With the approach of April Fool’s Month (one day is not nearly enough!), it seems appropriate to conclude this year’s Women’s History Month coverage, with a bit of silliness — Photo Funnies from the April 27th, 1895 issue of the New York City publication, The Standard.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and better read the words within them.

The Standard was one of a handful of 1890s/early 1900s periodicals, that fairly regularly featured photo funnies (or, “fumetti”). Sequential photographic comic strips were hardly something new — going back to the late 1850s in the format of series of stereographic cards — but it wasn’t really until the 1890s that printing technology allowed for mass, cheap reproduction of photographs in magazines and newspapers. I suspect there was a certain degree of overlap between printed photo funnies and stereograph sequences (there are certainly instances I’ve spotted of cartoonists stealing from stereograph sequences — and vice-versa). And even more likely, an overlap in camera crews, actors, and studio sets involved. But I’ve not yet explored that possibility.

At any rate, the type of comedic material The Standard (and at least one other parallel publication) regularly featured — as you can see in the example shown here — tended to be more out-there risque than American & British (at least) stereoviews tended to go.

The “sequence” of events in these photographs (and to be more accurate, some of these have combined images of photographed players, placed atop/in front of cartoon or drawn backgrounds; with the last scene, below, being purely cartoon), is somewhat artificial. They all refer to the same/similar incident, but I’ve rearranged them to read in a more fun, sequential manner — this is not the order they appeared in the magazine.

Finally, I’d like to point out the similarity of the above 1895 photographic comedy, with the below panel from an 1851 comic book I posted here earlier this month… (Clicking on the below picture, will take you to that comic book.)

Doug Wheeler

NYStandard

This year for Valentine’s Day, we present the British fold-out comic strip booklet, Cupid & Crinoline. Published on October 20th, 1858, creator Thomas Onwhyn parodies the impediment to romance that the popular women’s fashion known as a “hoop skirt”, or, “Crinoline”, imposed.

Click here to find previous Valentine’s Day postings.

To complete the story (never mind that it really has no ending), the final panel below comes from the website of rare book dealer David Brass. (My copy does have the final panel — however, I would have had to break the spine of the booklet, to get it to lie flat on my scanner — luckily, David Brass has that panel posted on his website.)

ADDENDUM December 22, 2013: Ian Alcock has pointed out to me, that the reason the above “has no ending”, is because my copy is missing the ending! I am apparently missing the final two panels (as are every other internet visual presentation of this book that I’ve seen, including the David Brass copy I reference above — which is why I had thought my copy was complete…) From Ian, “…some (copies), like yours, do lack the last two (panels). The reason is that the panorama was often pasted to the backboard on the 10th panel, with 1-9 opening to the left and 11/12 opening to the right, so the seem between 10/11 was a weak point where splits occurred. The ending of the story is that in fear of being buried alive, Adolphus fears he must leave Kitty (11), but then Kitty discards her expander and resumes her own lovely figure and Adolphus -and Fido- are happy again.”

Doug Wheeler

ValentinesDay Women’s History

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

The above comes from the rear cover of the December 1932 issue of Americana, after the conclusion of the Presidential race between Herbert Hoover and Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

Doug Wheeler

ElectionComics AmericanaMag

The Cartoons Magazine for May 1912, placed focus on three cartoonists.

Above, photos and brief biographies of American cartoonists Fontaine Fox (whose first name they managed to mispell) and William Allen Rogers.

Beneath, early work by Danish artist Gerda Wegener (warning to those at work: clicking on her name will bring you to a site which includes samples of some of Wegener’s more sexually oriented work). Cartoons Magazine referred to Wegener as Europe’s answer to American female cartoonist, Nell Brinkley — whom ironically, to this point, Cartoons Magazine had yet to publish anything by.

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

Doug Wheeler

W.A. Rogers

Every issue of Cartoons Magazine contained pages of cartoons from around the world, the April 1912 fourth issue being no exception. Today’s posting concentrates on (some) of the cartoons from Europe.

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

Above, What to Let Others Overhear, by British cartoonist W.K. Haselden. Beneath, cartoons from Germany, France, Hungary, and, England (the latter via artist Lawson Wood.

Above & below, two more examples from France.

A second posting of European cartoons from the April 1912 issue will appear next week.

Doug Wheeler

Fliegende Blatter Pele Mele LeRire JournalAmusant London Sketch Emile Villemot

Today’s extracts from the February 1912 issue of Cartoons Magazine, focus on some of the changes in society circa 1912. Of course, nearly all these changes are from foreign sources (London, Munich, Paris, Berlin)! Curse those dirty Europeans, for taking Parlor Hour away from us!

