In this year’s survey we lost one paper, the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, not because the paper went out of business but because the information is not available online. But we did get two papers returning that were not available for the previous year, so this survey covers 256 papers.
The Penny Satirist, which called itself “a weekly satirical newspaper” featured the first sustained use of front-page political cartoons in London. The first number of the Penny Satirist arrived in the streets of London on April 22, 1837. That title came to an end on April 25, 1843, and the paper was continued as the London Pioneer. Benjamin Cousins was the printer.
George W. Peck (1840-1916) moved to Wisconsin from New York in 1843 with his family to what now is known as Cold Spring. It is located north of Whitewater in Jefferson County.
Peck’s Bad Boy was modeled after street-wise children who committed delinquent and unruly acts only to become reprimanded and held accountable for their bad deeds. For example, a bad boy would be thrown out of a drug store for stealing candy or playing pranks on the pharmacist. Or a bad boy would be in trouble at home and punished by an authoritative parent or guardian. At the end of each chapter or story, a moral and lesson was learned.
A comic-strip artist never knew the color they would get on their Sunday strips. They could indicate the desired hues and tones, but never be assured of the result. Newspaper comic strips may be unique in the history of art designed for reproduction in that the artist and the publisher both lacked any substantive control over how the danged things were printed!
