It wouldn’t be Mother’s Day, without an R.F. Outcault comic strip of Buster Brown tormenting his mom! Above, “Buster Brown Kidnapped”, scanned from the 1905 promotional giveaway magazine, “Mr. Melville B. Raymond’s Buster Brown”, used to advertise upcoming performances of the touring musical stage play.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the pages in detail, and be able to read the text.

Beneath, two pages of photos from the play.

Doug Wheeler

Richard Felton Outcault

We have one more cartoonist-illustrated theater giveaway for April Fools’ Month, advertising the travelling comedic play Turn to the Right, showing at Garrick Theatre in Philadelphia during the Christmas Season. (An internet search shows this play was at that theater during Christmas 1916, so unless it played there in other years on Christmas as well, we can deduce that this pamphlet was distributed in 1916.)

The advertising angle here, was to show big name cartoonists and their characters, sitting enjoying the play, sitting in a theater box and enjoying the play, as drawn by the cartoonists themselves. (Who drew the play scenes they are watching, is not given.)

Above, we have the back & front covers of the pamphlet, with photos of the five cartoonists who depicted themselves within.

Click on the above & below pictures, to enlarge them and read the text.

Beneath, Rube Goldberg‘s self-portrait, of himself with some of the characters from his Boob McNutt strip.

Next, we have Clare Briggs (left page), known for his cartoons featuring kids.

On the right page, we have Richard Felton Outcault, seated with his creations, Buster Brown & Tige.

Beneath, left page, is T.E. Powers with his Joys & Glooms characters.

Right page, George McManus, with his characters from Bringing Up Father.

For prior postings of cartoons involved with theater, click here.

Doug Wheeler

TheatricalCartoons AdvertisingStrips Focus on Cartoonists R.F. Outcault

We reach the end of our April Fools’ Month presentation of Box Set 1 of the Rube Goldberg‘s “Foolish Questions” card game, published in 1919 by the Wallie Dorr Company. Beneath, the final twelve cards of the 52-card set.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view them in greater detail, and be able to read their texts.

Below, the last page of the list of cards in Set 1:

Doug Wheeler

We continue with our April Fools’ Month extracts from the 1905 promotional giveaway magazine, “Mr. Melville B. Raymond’s Buster Brown”, used to advertise upcoming performances of the touring musical stage play. Above & below, two more Buster Brown Sunday comic strips by Richard Felton Outcault, reprinted in the pamphlet.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read the text.

Above, more photos from the play. Below, the rear cover.

There are still a few pages left to show. This final part will appear in 3 weeks. Next week, meanwhile, we’ll feature a different theatrical advertising giveaway, illustrated by several famous cartoonists.

Doug Wheeler

AdvertisingStrips TheatricalCartoons R.F. Outcault Richard F. Outcault

Above, a loose flyer advertising the 1919 card game of Rube Goldberg‘s “Foolish Questions”, that came inside the game box. (Why advertise an item, to people who had already bought it? The other side of the flyer is advertising something unrelated – this piece of paper was likely placed inside both games, and perhaps inside others as well.)

Click on the above & below pictures, to view them in greater detail, and be able to read their texts.

Beneath, we have cards numbers 25 thru 40 (of 52 total). Well, almost – cards 26 (“Is that a surveying instrument?” ) & 30 (“Gee, Bill, where did you get the new coat?”) are missing from my copy of the set – I’ve left gaps where those two cards should have appeared.

Next week, the last twelve cards in Set 1.

Doug Wheeler

For today’s April Fools’ Month entry, we have some more extracts scanned from the 1905 promotional giveaway magazine, “Mr. Melville B. Raymond’s Buster Brown”, used to advertise upcoming performances of the touring musical stage play.

Above, a self-referential Buster Brown comic strip by his creator, Richard Felton Outcault, poking fun at the Buster Brown stage play.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the pages in detail, and better read their texts.

Beneath, from photos of the play, we can see why Tige said that the stage Tige looked nothing like him!

Below, extracted reviews.

More extracts from the booklet, next week!

