Saturday, June 01, 2024

 

One-Shot Wonders: Willy the Human Omelette by Syd B. Griffin, 1897

 

Just when you thought you'd seen every possible gag played out in a comic strip, here comes Syd B. Griffin with one so outlandish, so weird, that I bet it is that rarest of birds, a unique gag never seen before or since. 

He Would Steal Eggs, or Willy the Human Omelette ran in the New York Journal comic section of May 9 1897.

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Friday, May 31, 2024

 

Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Wayne Boring


Larchmont Times 8/10/1950

Wayne Douglas Boring was born on June 5, 1905, in Verdi, Minnesota, according to his World War II draft card. His middle name was recorded on Virginia marriage and divorce certificates, and in The Who’s Who of American Comic Books, Volume 1 (1973). His parents were John Harmon Boring and Lena Hansen who married on October 18, 1893 in Verdi. One of Boring’s pen names was Jack Harmon. Another was Val Rogers which may have been based on his older brother, Roger Valan Boring.

The 1910 United States Census said Boring was the youngest of four brothers. Their father was a retail general store merchant. The Borings were residents of Verdi. They were listed in the 1915 South Dakota state census. In the 1920 census, Boring, his parents and two brothers lived in Watertown, South Dakota, at 520 Maple Street. 

In Amazing Heroes #41*, February 15, 1984, Richard Pachter said 
Boring attended the Minneapolis Institute of Art after high school and studied anatomy at the Chicago Art Institute with J. Allen St. John, the illustrator of the original Tarzan stories.
Boring’s veteran’s file, at Ancestry.com, said he enlisted in the Marine Corps on July 19, 1924. His assignments were found in muster rolls at Fold3.com. Boring traveled to Parris Island, South Carolina. From July to September 1924, he was at the training station. In September and part of October, Private Boring was attached to the rifle range. Sometime in October and through December, he was court-martialed. 

From January to May 1925, Boring was assigned to the field music detachment. In July and part of August, Boring was attached to the rifle range. Later in August, he was with the Naval Ordnance Plant in South Charleston, West Virginia. From September 1925 to February 1926, Corporal Boring was at the Naval Ammunition Depot in St. Julien’s Creek, Portsmouth, Virginia. For the rest of the year, he was at the Naval Ordnance Plant or Naval Ammunition Depot.

On November 3, 1926, Boring married Helen Saunders Lapetina in Norfolk, Virginia. The 1927 Norfolk city directory listed them at the Parkwood Court Apartments.

During the first four months of 1927, Boring was stationed at the Naval Ordnance Plant. In May his new assignment was the Eighty-Third Company, Third Battalion, Sixth Regiment Provisional Regiment, Third Brigade. In June Boring sailed across the Pacific and was part of Casual Company Number One, Marine Detachment, American Legation in Peking [Beijing], China. In November Boring was attached to the Fifth Company Engineers, Third Brigade, U.S. Marines in Tientsin [Tianjin], China. In December he transferred from Peking to Headquarters and Headquarters Company, Fourth Regiment, Third Brigade, at 116 Sinza Road in Shanghai, China. 

(Information about the China Marines is here, here and here.) 

In early February 1928, Boring was aboard the USS Chaumont bound for San Francisco, California. From February to mid-March, he was at the Navy Yard in Mare Island, California. Boring was discharged on March 13, 1928.

According to the 1930 census, Boring and Helen lived with his in-laws in Norfolk, Virginia at 114 Church Street. Boring was a display man at a department store. The Norfolk city directories, from 1930 to 1934, listed Boring at 3719 Granby. His employer was the Virginia Electric & Power Company. In 1936 Boring’s address was 767 West Ocean View Avenue. The 1937 directory said he resided 3511 Omohundro Avenue and worked at the Virginia Pilot newspaper.

The Larchmont Times (New York), August 10, 1950, profiled Boring and said
... A native of Watertown, S. D., where his father was postmaster, he is a graduate of the Minneapolis Institute of Art and the Chicago Art Institute where he studied illustration. He spent four years in the Marines in the Pacific from 1924 through 1928, and has worked as artist and layout man for the advertising department of the New Orleans Times-Picayune and for a department store in Norfolk, Va., switching later to the Virginia Electrical and Power Company as art director where he handled advertising brochures and newspaper advertisements. He then went to the Virginian Pilot and Norfolk Ledger-Dispatch, doing layouts, headings and signatures.

