Stripper's Guide

The others represented on this page are Hy Mayer (bottom two-panel), Mark Fenderson (left middle), and A.D. Reed (right 4-panel strip). The well drawn gag cartoon at the top middle is initialed W.L. That's not a McClure regular I can think of. Other possibilities that fit the initials are William H. Loomis (here's a sample of his work) and Will Lawler; the latter doesn't usually draw like this, so what do we think of Loomis as our mystery artist?

Labels: Herriman One-Shots

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

Mormons slate an open house

Two original productions will be featured at an open house entitled “Patriots, Prophets and Punch.” Friday, April 30, at 8 p.m. at the 

A humorous reading on “America’s Prophetic Destiny” will feature actors in the parts of Abe Lincoln, Ben Franklin and Brigham Young. The work has been written by Ric Estrada of New Rochelle, a writer and cartoonist on the team which creates the Superman Family comic books, and Jim Larkin, an independent television producer. ...

… To illustrate the situation, take the predicament of Ric Estrada of Tuckahoe, who in the past two weeks has been taken on a financial roller coaster ride by his local bank. Through the miracle of modern computer technology, the bank first made Estrada, a commercial artist, a pauper with a $30 million overdraft, and days later wealthy beyond his wildest dreams.

… A teller at the bank examined his account and found he was $30 million overdrawn. The manager laughed and promised to rectify the error.

… Several days later, his wife, Loretta, went to the bank and received a statement showing they had a $30 million balance.

… But, Estrada remains unruffled by the entire affair. “It keeps changing from day to day,” he said. “But I’m sure they’ll get it worked out.”

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

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

I don't know which ad company sold Along The Milky Way, but they sure sold the heck out of it in the late 30s and 40s. The panels were drawn in a nice grease-pencil style by Gretchen Philips, who we met once before back in a 2007 post; she was the original artist on Style Smiles.

The earliest I can find Along The Milky Way appearing is in July 1939*, but according to a short article about Philips that ran in the Kearney Daily Hub (September 22 1939), she had been drawing the feature for two years by that point.

The panel seemed to be geared to approximately a weekly schedule, though of course once the backstock had built up the sky was the limit for an ambitious dairy. The last I see the panel being used is in 1948**, but that material could well have been years old by that time.  

There's an interesting postscript about this ad panel. Around March 1942 the panel gained a new subtitle, Dairy Tales, a new artist, a continuing cast of kids, and a very different style. Here's a sample:

The art was sometimes signed with a scrawl that looks like "Cobb", but my bet is that these panels are the work of Ferd Johnson, assistant/ghost on Moon Mullins. His fingerprints are all over that art. 

Why the panel got such an extreme makeover is anyone's guess, but it apparently didn't go down too well with many of the dairies buying the ads. Some dairies stopped running the panel and others used or re-used Gretchen Philips panels. The Dairy Tales version of the panel came and went like a flash -- the latest I can find it running is in May 1942. 

UPDATE: Since this post ran I have found that the Dairy Tales panel was original sold in 1937-38 by National Features, or The Amsterdam Syndicate (both are credited on the promos I just unearthed). Maybe these old panels were sold off to the marketers of Along The Milky Way, where they got a short new lease on life. The original versions of the panels are distinctly signed with a stylized 'f', exactly the one used by Ferd Johnson in his sig, so case closed on the artist ID.

* Source: Indiana Evening Gazette, Hanover Sun.

** Source: Palm Beach Post.

Labels: Advertising Strips

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

William F. Marriner's output was prodigious, and an amazingly high percentage of it was just like today's obscurity, Foolish Ferdinand; playful strips about kids getting up to relatively innocent shenanigans. Marriner's giant-headed kids are a breath of fresh air for comics sections in which the typical kid comic strip star was rotten to the core and more dangerous than an angry badger. 

For the Philadelphia Inquirer Marriner penned this long-running series, Foolish Ferdinand, off and on from December 29 1901 to February 21 1904. Sometimes a longer title was used, The Fortunes of Foolish Ferdinand, and the series was quite scattershot in its appearances as Marriner often turned out one-shots instead for that Sunday section.

Thanks to Cole Johnson for the scan.

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 5 comments

Here's a real Grade-A, cream of the crop example of Rube Goldberg's Foolish Questions. These gags, which were also collected in book form, were issued as postcards by Samson Bros. as Series #213. The publisher seemed to pick the ones that got the postcard treatment more or less at random, and some are, I hate to say, kinda stinkers. But this is Goldberg going over the moon.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

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