Wayback Whensday: Comic Strips
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The first and last weeks of Ted Shearer’s Quincy, the first Happy Hooligan strip, the death of Alex Raymond, a brief history of American newspaper comic strips by Jules Feiffer, Stefan Kanter, Arthur Asa Berger, Kurt Vonnegut, Roz Chast, and others, remembering Jeff Millar and Bill Hinds’ Tank McNamara of a half century ago, and an ask to help small press publisher Charles Pelto.
Firsts and Lasts: Quincy by Ted Shearer
After the relatively warm reception newspapers gave to Wee Pals, arguably the first mainstream newspaper strip to offer minority characters in non-stereotypical starring roles, you would think more such strips would have been offered to the market. And they were, but the rollout was slow, hobbled by what might be called the “one off-white toon” rule. Syndicates peddling strips starring minorities soon learned that feature editors had a simple and pat answer — “Oh, no, we’ve already got a black strip.”
Allan Holtz at Stripper’s Guide to Newspaper Comic History reproduces the syndicate proof sheets of the first week and the last week of Ted Shearer’s Quincy with background on the cartoonist and the comic strip.
Thus, Ted Shearer’s Quincy, a strip about a black kid in an urban environment, found very few takers. The strip looked fantastic, offering artwork that fairly pulsed with vibrancy. The writing did not shy away from realistic problems, like integration, urban blight and such, but with a light hand…
The Doings of Happy Hooligan
Here we present The Doings of Happy Hooligan by F. Opper (via Wikimedia Commons) from March 11, 1900 on the eve of the 125th anniversary of the comic strip’s first appearance.
The Strange Death of Alex Raymond
A Moment of Cerebus presents the opening to Dave Sim’s The Strange Death of Alex Raymond (proto version).
SPAN presents Comic Relief
In 1998 SPAN, a magazine published in New Delhi by The United States Information Service/American Embassy, printed original articles and reprint material from the U.S. magazine Civilization about the history of United States comic strips featuring articles by Jules Feiffer, Stefan Kanter, Pete Hamill, Kurt Vonnegut, Roz Chast, Arthur Asa Berger, and Span editor Lea Terhune.
‘Tank McNamara’ looked at America’s culture of winning
Have you ever wondered what would happen if a sports team learned that, to advance in the standings or earn some award, they had to lose a game?
That idea was addressed some 50 years ago by Jeff Millar and Bill Hinds in their comic strip, “Tank McNamara.” In the opening strip of the story, one of the characters, Sweatsox, is told by the officials of his youth baseball league, that, due to a quirk in the split-season set-up they had for that year, the team he coached, the Kats, would be in the playoffs if they lost their final game of the season.
From the Dugout John Gutekunst at the Parker Pioneer remembers a Tank McNamara story from nearly a half century ago where Jeff Millar and Bill Hinds present an ethical dilemma to their character Sweatsox.
Classic Comics Press’ Charles Pelto: Health & Financial Struggles
Fans and enthusiasts of classic comic strip are indebted to Charles Pelto, publisher of Classic Comics Press and his series of books reprinting the high art of comic strips. Now Charles could use our help:
My name is Charles Pelto, and it seems like no matter what I do, things seem to be getting worse day by day…
I am now on the road to recovery, but my finances are in total chaos, and I really have no alternative but to ask for some real help. I am roughly 40 thousand dollars in debt, not able to work, have managed to max out my 401K, and am now living on monthly social security payments and a small pension.
Any extra bucks you can afford to throw Charles’ way (maybe a small part of your tax refund) would be great. Go to the Stand with Charles: Health & Financial Struggles gofundme page.
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