Ambitious to be a short story writer, he took a course at Wil­liam and Mary but he’s been too busy to get around to it seriously.

It was this urge to write, however, that was indirectly responsible for his drawing Superman. Intent on writing during his spare time, he would pour over Writers’ [Writer’s Digest] magazines in an attempt to learn a short-cut to success, and one day came across a “cartoonist wanted” advertisement. Boring answered the ad and contacted Jerry Siegel who had an idea to sell comics to a magazine. Siegel and his partner, Joe Shuster, had not yet dreamed up the Superman idea.

“I  think there was only one Comics Magazine on the market at that time in 1937 or 1938,” Boring muses. “And that was Action Comics.” [Superman appeared in Action Comics #1, June 1938.]

In his spare time, Boring began to put Siegel’s stories into picture strip form. The first one they tried was “Slam Bradley” who was an ordinary fellow, goodlooking and strong and with a resemblance to Superman, but who wore civilian clothes—no uniform. Two pages per month were sold to “Action Comics.” After that came “Spy” and one called “Radio Squad,” each story running about two pages each month. Two or three other ideas flopped. 

Then one day Siegel from his home in Cleveland sent Boring a story about a fellow called “Superman.”

“It was new and fresh as an idea then and it still is today,” Boring said, recalling Siegel’s enthusiasm for it.

But it was hardly received with enthusiasm by the syndicates. Siegel and Shuster had quite a time selling it in the beginning. It looked crazy, they were told. A man who flew would be laughed right out of the market. Besides, the artists would run out of material in a week, it was said.

Despite that, Siegel knew he had a good idea and took it to every syndicate at least three times. He finally sold a story to good old “Action Comics.” The results were electrifying. Kids began to ask for it by the thousands and circulation of the magazine jumped overnight, just how high no one seems to know. “Before long millions of kids were screaming for this big strong guy,” Boring recalls with a smile.

In 1940 [sic] Siegel took it to Mclure [sic] Newspaper Syndicate and Boring quit his job in Virginia and moved to Cleveland to draw the syndicated strip for “Superman” at the resounding salary of $50 per week. ...
Boring probably saw the October 1936 issue of Writer’s Digest that published the following.
Publication Enterprises Co. is in immediate need of contacting artists to work upon comic and cartoon strips. While at this time our greatest need is for artists to work upon illustration story strips, we would also be pleased to consider the work of cartoonists.

We work on a 50-50 basis, doing the continuity and selling ourself. Artists sending in samples of their work are asked to enclose envelope and return postage if they care to have their work returned.

Publication Enterprises Co., 
10622 Kimberly Avenue, 
Cleveland, Ohio. 
Jerome Siegel, President.
In Amazing Heroes, Boring said 
“I carried the magazine in my back pocket for a couple of weeks until I dropped them a line. And I got an answer back. I sent some samples of my work.”
At the time, Boring had a full-time job. The Norfolk Virginian-Pilot, November 10, 1938, printed a Sears, Roebuck and Co. advertisement that announced its contest winners. One of the three judges was Boring who worked at Rice’s Fashion Corner

In American Newspaper Comics (2012), Alberto Becattini said Wayne Boring ghosted Toledo, Ohio artist Elmer Woggon’s Big Chief Wahoo around 1938. The Superman comic strip was distributed by the McClure Syndicate and debuted on January 16, 1939. Initially drawn by Joe Shuster, the strip was ghosted by Boring, Paul Cassidy, Paul Lauretta, Jack Burnley and others. Boring was credited as artist beginning July 1948 to May 1, 1966. During the series run a number of artists ghosted for Boring. 

7/27/1948

In The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips (1994), Ron Goulart said 
The initial dailies look to be the work of Shuster himself, but a number of other artists drew the feature in the funnies. They included Paul Cassidy, Dennis Neville, John Sikela, and Wayne Boring. Boring would inherit the strip in the late 1940s when Siegel and Shuster were legally separated from their creation.
Boring has not yet been found in the 1940 census. His wife and eight-year-old son, Wayne Jr., were in Norfolk, Virginia at 3904 Holly Avenue. 

