Saturday, June 29, 2024

 

One-Shot Wonders: The Bully and the Beasts by Clarence Rigby, 1895

 

By 1895 the New York Herald did have colour printing capability, but they tended to use it for things besides comics. So here then is a Clarence Rigby strip from the Herald of August 4 1895, run in glorious black and white. This strip offers a fascinating glimpse into the still-evolving conventions for comic strips. I'm not going to tell you to what it is I'm referring; you'll have to read the awful captions to figure it out. Great drawings, though!

I suppose there is a question worth posing -- was the convention being broken here pretty much established by 1895, and Rigby was just a little slow on the uptake? I'm tending to think he might be a little behind the curve...

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Comments:
Well gee, maybe today it's not encouraged to have animals tortured in such awful ways. Do I win the prize?
 
I'm guessing that the convention that is not being followed is the layout. Today, the first four panels would be stretched across the top row, and the next four underneath. He has the second panel under the first, the fourth under the third, and so on.
 
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