Friday, August 14, 2020
Comic Stamp Quiz, Part 4
Here is the fourth batch of unidentified comic stamps. Can you name the
strip the stamp ran with, and the name of the character depicted?
This bunch seem to be Gumprocentric:
31- "AN OLD PRINT OF UNCLE BIM-"(10 July 1932)
32- "TOWNSEND ZANDER" (31 July 1932)
33-" AN OLD TIN TYPE OF ANDY GUMP-" (25 September 1932)
34- "AN OLD PRINT OF ANDY'S MOTHER-" (18 June 1932)
35-"ANDY GUMP'S MOTHER-IN-LAW" (21 August 1932)
36-"MIN AT THE AGE OF FOURTEEN-" (24 July 1932)
37- "FROM AN OLD PRINT-" (11 June 1932)
38-"ANDY GUMP AT THE AGE OF FOUR-"(29 May 1932)
going back a few days:
30- ANDY GUMP AT THE AGE OF SIX-TEACHER'S PET-" (7 August 1932)
And Here's a HERBY one-
20- "EVERYTHING TO LITTLE HERBY LOOKS VERY VERY GREEN. HE'D KNOW IT WAS THE SUN GLASSES IF HE'D USE HIS BEAN!"(21 August 1932)
Incidentally, these all had captions and borders when they were published, so whoever cut them up really liked to cut things close.
: 8/14/2020 10:14 AM Thursday, August 13, 2020
Comic Stamp Quiz, Part 3
Here is the third batch of unidentified comic stamps. Can you name the strip the stamp ran with, and the name of the character depicted?
In fairness, I wonder if perhaps #23-26 aren't real; they sure look like amateur drawings to me.
Labels: Q and A
Here's my suggestions:
23-26- Home made, I guess whoever collected these stamps couldn't get enough, so he made some up. I can't wait to see some samples of the strip these might be from.
27- Texas Slim
28- On Our Block
29 a/b-Mr. Bailey(Smitty)
30- Is this even intended as a "stamp?" It looks like a detail in a regular panel of something.
: 8/13/2020 11:47 AM In "The Great Comic Book Heroes", Jules Feiffer described how he hand-drew his own comic books as a kid, then took them to where other kids would swap or sell comics. Feiffer notes, "Mine went for less because they weren't real"
Wednesday, August 12, 2020
Comic Stamp Quiz, Part 2
Here is the second batch of unidentified comic stamps. Can you name the strip the stamp ran with, and the name of the character depicted? (Okay, a few are named ....) One hint: our comic stamp collector has the ID wrong on #15; it is not Tillie the Toiler.
Labels: Q and A
The stamps as far as I can tell, some Chicago tribune and /or NEA things as well as KFS:
10a/b-Freckles?
11- A strain on the family tie
12,-Little Jimmy
13-?
14-Gasoline Alley?
15- Lillums Lovewell, Harold Teen's girl.
16 a/b Corky? Herby?
17-Gasoline Alley?
18,19, 20 Corky?
21- Obviosly there was no more Silk Hat Harry series in the 1930s, I think this might be from one of Murphy's sets of theme stamps, this being hearst strips of the then recent past.
22- It's Alexander Smart, but was it drawn by Winner?
: 8/12/2020 12:26 PM Tuesday, August 11, 2020
Comic Stamp Quiz, Part 1
What are comic stamps?
They were an extra added feature of some Sunday comic strips, mostly in the 1930s. In addition to the main strip and up to two topper strips, some cartoonists added yet more punch to their pages with comic stamps, which were little cartoon portraits typically printed at about the size of a typical postage stamp. Most simulated stamps, with the perforations along the edges, others play money with character faces, some just put the portraits in plain ol' rectangles.