Boring signed his World War II draft card on October 16, 1940. His address was 10609 Euclid Avenue, Room 306, and employed by Joe Shuster at the same address. Boring’s description was five feet seven-and-a-half inches, 140 pounds, with blue eyes and blonde hair.


It’s not clear how long Boring stayed in Cleveland. The 1941 and 1943 Norfolk, Virginia city directories were not available at Ancestry.com. The 1942 directory listed Boring’s wife at 3904 Holly Avenue. Commercial artist Boring had a listing in the 1944 directory at the same address.

The Larchmont Times said
In 1942 Boring with his wife Lois moved to Larchmont Acres where they have lived ever since.
Records at Ancestry.com said Boring and his first wife, Helen, divorced in 1947. He married Lois Frances Anderson in Staunton, Virginia on March 8, 1948. 

In Superman: The Complete History, the Life and Times of the Man of Steel, Les Daniels said 
By 1948, Wayne Boring had given the Man of Steel a new look ... Superman was drawn in a more detailed, realistic style of illustration. He also looked bigger and stronger. “Until then Superman had always seemed squat,” Boring said. “He was six heads high, a bit shorter than normal. I made him taller—nine heads high—but kept his massive chest.”
Alter Ego #142, September 2016

The 1950 census said Boring and Lois were residents of Mamaroneck, New York at 816A Richbell Road. His occupation was cartoonist. Boring’s ex-wife and son were at the same address in Norfolk, Virginia. In 1954 Wayne Jr. graduated from Virginia Military Institute and became a doctor.

Boring was one of eight cartoonists featured in Coronet, June 1954. 

The Danbury News-Times (Connecticut), February 15, 1957, said
Mr. and Mrs. Wayne D. Boring moved here recently from Larchmont, N. Y. into the Thomas Stout house at Washington Park estates.
The 1958 through 1966 Ridgefield, Connecticut directories listed Boring at 10 Lincoln Lane. The Wilton Bulletin (Connecticut), September 21, 1960, said 
Mr. Boring and his wife, Lois, (no relation to Lois Lane) have lived here since 1956, moving from Larchmont, N.Y. He does all his work at home, rarely traveling to the offices in New York.
Wilton Bulletin 9/21/1960; reprinted in 
Hidden History of Ridgefield, Connecticut

In 1966 Superman editor Mort Weisenger fired Boring for unknown reasons. 

In American Newspaper Comics, Alberto Becattini said Boring assisted on Rip Kirby from April to June 1966, and August 14 to September 2, 1967; produced art for August 7–12, 1967 and September 4–16, 1967. Vic Forsythe’s comic strip, Joe Jinks (retitled Davy Jones beginning June 12, 1961), was drawn by many artists including Boring who did the daily strips from March 31, 1969 to June 1971. On Prince Valiant, Becattini said Boring assisted from 1968 to 1971

The Danbury News-Times, April 19, 1969, profiled Prince Valiant artist, Harold Foster, and said
... Wayne Boring of Ridgefield inks in the background after the owner completes most of a strip.  ...
In 1972 Boring drew a three issues of Marvel Comics’ Captain Marvel, #22, 23, and 24, and a story in Creatures on the Loose #19. He drew Thor #280 which was published in 1979. 

At some point Boring moved to Pompano Beach, Florida and worked as a part-time security guard. In 1983, he was a guest at the OrlandoCon

For DC Comics from 1984 to 1986, Boring contributed to All-Star Squadron Annual #3, Superman #402, Action Comics #561 and #572, Secret Origins #1, and All-Star Squadron #64.

Boring passed away on February 20, 1987, in Pompano Beach, Florida. Obituaries appeared in Amazing Heroes #119, June 15, 1987 and The Comics Journal #116, July 1987. 

Boring’s father passed away on August 5, 1945; mother on April 5, 1957 (South Dakota Death Index); second wife Lois on November 10, 2001; and first wife Helen on November 23, 2001. 

* Boring’s age was misstated as 66. He was 78.


