Friday, April 14, 2023
Obscurity of the Day: Old Mr. Crapehanger
J.C. "Hen" Henderson produced a lot of material for Associated Newspapers in the 1910s (perhaps from a home base at the Providence Journal, jury's still out on that question), but his very first known syndicated comic is Old Mr. Crapehanger, the one and apparently only feature he did for NEA.
What the heck is a crapehanger, you ask? Well, first of all it's often spelled 'crepehanger', and it is slang for a gloomy, negative person, especially one who enjoys sharing their dire outlook with others. The term originated because in the old days an undertaker would sometimes drape black crepe on the windows and mirrors of a house where someone had recently died, as a way of making the home dark and mournful inside. The term is so very apt to be made into slang, don't you think? How in the world this wonderful term has fallen into disuse I can't imagine. Granted, I suppose undertakers haven't done this sort of thing in a hundred years, but that certainly doesn't keep us from using other archaic slang -- "stool pigeon", "on the wagon", etc.
Anyhow, the above sample strip is practically a dictionary-worthy definition of the term. But just as the slang didn't last, neither did the strip. Old Mr. Crapehanger is not present in the NEA Archives, so we are left checking newspapers, which were notoriously cavalier about running NEA material on the intended release dates. The Denver Express and Chicago Day Book, my best sources, ran it sporadically in January and February 1913.
Labels: Obscurities
: 4/18/2023 2:27 PM 