Not comics,per se, but comic books do play a big part in my actual 1976 daily Journal which completed its year-long run as a blog today at A Geek’s Journal-1976. Highly acclaimed by Boing-Boing, AOL, magazines, newspapers and dozens of blogs and link-sites over the past twelve months, the site will remain up for those who have yet to discover geeky 17 year old me.

http://geeksjournal1976.blogspot.com/

But…due to popular demand (and since I didn’t keep a journal in 1977), starting tomorrow we’re doing the whole thing all over again with a prequel—1974: A Geek’s First Journal! Here’s the link but it’s still under construction until Midnight tonight! Check back tomorrow and every day this next year to follow the surprisingly relatable adventures of 14 and 15 year old geeky me!

http://1974geeksfirstjournal.blogspot.com/

Let’s start today with Jim Steranko’s final adventure of his signature series, Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D., one of the best comic book stories of its day!

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/12/lo-there-shall-come-endings-week.html

Here’s what passes for Timely’s Golden Age Iron Man, Steve Dahlman’s Electro from Marvel Mystery Comics.

http://fourcolorshadows.blogspot.com/2011/12/electro-steve-dahlman-1940.html

Here’s something you don’t see that often-an original art page by Jack Kirby showing one of his trademark his cut ad paste collages.

http://s3.amazonaws.com/data.tumblr.com/tumblr_lwznm9YcdM1r93mfqo1_1280.jpg

Finally today, CNN’s Geek Out, like USA Today before them, counts Yoe’s Bob Powell’s Terror amongst the best of 2011!

http://geekout.blogs.cnn.com/2011/12/29/comic-books-get-unprecedented-creativity-in-2011/

Michael Angelo Woolf (above, left; born 1837), worked as a cartoonist from the 1850′s, until his death on March 4th, 1899. His work appeared in nearly all of the New York City-published comic periodicals of that period, as well as the many non-comic, but still cartoon carrying, publications by Harper and Frank Leslie. He was best known, and loved, for his sympathetic depictions of New York City’s slum-children, or “waifs”. He was likely influenced in this by the work of John Leech, in Punch, and he in turn influenced R.F. Outcault (who in one of his own slum-kid cartoons, showed one of the waifs holding a book by Woolf), and Britain’s Phil May, whose first published cartoons were in the London comic weekly Pick-Me-Up, which in the same issues as May appeared, was ripping off and re-publishing American waif cartoons by Woolf.

Click on the above & below pictures, to view them in greater detail.

There were three published collections of Woolf cartoons — together reprinting just a fraction of his work. Above right, the cover of the December 1899 issue of Judge’s Library, the theme that month being Waifs. While containing the work of other cartoonists, the issue, which reprints material which had originally appeared in Judge, is dominated by Woolf. Below, the title page from that issue.

Below, another cartoon from Waifs.

Above, the cover of the rarest of the Woolf collections, 99 “Woolf’s” from Truth, published in 1896, and reprinting cartoons which had originally appeared in Truth magazine. Below, two cartoons from inside the collection.

Above and below, the cover plus a few interior cartoons, from the 1899-published Sketches of Lowly Life in a Great City. This collection reprinted cartoons from a variety of sources.

Click here, to find prior Waifs postings.

Doug Wheeler

TruthMag JudgeMag WaifComics

Hey, I’m back! Credit WordPress with my absence as I was unable to access this site for a week! This being the third time this has happened over the past year, I’m starting to get a complex. I see Steve B. and Doug and DJ David and the rest of the gang has entertained you but booksteve is back (for now)! Let’s get Linkin’!

Let’s start with From Eternity Back to Here, the rare collaboration between volatile Harvey Kurtzman and volatile Bernie Krigstein, two of the great comics individualists of all time.

http://jeffoverturf.blogspot.com/2011/11/from-eternity-back-to-here-bernie.html

Jim Aparo, seen here, became the definitive artist on DC’s Spectre in the seventies in spite of having to follow in some pretty big footsteps.

http://diversionsofthegroovykind.blogspot.com/2011/12/lo-there-shall-come-endings-week-second.html

Bob Lubbers was quite a prolific newspaper strip artist back in the day and here we see a long run of his on The Saint.

http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2011/12/lot-of-bl-thursday-story-strip-day.html

Finally today, here’s a retrospective tribute to the catalogs of our friend Bud Plant who announced his retirement earlier this year. I used to live for these things to come in the mail!

http://goldenagecomicbookstories.blogspot.com/2011/12/bud-plant-tip-of-hat-to-bud-who.html

In honor of the coming political year — and old cartoons poking fun at the politics of their day — we present Joseph Keppler, Sr.‘s centerspread cartoon from the January 14th, 1885 issue of Puck magazine.

