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

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”Space Week” concludes with Space Detective #4. the fourth and final issue of a short-lived quarterly series from the publisher Avon.

Although the covers stressed that our hero was named “Rod Hathaway” inside he learn that was the name of the main characters secret identity, a wealthy far future philanthropist who secretly fought evil as Avenger. No definitive article, just “Avenger”. Along with identifying the writer of the first issue as pulp legend Walter Gibson the site suggests this elaborate name dodge was to keep from fringing on Magazine Enterprises character that was also called Avenger.

Hathway’s secretary Dot Kenny fought alongside him, using the fear inspiring pseudonym of…Teena. So, basically they weren’t so much “space detectives” but rather a pair of sort of costumed pseudo-superheroes who somehow managed to keep their true identities secret without benefit of any kind of disguise. The first issue featured art by Joe Orlando and Wally Wood and while lesser hands took over after the first issue the stories remained weird, sexy fun.

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

From Cartoons Magazine, we have coverage of the Ohio River Flood of 1913. Last Year’s Earth Day posting, however, included the Ohio River Flood of 1883, so doing so on that day would have been repetitious.

Above, from the March 1913 issue, we have cartoons by Charles “Doc” Winner, Stinson, and Billy DeBeck

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

Above & below, are cartoons from the May 1913 issue.

The artists above are Gaar Williams, “Doc” Winner, Ole May, Tom May, Milton R. Halladay, and John Scott Clubb.

Beneath, cartoons by Fred Morgan, Lynch, W.A. Ireland, Ole May, and DeBeck.

Doug Wheeler

NYPuck Billy Ireland

Space Week continues at Comic Book Compulsive and this time the focus is on yet another obscure Atlas comic you might not have heard of. Attempting to take advantage of America’s then current mania for outer space and space travel as seen in kids shows like Captain Video and Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, between 1951 and 1952 Atlas Comics published five issues of Space Squadron.

Given the several ads scattered through out #1 nearly begging readers to sign up for a one year subscription Stan Lee obviously thought for once he had caught lightning in a bottle with a comic. But predictably such wasn’t the case. Here are two stories featuring Space Squadron‘s hero Captain Jet Dixon with art by George Tuska. If there’s one thing wrong with this comic it’s the writing, though it’s not so much the quality as the volume. Starting with the cover page after page of Space Squadron is littered with word balloons filled to the bursting with mostly unnecessary text tangling dangerously close to some pretty nice art by George Tuska.

A number of cartoonists have been involved in theater. One of them was Frederick Burr Opper. Above, a cartoon by Opper, from the October 4th, 1884 issue of Puck magazine. Beneath, Opper illustrated ads for the mid-1880′s play, Mugg’s Landing. These came from a folding card handout.

Click on Theatrical Cartoons to find prior postings on this subject.

Doug Wheeler

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We’re in our fourth week of Road Runner Month and we’re not stopping. We’re not even slowing down! Here at I.T.C.H. HQ we’re out to prove that there are more songs about Road Runner than about any other cartoon character. Already this month we’ve heard three. And these aren’t just different records, but completely different songs.

This Tuesday’s tune comes to us courtesy of The Royal Guardsmen. That’s right, the same group of guys who gave us a whole bunch of songs about Snoopy. (Probably another record-holder, but Snoopy is more of a comic strip character than a cartoon character.) This is a cartoony cover version of Bo Diddley’s “Road Runner” which we shared way back in 2008.

Click the link below and enjoy!

Road Runner - The Royal Guardsmen

There’s nothing that I can really say about this mid-50′s issue of the British comic Spaceman, other than the obvious. It’s definitely of interest as an artifact, evidence of just how big the interest in space and space travel was back in the 50′s, even in England. Plus it’s a prime example of how during this era publishers other than Fleetway and DC Thomson tried their hands at comics. And of course it features a space hero named Captain Future who is completely unrelated to either the American pulp and comic book heroes of the same name. I suppose it’s better to commend the ambition involved in trying to take on the big publishers at their own game as well as compliment the talent involved. Which I’m going to go ahead and assume is the work of a bunch of enthusiastic teenagers trying to imitate American comic books who were willing to work for what I’m going to assume was next to nothing. As it has been pointed out to me while the work is rough and raw the artists involved aren’t completely untalented, and I don’t want to be (as the kids used to say ten years ago) a “hater”, but to me this looks more like an American fanzine from the 60′s than a professional comic.

Americans’ favorite day of the year has arrived – Income Tax Day!! Hurray!

Above, from the April 1913 edition of Cartoons Magazine, artist W.A. Ireland’s depiction of our joy!

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

Below, from June 1916, Jay Norwood “Ding” Darling shows us the generosity of the wealthy, willing to allow the rest of us to have more joy than is our share!

Doug Wheeler

Billy Ireland

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