Here's a typical comic stamp from a Tillie the Toiler Sunday, an addendum to the Van Swaggers topper strip:
The idea of comic stamps was that kids should cut them out and paste them into stamp albums or scrapbooks, I guess. I don't really get the entertainment value of this, but then I'm not the intended audience. There evidently were kids who did this, because today if you watch the eBay auctions sometimes you'll come across a dusty old collection of comic stamps or play money.
Much to my surprise, there are even people today who collect them. I was contacted recently by a comic stamp collector who was hoping to get my help IDing some of their more obecure stamps. What I thought would be easy turned out to be anything but. It turns out that many comic stamps don't identify the characters, and often they depict secondary or even short-lived guests in the strips.
Rather than have all the fun to myself of trying to figure out the comic strip that gave birth to these comic stamps, and the characters they depict, I decided to throw it open to the group as a quiz. And this is not some easily aced gimme, either. So if you can figure any of them out, be sure to post a comment and accept the laurels of an expert comic stamp spotter.
Here's the first batch. I'm not sure #1 is an actual comic stamp, but the rest appear to be the real thing:
Labels: Q and A
Here's my pathetic guesses:
1-The corner of a Post Toasties ad
2-A character from Tim Tyler's Luck(?)
3-A character from Blondie.
4-From Johnnie Round-the-world stamp gallery?
5-A character from Count Screwloose
6,7,8- from Katzenjammer Kids
9-from Captain & the Kids(?)
: 8/11/2020 11:52 AM Always wondered about those. Had the impression they were an organized campaign by, at first anyway, one syndicate. They were almost always presented without comment, so I wonder if there any kind of promotion telling kids to look for them and collect them.
Went back to the Popeye reprints and noticed Segar favored play money, larger than the stamps and often featuring gags or words of wisdom. Unlike the other strips I'd seen, there was usually a character commenting on the play money or a mini draw-me thing.
Early in the '30s Segar abandoned the play money in favor of cut-out movies and eventually the Cartoon Club. But years later, Prince Valiant sported collectible-type images on its masthead into the 40s: Always the same portrait of Val on the left, and various characters, objects and scenes on the right. They vanish when the masthead strip vanishes.
Were there other strips that kept the stamp / play money thing going that long, or was Prince Valiant a last stand?
The play money could be in other syndicate series. If you've seen 1930's copies of the Sunday Mirror of New York City, you'll notice for years they had play money of their strips, Hearst and non-Hearst, such as Toonerville Folks, that they made themselves, used as space fillers along the bottom of the pages when they couldn't come up with a long,thin ad. (often for "Baby Ruth")
: 8/11/2020 5:53 PM : 8/11/2020 8:46 PM Monday, August 10, 2020
When Did THE CAPTAIN AND THE KIDS End?
Always wondered how that situation persisted for so long. You'd think that one strip would outdraw and vanquish the other in the marketplace, or some lawyers would sit down and finally make a deal. Wikipedia sez both strips prospered.
Did they bump up against each in merchandising? Did any papers run both strips? Were there any further battles, legal or otherwise?
The Comics Kingdom site does NOT have any "Captain and the kids" on offer, they can't. C&TK is a United Features-owned property and trade mark, not to be found on a site owned and devoted to rival King Features Syndicate and their properties.
Here's a blog entry from the defunct "Ask The Archivist" blog I used to do there that explains the Katzenjammer/ Captain schism:
https://www.comicskingdom.com/trending/blog/2013/05/15/ask-the-archivist-katzentennial
Both strips existed in the same universe for many years, but they went into decline, the Katzenjammers quite a lot after the demise of HH Knerr in 1949,and 'Capatin' was a second level strip from the 1930s on, and really just gasped along from the 1950s on, and by the 70's, it would be pretty hard to find. The Katzenjammers are still syndicated today, but it's (at least by the time I left the syndicate) down to only a handful of papers in the world. Doubtful that both strips would ever have ran in the same paper, unless maybe they have a sunday comic section on Bongo Island.
: 8/10/2020 1:57 PM Thanks for the link!
