Toppers: Johnny Bear

 

The story of S'Matter, Pop?, Charles M. Payne's long-running strip about the relationship between a dad and his son, is a bit convoluted. It's a subject we definitely need to cover one of these days. But today we have a much easier bone to chew on, a topper to S'Matter, Pop? sometimes titled Johnny Bear. 

Although S'Matter, Pop? had spent time at both the Hearst and Pulitzer organizations, by the 1920s it was distributed by Bell Syndicate. Bell wasn't as consistent about wanting Sunday toppers as some syndicates, and when they did ask their cartoonists to add toppers they sometimes didn't seem to want them to have titles (see Cicero, for instance). S'Matter, Pop? gained a one-tier topper on September 12 1926, but in its early appearances it was just an extra gag starring the main strip's characters. 

On January 23 1927* Payne dumped that idea and switched to a group of animal characters. These characters harkened back over twenty years to a strip that Payne created for the Philadelphia Inquirer titled Bear Creek Folks. That was a strip heavily influenced by Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus Stories and featured a group of Southern-drawling animals. 

In the new topper the cast of Bear Creek Folks are in attendence, but the spotlight is definitely on Johnny Bear, the young cub. And it took a very long time, but finally in late 1930 the topper would get a small lettered title on occasion. It wasn't until March 1931 that a proper title panel was added, and it wouldn't last long. On April 19 1931 Payne did a real presto-change-o bit of magic and turned his main strip, S'Matter, Pop? into a topper, and changed the main strip to Honeybunch's Hubby, another artifact dug up from way back in the early 1910s. Out on their keisters were Johnny Bear and the rest of the animal cast, last appearing on the Sunday of April 12 1931**.

PS: In my book this feature is listed as Little Johnny Bear. Further research has revealed that this title is even more seldom used than Johnny Bear. 

* Source: Austin American

** Source: Klamath News