Friday, July 14, 2023
Obscurity of the Day: Above The Crowd
Ben David "Stookie" Allen pretty much made a career out of cartoon features about people who did impressive stuff. After one short-lived comic strip feature in the 1920s, Allen found his niche in the biographical panel format, producing them for individual newspapers, syndicates and even for magazines and comic books.
Today's obscurity, Above The Crowd, was produced by Allen while he was working at the New York Mirror, the Hearst-owned tabloid. Above The Crowd was offered in syndication but is rarely seen outside the Mirror itself. It started in the Corsicana Daily Sun on September 11 1933, but I'm betting it started in the Mirror at least a bit earlier.
The panel was initially produced in the lavish 3-column format seen above, affording Allen lots of elbow room for art and text, even regular appearances by the cartoonist himself. In mid-1935 it was downgraded to a two-column panel (which helped it not one iota finding newspaper clients) and it became a much more cramped and all-business affair. It last appears in the Corsicana Sun in March 1936, but again, it may have lasted longer in the Mirror itself. According to a mention in the Corsicana Sun there was a book of these cartoons published, but I have searched WorldCat to no avail.
If anyone has access to the New York Mirror, I'd love to know the running dates there, in its home paper.
Labels: Obscurities
https://www.mycomicshop.com/search?TID=433011
