Obscurity of the Day: Cut-Outs

 

I know that paper doll features don't really qualify for listing under my self-imposed rules, but since there is a whole collector community for them, I generally look the other way and track them as long as they are credited and by known cartoonists. 

This particular paper doll feature is worth remembering if only because it represents some of the best work I know of to come from the pen of Larry Semon. Semon, of course, was a silent film comedy star, but he was also a cartoonist with a goodly number of credits under his belt. I've never been exactly overwhelmed by Semon's ink-slinging abilities, but on this lowly paper doll feature he really outdid himself. I've never seen the point of paper dolls, but even I (as a kid) might have been convinced to go through the motions in order to have my very own Punch and Judy show.

The feature I index as Cut-Outs seldom had that name except as a descriptive part of a larger title. It ran in the Philadelphia North American's comic section from July 4 1909 to November 9 1913, but there were many gaps in the series along the way. After the initial stint by Larry Semon it often got bumped from the section for very long periods, and the artists responsible were all over the map. Here's a rundown of the running dates and creators:

Dates	Cartoonist
6/6 – 8/1/09	Larry Semon
8/8/09	Margaret Hays
8/15 – 11/7/09	Larry Semon
11/14/09	Written (?) by Janet G. Edwards but art appears to be by Grace Weiderseim
11/21/09 – 4/17/10	Larry Semon
4/24/10	Margaret Hays
12/18/10	Marjorie P. Edwards
12/25/10 – 1/1/11	Margaret Hays
8/6/11	Marjorie P. Edwards
8/20/11	Margaret Hays
8/27/11	J.P. Collins
9/10 – 9/17/11	Margaret Hays
5/19/12	Marjorie P. Edwards
10/6/12	Unsigned, appears to be Grace Weiderseim
10/19/13	Marjorie P. Edwards
11/9/13	Marjorie P. Edwards

 I've never heard of Marjorie P. Edwards or Janet G. Edwards, and J.P. Collins is not known to have done anything else for the North American, so his appearance is a bit of a mystery. The rest of the Cut-Outs cast members were regulars in the North American at this time. 

The fact that the feature appeared very rarely after April 1910 could just indicate that after Semon left it was considered a filler item from then on, something to stash in a drawer until someone missed a deadline. An alternative scenario that I've toyed with, though, is that maybe there was an extra North American page available to those who were not willing to pay for The Turr'ble Tales of Kaptin Kiddo, a full page marquee item. I've seen a few inklings that that could be the case, but I've not yet found a paper that took a full section from the North American in these years on a consistent basis and substituted a page of second-raters.