Saturday, April 13, 2024
One-Shot Wonders: Weekday Gag Array, 1904
An array of single panel gag cartoons was a familiar sight in 1900s papers, especially evening editions. Here's one such grouping from a 1904 edition of the New York Evening Journal, featuring four cartoons by William F. Marriner (first and third columns) and two by Harry B. Martin in the middle.
A few explanatory notes:
* "Beautiful Snow" was a poem written in 1869 by John Whittaker Watson. It seems to be the only poem of his that really outlived him in the public consciousness.
* I can find no evidence that there was a revolutionary named Bustaments in South America in 1904, but there are a few by the name Bustamente in decades long past by then. I imagine Martin is using it as a sort of generic Latino name.
Labels: One-Shot Wonders
At Hearst, we would syndicate even these one panel straight line/payoff type gags, mixed in with some weekday strips like "E.Z. Mark", fill a page or half page, all under the heading, "With The Twentieth Century Fun Makers" with slight variations like "Laughs With the Twentieth Century Humorists". I've seen these as a sunday feature in papers in Indianapolis and Baltimore in 1903-4. The "Bustamante' referred to might be Francisco Eugenio Bustamante, a radical politician and exiled opposition leader to presidente Palacio of Venezuela, overthrown in 1892.