Obscurity of the Day: Mr. Hothead : He's Soon Over It

 

Here's one of the many series produced by Walter Wellman for the New York Evening World in the 1903-06 period. Mr. Hothead - He's Soon Over It ran just two episodes, on October 1 and 22 1906, and were his last works for that paper until he briefly returned in 1911. By mid-1906 Wellman was already out looking for greener pastures, producing a few series for the Boston Herald and New York Evening Telegram. These two episodes were probably sitting in the World editor's drawer, waiting for a slack day. 

Although Wellman's output doesn't seem all that impressive based on my book, his strength lay in one-off gag panels, which he seemed to be able to produce in wholesale lots. In fact you can often find Wellman's gag cartoons appearing in multiples in newspapers, sometimes under a consistent headline. In general I've not even attempted to track these because so many papers would have dropped the title and run the individual panels wherever they needed to fill holes. There's a certain point in newspaper comics research when the ends just don't quite justify the means.