Stripper's Guide

Here's a collection of gag cartoons that ran in the New York Evening Journal on April 14 1904. Starting at upper left and going clockwise, we have a Jimmy Swinnerton cartoon, two by H.B. Martin, a silhouette cartoon by J.K. Bryans, and another two Martin cartoons. 

These are all pretty weak gag cartoons, but the reason I wanted to feature this array is the cartoon in the upper middle by Martin. You may be wondering what the heck is going on there, and rightly so, and there's an interesting explanation. The Indian is dressed in drag, that's him on the right. Why? There was a momenatry fad in 1904 having to do with crossdressing Indians, and Martin was certain enough that everyone was in on it that he didn't need to explain. The fad was brought on by the publication of a novelty song, My Dandy Dainty Redskin Brave, in which the (male) singer is fooled into wooing a high-society Gibson girl type who turns out to be a Native American man. The odd fad song had its very short moment in the sun then disappeared into the mists of time.

Or, maybe the cartoon just had the wrong caption printed with it.

Labels: One-Shot Wonders

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

Hobo and tramp comics were quite popular in the early years of the last century, then went through a fallow period. But they came in for a popular revival in the 1930s for the obvious reason that the Great Depression made them a newly common facet of American life. Perhaps the most successful of this new wave was Pete the Tramp, from the talented pen of C.D. Russell. Russell had done newspaper and magazine work in the 1920s, and found that one of his favorite subjects were the tramps he saw around New York City. He eventually became known for his tramp cartoons, and as the Great Depression really got rolling, King Features decided that they wanted him to produce tramp cartoons for them.

King Features signed him to a contract to produce the Sunday strip Pete the Tramp, which debuted on January 10 1932*.  Along with the new strip came a topper about a terrir dog called Bumps who lives with a nameless family. There was nothing particularly original about the strip, but it was affable enough, treading the well-worn avenues of dog humour. 

In fact about the only interesting thing to say about it, from a historical point of view, is that the strip had its original name taken away from it around June 1932, and from then on it was known as Pete's Pup, even though the dog remained with his same unnamed owners -- as far as I know he never met Pete the Tramp in his strip. I long thought this name change had something to do with another King strip wanting the title -- Harry O'Neill's topper strip to Broncho Bill was also titled Bumps. But when I finally got off my duff to actually check on that, I realized that the O'Neill Bumps strip didn't start until over a year after Russell renamed his topper. So never mind. 

Pete's Pup ran atop Pete the Tramp until February 24 1935**, when it was replaced by The Topper Twins. 

One postscript to this story for you tearsheet collectors out there. If you are impressed by the gorgeous colour work on the samples above, thank the New York Mirror. When the Mirror started running Sunday colour comics they opted to produce them on a rotogravure press. These presses and the slick paper they used were capable of producing far more nuanced colours than regular four-colour presses, and the Mirror recoloured their Sunday strips to take advantage of the high-end colour capabilities. Sadly the roto press funnies didn't last long (ending in early 1933 I think?)

* Source: New York Mirror, via Jeffrey Lindenblatt.

** Source: Chicago Record-Herald.

Labels: Topper Features

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

Robert Ripley didn't know what he was unleashing on the newspaper world when he created his Believe It Or Not series, offering readers entertaining odd and unusual factoids. Not only was he copied whole cloth by a long list of me-too cartoon series, but he was followed also by a whole industry of specialty imitations, where the creators limited themselves to some niche subject. 

The most popular niche, by far, were the Believe It or Not clones which limited their subject to a specific state, region or locality. I admit I'd be hard pressed to prove it, but I feel reasonably confident that there was no point on the U.S. map that was not served by one of these newspaper series at one time or another. 

Today we take a look at one of these series that (at first) covered the state of Alabama. Clint Bonner, a Birmingham artist and sign painter created his first newspaper panel series in 1931 for the Birmingham News. How He Got There was a full pager that ran on Sundays, telling the backgrounds of local politicos, celebrities and businesspeople.

