaret Ernst who later paired up with James Thurber for a book called In A Word, but if so she was lucky to have fine collaborators at least twice.
Two Innocents Abroad offers us vignettes from the whirlwind world tour of two flapper-types. Our gals may very well have never been dignified with names -- they aren't in my examples. There also seems to be a problem with the count of travellers, as a schnook named Bobby Day tags along in at least one sample (and he even has a name!).
This pretty forgettable magazine cover series had a very short run, from July 28 to September 1 1929. Impressive, though, that these ladies made the Grand Tour in a mere six weekly episodes.
As seen in the Sunday Tribune, of Providence RI, the characters are named Peggy and Lou in episode two, (4 August 29), and they picked up Bobby aboard ship in episode one. He's a young, unattached millionaire, a perfect travelling companion.
ReplyDeleteIncidently, did someone figure out their income tax on your second example?