Comic history Comic strips

Washington Times Comics Poll (Comic Chronicles)

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D. D. Degg January 11, 2022 1 minute 2 comments

“The Washington Times is interested in ascertaining what cartoons its readers enjoy most,
and which are the least popular.”

That should read “was interested” for this is not the Moonie newspaper of 2022,
rather the Hearst newspaper of 100 years ago – January 11, 1922.

Whether the results of the survey were acted on is unknown. Six months later all the cartoonists continue to appear in the paper. By December of 1922 McGurk’s sports cartoon is gone replaced by the Jean Knott panel which in January of 1922 was only occasionally included on the pages. Fred Faber has also disappeared by December. The comics page had been reconfigured into two pages where all the comic strips were gathered and Jack Callahan and Frank Willard were added to the pages.

Also, come December ’22, T. E. Powers’ political cartoon is regularly featured instead of Opper’s.

All the comics mentioned were syndicated by the Hearst organization.

One not mentioned, and not distributed by a Hearst syndicate, was Fontaine Fox’s Toonerville Folks. That one vanished not long after the survey, but I doubt those two instances were related.