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Harold Teen by Carl Ed was one of the first comic strips to feature a main character and cast who were all teenagers. Starting in 1919, long before characters like Archie and his Riverdale friends were around, Harold was showing people what it was like to be a teen in the early 20th century. Ed claims that there weren't any comic strips that were doing that at the time, and I'm inclined to believe him. At the very least there weren't any that reached the height of popularity that Harold Teen did, or spawn nearly as much merchandise as it did. Most comic strips at that time dealing with younger folk were centered around young children, but after Harold Teen the popularity of strips about teenagers grew quite rapidly. It was a pioneer to be sure, if not creating a genre of strip then at the very least popularizing it.

Here we see one of Harold's best friends, Shadow Smart, trying to think of a Christmas present to get the local girl all the guys have a crush on, Lillums Lovewell, and coming up with enterprising ways of getting the money to buy it. Much like Corky, although he does earn the money he needs, he unfortunately spends all of it on soda and never buys her anything. This will probably not be a big deal to her, as I imagine she has plenty of suitors and will be receiving a large number of gifts from them, and therefore won't really mind not getting a gift from Shadow. Still, one would hope that in the future Shadow, like Corky, would learn to budget his money better.