Thursday, September 07, 2006
Obscurity of the Day: The Shanghai Twins
The Minneapolis Journal didn't have a Sunday edition way back when, so they simply ran the traditional Sunday features on Saturday (much like those Minnesota neighbors, the Canadians, do).Charles "Bart" Bartholomew was the sole overworked cartoonist on the Journal in the early years of the century, and he made quite a name for himself in the midwest as an editorial cartoonist. But he also contributed features to the children's section of the paper on Saturdays. His usual dose was a front page panel cartoon, a few additional illustrations inside the section, and a large comic strip or panel cartoon for the back cover. Most of these back page features were one-shots, but he also indulged in the occasional series, of which today's Shanghai Twins was the first. It first appeared on October 27 1900, and ran four times, the last on February 2 1901. In this period all of Bart's back page features took the same form, two panels with rhyming text. The rhymes were likely supplied by W.A. Frisbie, who didn't take credit on these early features but did later on.
Bart's most lasting claim to fame was his correspondence cartooning school, whose ads were fixtures in Cartoons Magazine and elsewhere.
Labels: Obscurities
Tuesday, September 05, 2006
Obscurity of the Day: Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger
Jackie Ormes has acquired some interest from comic strip fans for her Torchy Brown series (see a sample here), mainly because of the strip reproduced in an old issue of Nemo. But Torchy was hardly more than a blip on Ormes' map. Patty Jo 'n' Ginger was her bread-and-butter cartoon, and it lasted more than a decade in the Pittsburgh Courier and other papers. I trust that the appeal of the panel needs no explanation.
Patty-Jo 'n' Ginger started on September 1 1945 and ended on September 22 1956. Near the end of the run the panel appeared only sporadically in the Courier.
Labels: Obscurities
Friday, September 01, 2006
Obscurity of the Day: Louie The Lawyer
Before Martin Branner hit the jackpot with Winnie Winkle, he did this short run daily for the Bell Syndicate. Louie The Lawyer was a fun strip but seems to have never caught on with newspaper editors - I've been searching for samples of the strip for years before finally finding some in the Cleveland Press. Finding them in that of all papers is a headscratcher in itself, since the Press was the home paper of the NEA syndicate. Someone at the Press must have been a big supporter of Louie to put him in the paper, bumping one of their own NEA strips.
Louie The Lawyer ran from July 14 1919 until sometime in 1920 (anyone have an end date?). The character was later revived as the star of Looie Blooie, the long-running topper strip to the Winnie Winkle Sunday page.
Is it just me or do Branner's male heads remind you of Carl Barks' dog characters from the Donald Duck comic books?
Labels: Obscurities