This rather dry feature went on for the better part of three years, but then Bonner decided it was high time to do a cartoon that could sell to more than one paper. Thus he came up with a new weekly panel called Alabama Oddities, which sold to clients including the Birmingham News and Montgomery Advertiser. It debuted on May 12 1935. As the name implies, it offered intersting factoids about the state, its history and its people. 

Bonner proved to have a restless hankering for changing the name and focus of his feature. On March 15 1939 it was rechristed When The Stars Fell, a reference to the book and song When The Stars Fell On Alabama, a tale about a spectacular meteor shower seen throughout the state in 1833. The subjects of the weekly cartoon remained pretty much the same. 

But then on April 14 1940 the title changed again, this time to Debunking The Bunk. Now the feature began to cover historical and scientific fallacies, and the local aspect of the feature was dropped. Presumably Bonner hoped that his new subject would allow him to sell the feature outside Alabama. Evidently that wish did not turn into reality, and may have also annoyed his existing subscribing papers who wanted local content, not this essentially new feature. 

Bowing to client demand, a year later on April 20 the title and subject was changed back to Alabama Oddities. But Bonner was still chafing, hoping to sell the feature outside the state, so on January 4 1942 the title changed to Southern Oddities, taking in all the surrounding states. Apparently this opening of the scope didn't antagonize his Alabama subscribing papers nearly as much. 

On April 26 1942 a very slight title change was enacted, changing it to Oddities of the South. My guess is that someone else owned copyright to the title Southern Oddities and had complained. But Bonner still didn't seem to be gaining the client base he so fervently wanted, so a few months later he rejiggered the weekly page into a set of six separate equally sized panels. This layout allowed him to sell the feature either as a large weekly feature or as a daily panel. 

Another seemingly good idea, but yet another marketing failure. Bonner finally threw in the towel and the feature appears to have ended on January 31 1943, or February 6 for the daily-style version*. By this time Bonner had a new gig as a radio host going in Birmingham and he was running the Gulf States Art Schools; perhaps those proved the more rewarding activities. 

The ever-restless Clint Bonner would come back after the war with several additional newspaper features, but none of them proved to be his pot o' gold, either. One was a revival of this feature, but throwing it open to factoids about the entire country. Titled American Oddities, in the only paper I can find it (Montgomery Advertiser) it ran only January 6 to February 17 1946.

* Source: Tallahassee News-Democrat.

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

Little Abe Corncob was yet another Katzenjammer Kid rip-off, but of the low rent sort who couldn't even muster a brother to assist him in his pranks. What he did have, though, was a setting in farm country and he used that to great effect, enlisting farm animals to do the heavy lifting on many of his escapades. 

The strip debuted in the C.J. Hirt version of the McClure Syndicate Sunday comics section on October 18 1903*. The strip was very rarely signed, in fact the only time I know for sure it was signed was on the very first strip. A.D. Reed signed that installment, and I'm confident he was responsible for it throughout the run, which ended on June 17 1906**. That end date is when the Hirt copyright was last seen, and the next week the section was revamped and now copyrighted by Otis F. Wood. 

Little Abe Corncob reprints were sometimes used by McClure to fill holes in the 1910s, when their bullpen of artists was so shallow that  they sometimes couldn't fill the four pages. Known reprint appearances include occasions in 1912*** and February 8 to March 8 1914****.

* Source: Chicago Inter-Ocean

** Source: Washington Star 

*** Source: Battle Creek Moon-Journal

**** Source: St. Paul Pioneer Press.

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

Here's a Garfield card, designated P7520, from Argus Communications. Published in the mid-80s, as if that were much of a mystery given the thought balloon. "Let's do lunch", that infamous Hollywood brush-off, was popularized in the mid-80s and became so ubiquitous we were all sick of it in no time. Did Jim Davis get his foot in the door while it was still a popular meme? Well, the postcard is unused, so....

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments