Saturday, September 18, 2021
Herriman Saturday: February 15 1910
An old neighbourhood speed ordinance, long ignored, has now been revived. Trolley cars in certain Los Angeles neighbourhoods are now limited to speeds no greater than eight miles per hour. Commuters in good shape can keep up with the trolleys now if they keep a jaunty pace.
Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons
Thursday, September 16, 2021
Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Carl Zeisberg
Zeisberg, Carl F. L., 09-13, B.S. 305 Paxson Ave., Glenside, Pa. Feature Editor & Cartoonist, The Evening Bulletin, Philadelphia, Pa.
Carl F. L. Zeisberg, 58, former Baltimore newspaper man and an editorial staff member of the Evening Bulletin, died of a heart attack late yesterday in Pennsylvania Hospital. A native of Missouri, Mr. Zeisburg attended the University of Virginia, where he contributed to undergraduate and alumni publications then and later have become a university tradition.On Sun Staff in 1913He began his newspaper career with the Baltimore Sun in 1913 and a year later worked for the Evening Ledger here before serving with the Army in World War I. He joined the Bulletin staff in 1919. Mr. Zeisberg served on the Bulletin at various times as a rewriteman, copy reader, picture and city editor. An authority on table tennis, he contributed an article on the subject to the Encyclopedia Britannica. He made his home at Ambler. His wife, Mrs. Frances M, Zeisberg, survives.
Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
Obscurity of the Day: The Geometric Kids
If Flatland had comic strips in their newspapers, The Geometric Kids might have been quite popular. Unfortunately for artist Carl Zeisberg and writer "Collins", their strip ran in the Philadelphia Evening Ledger, with an audience firmly entrenched in the third dimension. The novelty of a comic strip about characters made up only of circles, rectangles and lines wore out pretty darn quickly, and sputtered out after a mere two weeks. Birth, May 31 1915, unmourned death, June 12.
Zeisberg had one other series published in the Evening Ledger which lasted a bit longer, but otherwise he never made any impact I know of as a cartoonist. "Collins", the one-named writer, is unknown to me.
Labels: Obscurities
Would this be considered a local, one paper series? The Ledger Syndicate would appear to begin about 1919 with Somebody's Stenog finding it's way into several papers, but the Evening Public Ledger had cartoons like this one before that.
: 9/15/2021 8:17 AM 
Monday, September 13, 2021
Obscurity of the Day: Dear Dad and his Daughter
When Winsor McCay defected to Hearst, his new duties included penning weekday strips in addition to his Sunday In the Land of Wonderful Dreams and editorial cartoons (not to mention moonlighting with animation). Perhaps due to overwork, the weekday strips tended to be, for McCay at least, relatively simple productions graphically.
Dear Dad and His Daughter, also known as He Meant Well and (as can be seen above) episode-specific titles, ran from November 28 to December 27 1912, making it one of McCay's shorter-lived weekday strips. It concerns a father who constantly puts his foot in his mouth around daughter's beaus. Does he do it intentionally to chase them off, or is he just clueless? You be the judge.
Labels: Obscurities
Sunday, September 12, 2021
Wish You Were Here, from Grace Drayton
A Reinthal & Newman card (coded #174) drawn by Grace Drayton under her married name of Weiderseim. Okay, so the cherub is supposed to be German, based on the cap and the beer stein. "Gesundheit" is German. But what does that have to do with the kid in the stein? What's the gag here?
Maybe I need to start a new blog: Postcards I Don't Understand. Hmmm, catchy!
Labels: Wish You Were Here
