Wednesday, March 09, 2022
Obscurity of the Day: Bub -- He's Always to Blame
The cartoonists who formed the core of the McClure Syndicate bullpen each had one or two bread-and-butter strips in addition to penning short series and one-offs. For Everrett E. Lowry, those honours went to Bub -- He's Always to Blame, which ran in the section starting January 22 1905* and through his taking leave of the syndicate in 1912.
The strip was a pretty staid effort in which we have a couple of rustic kids, Bub and Billie; Bub being the shrimpy one. The tall gangly Billie is the troublemaker of the duo, while Bub, as the title promises, always takes the rap in the end. Since the denouement of each episode is never in doubt, the fun value can only be found in the action that precedes it. Lowry had a pretty good imagination for interesting plots, so the strip was usually worth reading, but I find the characters themselves rather flat. When Lowry was fiven a full page in which to work (as above) his strips were much better than the half-pagers, which have no choice but to rush to that same old tired gag. Add to that Lowry's seeming inability to organize his word balloons properly (is this really so hard, Ev?) and the strip is eminently forgettable.
I don't believe Lowry was overly attached to this strip; I think it was more the syndicate editor who drove that seven year run.The editor proved his belief in the value of the strip in 1912. Lowry's last episode of the strip ran on June 2 1912**, and rather than that being its swan song, it continued appearing uninterrupted. The strips through August 4 appear to be the work of whoever was ghosting Sambo and his Funny Noises at this time, though on Bub they showed their disdain for the task by seemingly drawing it blindfolded. Then it was taken over by Art Bowen, who would not take credit on the strip until the episode of September 22. During that uncredited part of his run, though, he was spelled one time with an unsigned strip by Fred Leipziger on September 8.
Bowen had just recently arrived at the syndicate, and so he was a natural receptacle for the thankless task of continuing Bub -- He's Always to Blame. Bowen brought nothing to the party, unless you count that he turned Billie into an even skinnier beanpole who now looked a LOT like Slim Jim/Circus Solly. Bowen's lackluster work on Bub made it obvious he wasn't thrilled to do the strip. He smartly offered McClure a new strip, What Happens to the Herrings, in hopes of getting off of Bub patrol. Although his new strip was basically a copy of Doings of the Van Loons, a daily strip offering of McClure at this time, it seems to have pleased the powers that be well enough that his sentence on Lowry's old strip was finally commuted. The last episode of Bub -- He's Always to Blame ran on February 2 1913***.
Thanks to Cole Johnson for the samples.
* Source: Chicago Inter-Ocean
** Source: All later dates from San Francisco Chronicle
*** McClure would rerun a few episodes to fill gaps in their February 28 1915 and January 16 1916 comics sections.
Labels: Obscurities
: 3/09/2022 12:32 PM 