Doug Wheeler

AdvertisingStrips TheatricalCartoons R.F. Outcault Richard F. Outcault

For the second Friday of April Fools’ Month, we bring you part two of our presentation of the 1919 card game (set 1) of Rube Goldberg‘s “Foolish Questions”. Above is the image that appears on the back of all of the cards; below, we have cards numbers 13 thru 24 (of 52 total).

Click on the above & below pictures, to view them in greater detail, and be able to read their texts.

Below, the game rules came as a loose insert in the box.

Next week, more cards!

Doug Wheeler

What would April Fools’ Month be, without its chief prankster, Buster Brown? Buster’s creator, Richard Felton Outcault, turned Buster into one of the earliest mega-merchandised comics characters. Today’s posting is extracted from one of the rarer Buster Brown giveaway comics (and one still not found in the Overstreet listings — I discovered its existence years after ending my involvement with their “Platinum Age” (i.e., Hearst-Era) and Victorian Age comics sections).

Above is the front cover of a 1905 promotional giveaway, I’ll label “Mr. Melville B. Raymond’s Buster Brown”. Raymond was the author/producer/promoter of “Buster Brown” stage musicals, which played first in New York City, and eventually had four touring companies.

From its expensive production values (over-sized 16-page magazine, with eight color pages — six of which reprint Sunday section Buster Brown comic strip stories by Outcault; with the remainding pages filled with photos from the play — I at first glance thought this was a souvenir pamphlet that would have been sold at shows. But reading it, one can see that it is promoting upcoming shows, and would have been a giveaway item, in advance (distributed??? not sure how — I’d guess minimally this would have been free for the taking at theaters where the Buster Brown play would be coming. The pamphlet (which has the dimensions of songsheets of the day, and is printed on paper found in the better Buster Brown collections from Stokes), reprints clips from reviews, dated the last week of January 1905, and the first week of February 1905, so we know that February 1905 is the earliest it could have possibly been printed. The bottom of the front cover is hand-stamped “Sep 4 – 1905″ and “MIDDLETOWN, NY”, which tells us multiple things: 1) Most obviously, my copy was used to promote a September 4th, 1905 showing of the play, in Middletown, NY; 2) sets the publication date of the pamphlet as definitively 1905; and 3) shows that Raymond printed up a bunch of these, without the dates/locations of shows, then simply hand-stamped copies with that information, as needed.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the pages in detail, and better read their texts.

Beneath, scanned from the pamphlet, which reprinted them from the New York Herald Sunday Funnies, we have “Buster Brown — Photographer” &amp “Buster Brown, He Puts Tobasco Sauce on the Lion’s Lunch”.

Below, scenes from the Raymond’s “Buster Brown” play. In 1906, Outcault sued Raymond, for precisely what, I don’t know. Raymond had created a new Buster Brown play, plus has been involved in an Edison Films short version of Buster. Either one (or both) might have triggered his falling out with Outcault (I speculate).

Doug Wheeler

AdvertisingStrips TheatricalCartoons R.F. Outcault Richard F. Outcault

For April Fools’ Month, every Friday we’ll be presenting all the parts to the 1919 card game of Rube Goldberg‘s “Foolish Questions” series of single panel cartoons. These came in two boxed sets from the Wallie Dorr Company, of 52 cards each, numbered 1 thru 52 for the first set, and 53 thru 104 in the second. (We’ll be presenting set 1.) Foolish Questions — which might have been more accurately labeled “Sarcastic Answers” — reprinted from its newspaper appearances, was also published in book, booklet, and giveaway advertising pamphlet form.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view them in greater detail, and be able to read their texts.

Above, we have the box top, while beneath follows the first twelve cards.

Below, a list of the first 35 cards. Next week, the next twelve cards, plus the Rules!

Doug Wheeler

To open April Fools’ Month, we present two pages from the 1925 collection, Cartoons from Life, in which artist Ellison Hoover uses contemporary comic strip characters to communicate editorial opinions (above), and to “improve” famous paintings (below).

Comic strips involved in these parodies include: Polly and Her Pals; Bringing Up Father; Captain and the Kids (or, Katzenjammer Kids; Krazy Kat; Barney Google; and Oh, Skinnay!.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.

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Doug Wheeler

NYLife