Stripper's Guide

May 23 1910 -- Halley's Comet has passed Earth, and Herriman reminds us that the REALLY big event of 1910 is still to come.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

Verdier—In this city, October 27, 1906, Louise, beloved wife of Edward Verdier, and loving mother of Edward Edmund Verdier, a native of Paris, France, aged 38 years and 7 months.

Friends are respectfully invited to attend the requiem mass at the chapel of the Little Sisters of the Poor, corner of Lake street and Fourth avenue, tomorrow (Monday), at 10 a. m. Interment St. Mary’s Cemetery, Oakland. Please omit flowers.

Couple Weds in New York Chapel

Mrs. Ruth Lindburg Manley of New York, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. John Lindburg, was married in New York Friday to Edward E. Verdier of Kew Gardens, L. I. The lines were read by Justice Thomas J. Barry in the city chapel. The groom is the son of Mr. and Mrs. Edward F. Verdier of San Francisco.

On September 23, 1936, they returned to New York from Europe. Their home address was 9 Kew Gardens Road, in Kew Gardens, New York. 

Ruth’s family name is Lindburg not Rundburg.

Script Writer Is Ex-Newspaper Man

Ed Verdier, who did the screen play for “The Bride Wore Crutches,” fast-moving 20th Century-Fox comedy-melodrama about gangsters, which is coming Wednesday to the State theater, is a newspaper alumnus.

Some years back, Verdier did the continuity for and also drew “Little Annie Rooney,” one of the country’s most successful comic strips. Eye-weakness knocked him out of the newspaper business and he turned to radio, writing continuity for some of the “thriller” programs among which is listed “Dick Tracy.”

Edward Verdier is a versatile man. When failing eyesight forced him to abandon painting, he turned to writing, and “The Sun and the Barrow” (Ziff-Davis) is his first novel. It is the story of the rise of a young artist and the many women who influence him.

Paul Landreau found out when he was a young boy, he had artistic abilities but it was not until he had left his home town, San Francisco, and traveled across the Continent to New York City that he could seriously devote time to his painting. …

… There are times when Verdier’s writing shows much promise. When he is describing his early life in San Francisco, he is good. His description of the despair of the people afflicted by the earthquake is much the best part of the book. …

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

# posted by Alex Jay @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

I covered the photo comic strip Broadway way back in 2010, offering dear departed Jay Maeder the bully pulpit since my knowledge of the strip was on a par with a caveman's expertise at operating a microwave. But that was then and this is now. 

Now we have the New York Daily News available in digitized form, so I can give you the actual running dates, which are February 5 1927 to December 15 1936. I can also tell you that Mark Hellinger's "staging" of the strip -- I assume that meant he took the pictures and wrote the gags, or at least wrote down the gags these comedy actors passed along to him -- from the inception through December 28 1929, when he jumped ship to the New York Mirror. 

After Hellinger the strip was never bylined. The style of the strip changed a bit, with drawn backgrounds always now used instead of often staging the photos in front of real backdrops. These drawn backgrounds, very simple line drawings, were also never credited. 

We do, however, have some probable writing credits based on the E&P listings for the strip. In 1930 and 1933 Sidney Skolsky was credited. He was the theatre columnist of the Daily News, as had been Hellinger, so that makes sense. In 1932 the strip was credited to Jack Chapman. Since I'm guessing he's NOT the 11 year old airplane pilot who made headlines that year, I don't know who that might be. In other years the E&P listing for Broadway did not offer a credit. By the way, even though Broadway was available as a syndicated strip, I've never seen it anywhere but the Daily News.

The other reason we're revisiting the strip is that Doug Skinner very kindly sent me the above trove of scans from his paper copies of the Daily News, so we get a darn sight better look at the strip than via the 2010 post's microfilm photocopies. Doug has a very interesting and eclectic blog called The Ullage Group. Go check it out and say hi. Thanks Doug!

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 2 comments

Wars are bloody, that's for sure, and they're bloody expensive, too. And one of the ways that governments pay for their little exercises in world domination is by making their own citizens foot the bill. They start by jacking up taxes, which is a good ploy, but that doesn't really give them access to savings, just income. And there's a LOT of money being wasted on stuff other than bullets and bandages, just whiling away the time in bank accounts and the stock market. 

Governments that are a little shy of outright demanding that money often go with plan B, making citizens feel like heels if they don't pony up those savings to the government of their own free will. To make it most palatable, governments issue bonds that eventually pay a small dividend, assuming they manage to win the war. 

Hmm. This is reading more like a rant than a blogpost so far. Let's try this...

In 1919, after World War I ended, governments still had huge bills pending for rebuilding. Even the U.S., never the home turf to the war, had soldiers to bring home, armed forces to rebuild, an economy to revitalize, and refugees to feed and clothe. Therefore, the 1919 U.S. Victory Loan (the ones during wartime were termed Liberty Loans) admonished citizens to dig deep one more time in aid of the nation. Newspapers were always important venues for the appeals to patriotism that formed the advertising for these fund drives. Famous illustrators and cartoonists were often called upon to lend their abilities to these drives. 

In World War II comic strips and comic panels were often used for these drives, but I can't recall any comic strip used during World War I by the government to sell bonds, except for this one unearthed by Mark Johnson, The Liber T. Loane Family. The strip was penned by Harold B. Lentz, who later made a name for himself illustrating children's books, especially well-remembered for those of the pop-up variety.

Looking at the various digitized papers that used the series, it appears that there were eighteen installments, and the earliest users started it in April 1919*. Others used it later that year, and its running often coincides with a local push to sell bonds, often with lots of hoopla, speeches and entertainment in the town square and such.

Thanks to Mark Johnson for the sample strip!

* The earliest start date I found was April 4 1919 (mid-week) by the Wilmington Daily News.

Labels: Advertising Strips

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 1 comments

Here's a Maud the Mule card from the Hearst freebies we've dubbed the Li'l Arsonist series. This card shows a rare scene in which the appearance of the firecrackers will actually constitute an actual surprise for the user. That is, in addition to the surprise that you can burn your house down holding a piece of thin cardboard up to the gas jet.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments