Among his many other projects inside and outside of the world of comics, Stu Hample hit some minor paydirt with a paperback book titled Children's Letters to God, published in 1967. The book, which he claimed was a compilation of real children's letters, offered material to elicit laughs, occasional tears, but mainly supplied lots and lots of treacle. Art Linkletter had been mining this sort of material for years, but Hample managed to piggyback on the "kids say the darnedest things" gravy train successfully by throwing in a religious component.
The book soon spawned a second collection, but of more interest to us is that it was adapted into a daily cartoon panel by Hample, sold to King Features and began syndication on June 24 1968*. The feature was never a big syndication success, but evidently did manage to attract enough clients to make it a worthwhile effort. Unlike the books, the newspaper feature made no claims to being real letters -- points to Hample and King for not breaking a commandment for the newspaper version, at least.
After three years of making up letters to God Hample felt his creative well starting to run dry. On March 22 1971** the title of the feature was changed to just Children's Letters, and the the kids could now freely write to non-dieties, though God still remained a favourite pen pal.
The necessarily rather repetitive material seemed to be on the way to going on forever, but luckily Hample found a better star on which to hitch his wagon. In 1976 he began development of the Inside Woody Allen comic strip, which promised far greater rewards than he could hope for by scrawling yet more faux children's letters. The feature was retired on January 17 1976***.
Thanks to Mark Johnson, who supplied the syndicate proof sheet for the very first week of the feature.
* Source: King Features Microfilm Catalog
** Source: Muncie Evening Press
*** Source: York Dispatch
MAD parodied this with "God's Letters to Children." I remember a couple of them: "Yes, I am always watching you, but that is no reason not to take a bath:" "Yes, I am everywhere, but that was not me you saw on the subway."
ReplyDeleteAnd lest we forget, Michael O' Donoghue's "Children's Letters to the Gestapo" (NATIONAL LAMPOON, September 1971).
ReplyDeleteWhen he changed over to celebrities instead of deities, the "kids" that wrote them were writing the same exact thoughts for them as well. This was pretty evidently a novelty with very limited range of possibilityies, writing, or huomour-wise, though it had an impressive burst of licensing when it was new. It even had a TV special.
ReplyDeleteObviously, the Woody Allen strip was a more interesting concept, but it never really worked well. In my old KFS blog, I was denied the use of that one.