The Chic Young Estate is offering, via Nate D. Sanders, over 80 early Blondie comic strips and some of the toppers associated with it. The strips range from 1931, the second year of the strip, to 1951.
This is some comic strip history! During these years Blondie became the most widely syndicated comic strip. (Blondie would be the first comic strip to be syndicated to 1,000 newspapers, eventually becoming one of very few comic strips whose circulation would exceed 2,000 papers.)
What surprises me is no mention of Chic Young’s assistants and ghosts of the time. From 1931 to 1933 famed comic strip artist Alex Raymond assisted on the strip, that should be a big selling point.
I’m not a big identifier of art, but that guy on bended knees in the strip above?
That’s an Alex Raymond drawing.
Later in the 1930s Alex’s brother Jim Raymond would become the artist, staying on until he died in 1981. Jim created the iconic images of the strip’s characters; a model all other artists would follow.
Is the above strip the first appearance of Mr. Dithers?
Below Jim Raymond’s Colonel Potterby and the Duchess.
Also up for auction is a bunch of Sheldon Mayer comics.
to John Adcock for the heads up.