Click on the above cartoon, to view it in greater detail.

Titled Puck’s Political Hunting Ground — How He has Made Game of the Politicians, it shows Puck, with his hunting dogs Wit and Satire, with a collection of bagged game. (Monopolist & Wall Street stock market manipulator Jay Gould, is seen flying off in the background, having snatched his own share.

Happy Approaching New Year!

Doug Wheeler

NYPuck KepplerSr

Christmas always makes me think of Pogo, what with “Deck Us All With Boston Charlie” (see December 24, 2025) and all the other Walt Kelly holiday traditions (here and here).

So today, I’m posting two Christmas treats: A Sunday page (scanned from the author’s own collection) dated Christmas Day, 1960, and an impossibly rare song about Pogo by your friend and mine, Danny Dell. I wonder if he’s related to Dell Comics (“Dell Comics Are Good Comics”) publishers of Pogo?

Click the link below and enjoy this rare rockabilly record “Pogo Walk.”

Pogo Walk - Danny Dell

DC’s Rudolph the Red-Nose Reindeer comics from the 50’s and early 60’s haven’t been reprinted (well, not since the oversized Limited Collector’s Specials in the 70’s as well as 1980’s The Best of DC #4 digest), which is undoubtedly due to a combination of low to nonexistent demand and complicated copyright issues. This is a shame since while the stories drawn primarily by Rube Grossman (if you’re thinking, “Wasn’t Rudolph written and drawn by Sheldon Meyer?”, you’re thinking about the new material published in the 1970s) aren’t exactly great comics they’re at least on par with the rest of DC’s anthropomorphic humor output of the period (Peter Porkchops, Raccoon Kids, etc.) Meaning they’re nicely nonthreatening, mildly amusing little kids comics (what are known as “nursery titles” in the UK). But mostly they’re interesting because of the different spin they put on the Rudolph mythology, especially his relationship with Santa.

The outcast misfit from the cartoon special always carried himself with a lot of quiet dignity, especially compared to the goofy egomaniac of the DC comics. Though I suppose this version of Rudolph was intended to be a stand-in for the audience; a well intentioned, but easily distracted kid prone to be flighty and forgetful, always being distracted from his many “duties” (apparently the job description for “Santa’s Reindeer” is extremely vague, given the number of strange side jobs Santa fobs off on him) by his fame. Which a modern reader might confuse with demonstrating good self esteem. But in the end Santa allows the wayward reindeer back into the fold – once he abases himself enough.

The stories are full of fairly disturbing scenes of life at the North Pole and examples of the capricious nature of Santa’s love, who’s an even bigger jerk that the one from the animated holiday special. In this story, from the last issue published in the 60’s, when Santa discovers that there’s a country (other than Saudi Arabia) where Christmas is forbidden instead of expressing sympathy for its children who have never known the joy and love of Christmas his response is, “That king has a lot of nerve, butting in on my territory!”. What an asshat.

One of our Christmas presents today, is a preview of our upcoming monthly celebration of Cartoons Magazine‘s Centennial Year. Cartoons Magazine began publication in January 1912, reprinting the editorial cartoons of its day. Naturally, there was a delay of a month or two between a cartoon’s first appearance in the newspapers, and its re-presentation in Cartoons Magazine. Thus, each of the below Christmas-themed cartoons, appeared in the January 1912 debut issue…

The above and below cartoons were both reprinted smaller than the presentation here (they occupied only a quarter of a page), which is why these are difficult to read. The jist of the above strip is obvious.

The joke of the below strip, by cartoonist Clare Briggs, involves a wife asking her husband what he wants for Christmas. He answers “A new bowling ball”. She writes down a new bowling ball. She asks him what else. He gives that answer, and she writes that down. She asks and what else? And he lists something else again, and she writes that as well. Christmas Day, she gives him a tie, and he politely responds, “Just what I wanted.”

To find previous posts involving Christmas Comics, click here.

Year 1912 issues of Cartoons Magazine (hopefully, better in focus), will follow every month.

Doug Wheeler

Christmas Comics Waifs CartoonsMagazine191201

No song (‘cuz it’s not Tuesday) but here’s some rare holiday cheer courtesy of Walt Kelly.

Coming Events Cast Their Dreams Before, from the December 26th, 1903 issue of Judge magazine, depicting President Teddy Roosevelt, dreaming on Christmas Eve of his hoped for re-election in 1904. We’ll be seeing much more of Teddy Roosevelt, his fights against the Trusts (i.e., monopolies), and his 1912 run for President as a third party candidate, here on SuperITCH through out 2012.

Click on the above cartoon, to view a larger version, plus read the text.

To find previous posts involving Christmas Comics, click here.

Doug Wheeler

Christmas Comics ElectionComics JudgeMag