Jimmy Dodge-a-Job and the Little Folks of Tumbledown Town
Allan Holtz presents us with most wonderful samples of cartooning from 1918. Two full pages of Jimmy Dodge-a-Job from the mysterious James Stewart makes one wonder why he did not reach a justly deserved fame.
Teena by Hilda Terry
HIlda Terry gained fame more for reasons other than her twenty years career as a comic strip cartoonist.
Redscraper explains:
Theresa Hilda Fellman, later Theresa Hilda D’Alessio after marriage, generally known as Hilda Terry (1914-2006), holds the historical footnote of being the first woman to be accepted into the National Cartoonists Society… And so Terry tends to get mentioned in articles about female cartoonists because of her ground-breaking inclusion in the NCS… but focusing on the aforementioned trail-blazing tends to overshadow Terry’s main comic strip Teena, which is genuinely fun…
So Who’s Out There celebrates Hilda Terry’s cartooning abilities.
From Rocky to Elzie to Popeye
above photos from The Southern Illinoisan via Snopes
For 10 years, [Elzie Segar] had been drawing the syndicated “Thimble Theatre” comic strip. After a slow start, it gradually developed a following during the 1920s as more and more newspapers began carrying it…
Now Segar was looking for a new wrinkle. Ham Gravy and Castor Oil devised a scheme to break the bank at a casino on Dice Island. But first, they needed an experienced sailor to skipper their boat…
As Segar mulled the sailor he needed for his comic strip, he ultimately decided, “Why create someone from scratch when I already know the perfect one?”
Rocky was the town character. And that was putting it mildly. In a region known for colorful coots, Rocky stood out from the pack.
J. Mark Powell, for The Courier Journal, profiles Frank ‘Rocky’ Fiegel.
A Typical Golden Age Comic Section
Tarzan, Ella Cinders, Chris Crusty, Dixie Dugan, James S. Brown, Jr. – Ace Cameraman, It’s Papa Who Pays, Toots and Casper, The Gumps, Aunt Min, Tillie the Toiler, Tillie the Toiler Fashion Parade, Joe Palooka, Charlie Chan, Hoosegow Herman
Rosie’s Beau, Bringing Up Father, The Nebbs, Simp O’Dill, Alexander Smart, Esq., Daffy Doodles, Elmer, Li’l Abner, Captain Easy, Peter Rabbit, Dinglehoofer und His Dog, The Katzenjammer Kids, Prince Valiant
Toonerville Folks, Napoleon, Ming Foo, Little Annie Rooney, Alley Oop, Scientists Say:, Colonel Potterby and the Duchess, Blondie, Hall of Fame of the Air, Ace Drummond, Nicodemus O’Malley and His Whale, Gran’pa, Just-Kids, Curley Harper, Tim Tyler’s Luck
Animation Resources presents the three-section 24-page 42-comic Times-Picayune Sunday Funnies from June 25, 1939 with Burne Hogarth, George McManus, Fontaine Fox, Ham Fisher, Al Capp, Roy Crane, Hal Foster, Nick Afonsky, V. T. Hamlin, and many others famed cartoonists.
Walt Kelly, George Ward, Henry Shikuma and POGO
We end as we began – with wonderful samplings of cartooning as Todd Klein takes us on an extended look at Walt Kelly‘s lettering of his early comic books and Pogo, following up with Pogo letterers George Ward and Henry Shikuma.
images © King Features Syndicate, Edgar Rice Burroughs Inc., the Estate of Fontaine Fox, Okefenokee Glee and Perloo Inc.
I don’t feel all that old till I look at the skimpy Sunday comics sections of today and I remember that, when I was a kid in the ’50s, my grandparents, with whom we then lived, subscribed to bothe the Milwaukee Journal and the Milwaukee Sentinel, both of which had two full sections of comics on Sundays that took almost an hour for me to read. Sure, I was barely in grade school and had only just learned how, but they also read both Sunday comics pages from the two papers on the radio at 9:00 AM–and that took a whole half hour to listen to, which was harder because they had to describe the drawings. If it took five minutes to read today’s sections on the radio, I’d be surprised, because who listens to the radio?
I echo your comments, Mike. I was a kid in the ’40s and ’50s. My folks took the Sunday editions of The Chicago Sun-Times and The Milwaukee Journal. Going through the comics was a luxurious endeavor after getting home from church and having lunch. Great early afternoon reading, for sure.
And in the 50s I used to read the (unfortunately) Tab-size comics sections of both the Vancouver Sun and the Vancouver Province, and then ride my bike about a mile up to the shops, to buy the Seattle P-I, and sometimes the Seattle Times. The latter two were still broadsheet size. I luxuriated in the enormous Prince Val pages, stretched out before me on the floor of our den. Damn it, where can I get a time machine, to go back . . .