So okay, I’m taking a breath for January, after having posted with ridiculous frequency last year. I’ll be drawn back into it soon enough.

For now, some filler material I scanned awhile ago. The above episode of Maud, by artist Frederick Burr Opper, appeared on the rear cover of the September 13th, 1906 issue of Hearst’s American Home and Farm.

Click on the above picture to enlarge & read it.

Doug Wheeler

— Doug

For Christmas, we conclude our Santa in various mechanical transport comics, with a 1909 episode of Little Johnny & the Taffy Possums, by John R. Bray (art) and Robert D. Towne (script), featuring Santa delivering his presents by dirigible. Little Johnny ran on the rear cover of Judge magazine, plus was reprinted in some newspapers in their Sunday Comics section. The title began life as Little Johnny & the Teddy Bears (1907-08), with Possums replacing the Bears in 1909.

Click on the above comic strip, to view it in detail, and read its captions.

Doug Wheeler

Tigwissel Tuesdays JudgeMag Christmas Comics

Today, one final example of a 1912 comic strip book, that comics fans of a century ago might have hoped to find waiting for them, beneath the Christmas tree — Joys & Glooms, by T.E. Powers, reprinting comics which had appeared in the newspaper New York American.

Powers’ strip was populated with tiny characters, which represented a variety of emotions, but most often used were those representing “Joy” and “Gloom”. Above, on the front cover, along the top runs a row of dancing yellow “Joys”, while along the bottom trudge the purple “Glooms”.

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

Below, a full list of Powers’ cast of emotions.

Above, presentation signature to Stewart Knapp from his parents, showing that this copy was once a gift (albeit not dated when or for what occasion). Below, sample extracts from the book.

NOTE: for all double-page samples, read first the top tier of panels across both pages, then the next tier of panels across both pages…

Doug Wheeler

— Doug

We continue our presentation of books comic strip fans of one century ago, might have hoped to find beneath their tree. Today, we’re extracting from a copy that actually was given as a present one Christmas (see the gift signature beneath, found written in the book — a common practice in that time which would set modern condition-conscious fans spinning…).

Published in 1912 by the Ball Publishing Company, the Doings of the The Van-Loons by artist Fred I. Leipziger, collects the daily newspaper strip of the same title.

The front cover of the book is shown above. Below (underneath the signature) is the title page, followed by several cartoon pages. As you likely noticed, the gift signature is signed 1922 — a decade after the book was published. The book (not one of the more popular titles) likely sat in a bookstore that long. (Or maybe brother Ted was saving himself a little money, by re-gifting his copy.)

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the pages in detail, and read the word balloons.

Doug Wheeler

Christmas Comics

This being the time to shop for gifts, let’s take a peek at what the comic strip fan of a century ago, might have hoped to find waiting for them beneath the tree. And what better gift to begin with, than Silk Hat Harry’s Divorce Suit, by Thomas A. Dorgan (who went by the nickname “Tad”)?

The wonderful thing about Silk Hat Harry (published 1912, by M.A. Donohue & Co., Chicago), is that giving it could double as a hint to family members, of changes soon to come following the Holidays! Such a perfect collection to convey that Christmas Spirit!

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

Above, the front cover of Silk Hat Harry’s Divorce Suit; beneath, the title page; below that, some sample daily strips, reprinted in the book.

Below, the illustration appearing on the front & back interior covers.

Doug Wheeler

Women’s History Women’s Suffrage Suffragette

Next in our Native American Heritage Month coverage, we’ve scanned part of the Little Jimmy section, from the 1934 Book 2 of Famous Comics. Each of Famous Comics’ three issues collected daily comic strips of three different series. In Book 2, the run of artist James Swinnerton’s strip, Little Jimmy, crossed over with another Swinnerton strip: Canyon Kiddies, set in the Arizona Southwest, and featuring idealized Native children.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the strips in greater detail, and read it.

Doug Wheeler

NativeAmericanHistory

Next in our Native American Heritage Month coverage, we have the October 1930-published Pictorial History of New Brunswick, reprinting twenty-five strips by George A. Bradshaw, which ran in the New Brunswick Sunday Times.

The first strip focuses on the natives, ending in panel four with Dutch troops suddenly entering the picture, to “demand satisfaction from the Indians for depredations committed upon white settlers on Staten Island”. As expected, this completely ignores the fact that Europeans were the invaders, and that “Staten Island” is the name given it, by those who took it.

The next three strips in the series, deal mostly in Europeans purchasing land from other Europeans, skipping over the details of just how that land became “owned” by those Europeans in the first place. Mention of Native Americans rapidly diminishes in these strips, with their complete disappearance after the fourth strip unexplained — as if the natives had just magically disappeared…

Pictorial History of New Brunswick is in line in its treatment of Native Americans with several other “cartoon histories” produced around this same time. Some of these, I’m certain we’ll see in future years, in this series.

Click on the below strips, to view them in more detail, and read them.

Doug Wheeler

NativeAmericanHistory

This week’s comic swipe at science, comes courtesy of writer/artist Richard Felton Outcault, and his creation, Buster Brown.

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

“Yep! It Exploded!” appeared first in the New York Herald Sunday comics section, and then was reprinted in the 1916 Buster Brown collection, The Little Rogue (front cover shown below)

To find the prior comic science episodes of Tigwissel Tuesdays, click here.

Doug Wheeler

R.F. Outcault

I’d initially planned to run one of Buster Brown‘s typically nasty pranks for Mother’s Day, as I’ve done the past two years. But while searching, I came across this even more appropriate story, instead. So, extracted from the 1910 to 1911 collection, Buster Brown’s Fun and Nonsense, is Buster Gets Up to See the Sunrise by Richard Felton Outcault. Enjoy!

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

Below, the front cover from Fun and Nonsense.

Doug Wheeler

R.F. Outcault

The vast majority of 19th & early 20th century comics on the subject of Easter focused on the obsession to dress one’s best for the day, be seen in the latest fashions, and show up everyone else in church that Sunday (as opposed to anything about religion). As this angle on the subject can be a bit lame (and admittedly, I found the April 1912 Cartoons Magazine page on Easter to not be strong enough to stand on its own), I’ve thrown in the above Easter page from a second source.

Above, How Lulu’s Easter Dress Was Saved, by comic artist F.M. Howarth. Originally published in 1903 as an episode of the weekly Sunday newspaper comic strip, The Love of Lulu and Leander, the scan above comes from its reprinting in the 1904-published Hearst-Era comic album, Lulu and Leander (front cover shown below).

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

Beneath, a page on fashion, which Cartoons Magazine labeled “Easter!” It could have been from any of their monthly fashion parody pages. Amongst the artists is James H. Donahey issue.

Doug Wheeler