Friday, May 10, 2024
Obscurity of the Day: Nixie
Although R.F. Outcault was the unquestioned king of series comics in the 1800s, by the turn of the century he didn't have any really popular series in his current kit bag. Gallus Coon thankfully didn't take hold at the New York World, and today's obscurity, Nixie, done for the Herald, showed some promise but ultimately fell by the wayside.
Nixie is a moon-faced little kid who always wears an odd form-fitting cap (perhaps a baby bonnet?) topped with a pom-pom. A genteel version of the Yellow Kid, perhaps? The strip was sometimes pantomime, but when talking was the order of the day, it was done through captions below the panels. As was sometimes the case, animals get special dispensation to use word balloons. Nixie doesn't have a strong personality in the samples I've seen, so his odd face and garb are about the sum total of his appeal.
The Herald tried to get the public excited about Nixie, but evidently the reviews were not enthusiastisc enough. The strip started on March 18 1900 and last appeared on September 23* of the same year. Very soon Pore Little Mose would come on the scene, and he would function as Outcault's bread-and-butter strip for the next two years.
Here are a few additional Nixie examples from OSU's Bill Blackbeard archives.
* Source: Ken Barker's New York Herald index in StripScene #20.
Labels: Obscurities