Further Reading
Grand Comics Database, Creator, credits
Lambiek Comiclopedia
Who’s Who of American Comic Books 1928–1999
The World Encyclopedia of Comics (1976)
The Encyclopedia of American Comics (1990), pages 44 and 45
Superhero Comics: The Illustrated History (1991)
DC Comics: Sixty Years of the World’s (1995)
Comics, Between the Panels (1998)
Superman: The Complete History, the Life and Times of the Man of Steel (1998), pages 44, 47 and 74
Our Hero: Superman on Earth (2010), pages 92 and 93, 127 and 128
Super Boys: The Amazing Adventures of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster—The Creators of Superman (2013), pages 173 and 207
Biographical Sketches of Cartoonists & Illustrators in the Swann Collection of the Library of Congress (2012)
Comic Book Historians, Joe Shuster’s Favorite “Ghost”: Wayne Boring 

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Comments:
The Larchmont Times article quoted here contains a few errors:

Action Comics was not the only comic book being published at the time;

Slam Bradley and Spy appeared in Detective Comics, and Radio Squad in More Fun Comics, all before the debut of Action Comics in 1938.
 
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Wednesday, May 29, 2024

 

Jeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The 300 for 2000 -- Results

In this year’s survey we lost only one paper and again it is a newspaper publisher who had a morning and evening paper closing one of them. This time it was the Indianapolis News. So the total papers reviewed for this survey is 253 papers.

The biggest mover in the Top 30 was Baby Blues, which moved up 3 spots from 23 to 20. With the end of the original Peanuts, the most popular strip in the last 20 plus years falls to number 2 tying with the most popular previous strip Blondie. Garfield now has the number 1 spot all to itself and I don’t think we are going to have a challenger in the future.

Arlo and Janis re-enters the Top 30 while Mary Worth falls out of the Top 30. With Mary Worth falling out of the Top 30 this means that all Top 30 strips are either sitcoms or gag a day strips.

Title (253 Papers)

Rank

Rank Change

Papers +/-

Total Papers

Garfield

1

Same

0

223

Blondie

2

Up 1

1

210

Peanuts

2

Down 1

-13

210

For Better or For Worse

4

Same

1

205

Beetle Bailey

5

Same

2

184

Dilbert

6

Same

4

182

Family Circus

7

Same

7

164

Hagar The Horrible

8

Down 1

4

161

Cathy

9

Same

-4

145

Doonesbury

10

Same

-2

143

Fox Trot

11

Up 2

8

110

B.C.

12

Same

0

107

Hi and Lois

12

Down 1

-1

107

Frank and Ernest

14

Down 1

-2

100

Wizard of Id

15

Same

0

99

Zits

16

Up 1

16

97

Born Loser

17

Down 1

0

90

Dennis The Menace

18

Down 1

2

83

Shoe

19

Same

-4

72

Baby Blues

20

Up 3

10

68

Marmaduke

21

Same

1

64

Sally Forth

22

Down 2

-1

64

Mother Goose and Grimm

23

Down 1

-2

59

Non Sequitur

24

Same

0

54

Close To Home

25

Down 1

-3

51

Ziggy

26

Same

-3

50

Mallard Fillmore

27

Same

-3

48

Rose is Rose

27

Up 2

6

48

Jump Start

29

Down 1

4

47

Arlo and Janis

30

Returning

2

43

 

The average number of comic strips per paper went up to 18.41 from last year’s average of 18.18, a pretty big gain and perhaps helps to explain some of the strong debuts we saw.

On the Universal comic section there are big changes:

Top 2 – 190 (Down 19)
Top 3 – 173 (Down 9)
Top 4 – 153 (Down 4)
Top 5 – 124 (Same)
Top 6 – 101 (Up 13)
Top 7 – 87 (Up 16)
Top 8 – 70 (Up 7)
Top 9 – 57 (Up 1)
Top 10 – 44 (Down 4)
Top 11 – 23 (Down 10)
Top 12 – 14 (Down 9)
Top 13 – 11 (Up 4)
Top 14 – 4 (Down 2)
Top 15 – 4 (Same)
Top 16 – 4 (Up 1)
Top 17 – 1 (Down 1)
Top 18 – 1 (Same)
    

Here are the rest of the strips that made this year’s survey:

42 – Crankshaft (+5), Mary Worth (0)