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

Above, a strip by Cliff Sterrett, who later in 1912 would create Polly and Her Pals.

Doug Wheeler

Women’s History

I’m approaching two years here on SuperI.T.C.H., during which what examples of Women’s Suffrage cartoons I’ve shown have basically been in March, during Women’s History Month. However, female suffrage appeared frequently as a subject in Cartoons Magazine, so count on seeing a few examples throughout this year, as I continue to post month-by-month extracts in honor of that magazine’s centennial anniversary. Above, from the January 1912 issue, is a page of cartoons from three different cities, where in each, city mayors are finding themselves confronted by the power of women, whether they yet have the right to vote or not.

Below, simultaneous to presenting the issue of Women’s Suffrage, Cartoons Magazine (as representative of the nation’s newspapers and magazines in general), would in the same publication, present women as generally concerned with fashion, and competing in it against each other. This could — in publications of that time — subtly undercut any pro-suffrage cartoons. Showing both here together — as they were back in the day — gives a more complete view of the overall atmosphere and culture.

Each of the below cartoons, originated in European publications. But they also appeared in various American newspapers and magazines, as many were in the habit of regularly running a few translated foreign cartoons.

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

Finally, below, an image that would have been great for next month’s Valentine’s and Super Bowl. An All the Year Sport, depicts a young woman of the Age, as heart breaker, punting men’s hearts.

Doug Wheeler

ElectionCartoons football Ole May

Returning to both the themes of Women’s History Month, and Pre-YK “Talking” Comic Strips (sequential cartoons wherein the story is conveyed via pictures combined with in-panel dialogue, published prior to the supposed “invention” of same format in the October 25th, 1896 episode of The Yellow Kid), we have a few cartoon advertising strips, each aimed at women, pertaining those areas that 19th century America regarded as Woman’s Domain.

Above, we have a late 1870s/early 1880s ad for “Domestic” Sewing Machines (“Domestic” was a brand). Although single panel, the left and right halves could easily be broken into two panels, with the dialogue being voiced by Cupid (speaking into the telephone), clearly coming in reaction to the words spoken by the woman at left. Having received a proposal of marriage, the woman answers, “Yes, on condition that you buy me a Domestic with new woodwork and attachments.” In response, Cupid gets on the telephone (already in use in the 1870s), and immediately orders one.

The telephone’s distinguishing attribute — shared in the 19th century with parrots and phonographs — was as a non-human from which words could emerge. This prompted cartoonists to visually depict that uniqueness by placing such dialogue in-panel with a greater frequency than otherwise — the more normal practice of the day of placing text & dialogue beneath each comics panel, just not cutting it when dealing with a parrot or a talking machine.

Click on the pictures above & below, to see larger versions.

Below, from an 1884/85 trade card, an ad for J. & P. Coats’ Spool Cotton, clearly broken into before-and-after panels, with what is happening conveyed via the two characters’ in-panel dialogue.

Next, another example of before-and-after sequential panels, with the message told via word balloons. From the rear of an 1868 advertising flyer/4-page pamphlet, for White Wire Lines (clothes lines).

Next, for Cooley’s Cork Corset, a circa 1870s/1880s “metamorphic” trade card wherein the before-and-after panels are achieved by folding down part of the card to reveal a second image (a folding-image trick utilized years later on the rear covers of MAD Magazine). (To read the woman’s dialogue in the second image, you’ll need to click on the picture to make it larger.)

Finally, an incredibly racist circa 1880s/early 1890s ad for Arm & Hammer Baking Soda (one of several in this vein that they did). The three panels result from a tri-fold metamorphic card. As with the others above, this is being shown as an example of pre-YK multi-panel sequential comics, told via in-panel dialogue.

Next week, continuing Women’s History Month and Pre-YK Talkies, we’ll show Part One of a very early Pre-YK sequential comic novelette, told entirely via word balloons.

Doug Wheeler

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In honor (a day early) of St. Patrick’s Day, a pair of (non-Outcault authorized) Yellow Kid ephemera. Above, a rear cover advertisement, found on the back of an 1890s music sheet, featuring an obvious Yellow Kid rip-off. Below, the front & back covers plus interior from a flyer advertising one (of several) theatrical versions of McFadden’s Row of Flats. This version featured the Yellow Kid Twins, who starred in the parallel, rival Hogan’s Alley drawn by George Luks for the New York World. The World/Luks cartoon ran for a year opposite the New York Journal American/Outcault version of Yellow Kid, when William Randolph Hearst’s hiring of Outcault away from the World, resulted in a dispute over ownership of the character.

Click on the pictures above & below, to open larger versions.

Doug Wheeler

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