Wednesday, May 10, 2023
The Comics of Paramount News Feature Service: Hamm and Beans
Hamm and Beans is a buddy strip featuring a skinny tall fellow (Beans) and his short, fat pal, Hamm. For whatever reason, Hamm often got short-shrift in the strip, leaving Beans to appear alone. The strip was mostly about dating, and pretty much tilled the same fields as PNF's Flaming Youth strip, which we covered earlier, but in this case with consistent characters.
Based on our best sources, the strip began on September 16 1927* and ended on June 28 1928**. The strip was bylined by Gus Standard throughout the run, but some later strips were signed by "Vin". Here are some signed by Standard:
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And here's a selection by "Vin":
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As you can see, there's not a tremendous difference in style between Gus Standard and "Vin". The "Vin" strips, though, I have only seen in the reprint runs of the strip, so maybe I failed to notice the signature change in the original runs I've checked, or there is a longer original run than what I've seen.
As discussed in the Flaming Youth post, both it and Hamm and Beans were combined under the umbrella title of Drugstore Cowboys for the reprint runs.
* Source: Norfolk Jounral and Guide
** Source: Philadelphia Tribune