39 – Luann (+7)

36 – Funky Winkerbean (+4)

35 – Herman (0), Rex Morgan (-2)

34 – Barney Google and Snuffy Smith (-2), Mutts (+1)

32 – Lockhorns (0)

30 – Alley Oop (+2), Pickles (+5)

28 – Curtis (0)

25 – Grizzwells (0), Kit N Carlyle (0)

23 – Boondocks (R)

22 – In The Bleachers (-2), Marvin (-2)

20 – Geech (-1)

19 – Eek and Meek (0), Judge Parker (0), Real Life Adventures (-4)

18 – One Big Happy (0), Robotman (0), Rubes (-7)

16 – Andy Capp (-9), Gasoline Alley (-1), Overboard (-1)

15 – Bizarro (-2), Crabby Road (-1), Sherman’s Lagoon (+3)

14 – Big Nate (0), Grand Avenue (R), Pluggers (+1)

13 – Adam (0), Betty (+1), Drabble (0), Get Fuzzy (R), Rugrats (-6), Stone Soup (-1), Tank McNarama (-3)

12 – Fred Basset (0), Heathcliff (+1), Mark Trail (0), Piranha Club (-2)

11 – Buckles (0), Phantom (0), Tiger (0)

10 – Berry’s World (0), Hocus-Focus (-1), Lola (R), Nancy (0), Speed Bump (0), Sylvia (0)

9 – Agnes (R), Dunagin’s People (-1), Middletons (0)

8 – Apartment 3-G (0), Gil Thorp (0), Herb and Jamaal (+2), Mr. Boffo (-2), Rhymes with Orange (+1), Zippy (0)

7 – Amazing Spider-Man (-2), Brenda Starr (0), Dick Tracy (-1), Duplex (0), Heart of the City (+5)

6 – Against The Grain (-1), Buckets (0), Committed (+1), I Need Help (-1), Off the Mark (-1), They’ll Do It Every Time (-1)

5 – Archie (0), Ben (0), Bound  & Gagged (-4), Citizen Dog (-1), Dinette Set (+2), Fusco Brothers (0), Grin and Bear It (0), Kuduz (-1), 9 Chickweed Lane (+1), Our Fascinating Earth (+1), Safe Havens (0), Strange Brew (+1), Tumbleweeds (0)

4 – Crock, Horrorscope, Mixed Media, Momma, Ralph, That’s Life, Twins

3 – Ballard Street, Comic For Kids, Cornered, Donald Duck, Liberty Meadows, Love Is, Reality Check, That’s Jake, Willy N Ethel

2 – Animal Crackers, Better Half, Between Friends, Bobo’s Progress, Broom Hilda, Chubb & Chauncey, Clarie & Webber, Fair Game, Meg!, Mickey Mouse, New Breed, Norm, On The Fastrack, Over The Hedge, Quigmans, Redeye, Ripley’s Believe It Or Not, Second Chances, Steve Roper and Mike Nomad, Tarzan, Warped

1 – Best Years, Big Picture, Bottom Liners, Cats With Hands, Do Not Distrub, Ffram.com, Flight Deck, Good Life, Graffiti, Laffbreak, Little Orphan Annie, Loose Parts, Mandrake The Magician, Meehan Streak, Meet Mr. Lucky, Modesty Blaise, Nest Hands, Offline, Out of Bounds, Pooch Café, Raising Hector, Top Secret, Trudy, Tundra, Tuttle, Two Toes, Zorro


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Tuesday, May 28, 2024

 

Jeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The 300 for 2000 - Biggest Winners and Losers

The biggest gainer in 2000 was cartoonist Jerry Scott who had a one-two punch with a combined total of 26 papers added. Zits gained the most with 16 papers and Baby Blues, which gained 10 papers was the #2 gainer. Another big gainer was Fox Trot with 8 papers and Luann with 7 papers. Here is the list of all the strips that gained at least 5 papers during the past year.

Zits – 16
Baby Blues - 10
Fox Trot - 8
Family Circus – 7
Luann - 7
Rose is Rose – 6
Crankshaft – 5
Pickles – 5
Heart of The City - 5

The biggest losers did not happen until the first Monday of 2000. That is when the most successful strip of the second half of the 20th century, Peanuts, came to an end. Well, it did not really come to an end but went into reruns  In what was then a rare move, instead of ending the strip the syndicate started offering reprints from the year 1974. After that client papers had two options; they could run the older strips that were 4 panels long or the newer strips that were at most 3 panels long. Not all the current clients wanted reruns so 13 papers decided to drop the strip. But the vast majority signed on – that 13 paper drop represents only about 6% of Peanuts clients. And once syndicates realized that newspapers and readers would accept reruns, the practice started to flourish – a big blow to young cartoonists hoping to crack newspaper syndication.

Another big loser again was Andy Capp with a loss of 9 papers. Here is the complete list of strips that lost 5 or more papers.

Peanuts – 13
Andy Capp - 9
Rubes – 7
Rugrats – 6

On the story strip front the adventure strips and soap strips lost only 2 spots this year. This year we had the debut of the last pure adventure strip Zorro which only got 1 paper. Ten years from now we will have the debut of another adventure strip, Rip Haywire, but that falls in the category of comic adventure like Alley Oop.

Adventure (-2)
Alley Oop – 30 (+2)
Mark Trail – 12 (0)
Phantom – 11 (0)
Amazing Spider-Man – 7 (-2)
Brenda Starr – 7 (0)
Dick Tracy – 7 (-1)
Mickey Mouse – 2 (0)
Steve Roper and Mike Nomad – 2 (0)
Tarzan – 2 (+1)
Little Orphan Annie – 1 (0)
Mandrake The Magician – 1 (-1)
Modesty Blaise – 1 (0)
Zorro – 1 (+1)

Ended
Rip Kirby – 2


Soaps (-2)
Mary Worth – 42 (0)
Rex Morgan – 35 (-2)
Judge Parker – 19 (0)
Apartment 3-G – 8 (0)
Gil Thorp – 8 (0)

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Comments:
At least some of the 13 papers that dropped Peanuts in 2000 after the last strip ran just got the Peanuts reruns back by 2022-2024. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch and Milwaukee Journal are 2 examples.
 
The only reason that the St. Louis Post-Dispatch had the Peanuts returned was because Lee Enterprises in 2022 decided that all of the newspaper that they own run the same comic page and Peanuts was one of them the other strip included Garfield, Baby Blues, For Better or For Worse, Pearls Before Swine, The Argyle Sweater, Close to Home, Pickles, Crabgrass and Luann.

The Milwaukee Journal is part of the Gannett papers and this past year they were all ordered to pick comic from a list of only 34 and one of them is the Peanuts.
 
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Monday, May 27, 2024

 

Jeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The 300 for 2000 -- Rookies of 1999

How times have changed in a decade. Back in the late 1980s we had the beginning of the influx of strips that feature African American characters in leading roles.  Those strips were Curtis, Jump Start and Herb and Jamaal. The best any of these strips could muster was 8 client papers in their rookie years. Now in 1999 we have the introduction of the ‘black’ strip Boondocks by Aaron McGruder debuting with 23 papers to become the Top Rookie strip for 1999.  The Boondocks had already been in print for two years in the monthly hip hop magazine The Source, so it already had a bit of a track record. This is yet another attempt by feature editors to get a young and hip audience to read the daily newspaper.
 

There were more strong debuts this year from all of the top five rookies. Our top five represent an impressive 69 spots going to new features. Here are all the rest of the rookies:


Grand Avenue – 14
Get Fuzzy – 13
Lola - 10
Agnes – 9
That’s Life – 4
Bobo’s Progress – 2
Big Picture, Cats With Hands, Do Not Disturb (local), Ffarm.com, Flight Deck, Meehan Streak, Pooch Café (debuted in the first week of 2000 so not technically a rookie yet), Raising Hector (ditto), Top Secrets (local), Zorro – 1

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Sunday, May 26, 2024

 

Wish You Were Here, from Fred Opper

 

Here's another entry from the 'Li'l Arsonist' series of cards, given away free with Hearst papers in 1906. This one features Happy Hooligan and Montmorency in the big reveal. Don't know the details of the ignition properties of these cards, but the user who put the torch to this one managed to get the image of the two stars to appear on the back side of the card as well!

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