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Dooley's World was a comic strip that ran from 1972 to 1978, and centered around a young boy named Dooley and his living toys. Every year on Christmas Eve, the strip would have the same joke, with the characters trying to recite the poem "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" only for Max the mouse to be unable to complete it. Had the strip run for a few more years, Max may have finally been able to do it, but unfortunately it didn't last as long as it should have.

Dooley's World was created by Roger Bradfield, who spent most of his career as an illustrator, with Dooley's World being his only venture into comic strips. He is probably best known for creating the original look of the Keebler Elves, and for doing many illustrations for the front of cereal boxes. His style was minimal but fun, and while a joy to look at it definitely belongs to another time.

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High Pressure Pete is a lesser known creation by George Swanson, who signed his work and is credited as "Swan." Swanson is better known for his earlier strip Salesman Sam. How Pete came about is very similar to how Gene Ahern's Room and Board did (see an earlier post for more info on that strip): King Features Syndicate wanted Swanson to do Salesman Sam for them, though they couldn't use that title or the characters. Therefore, Charles Small continued to do Salesman Sam at the Newspaper Enterprise Association, and Swanson moved to King Features and created High Pressure Pete, which had the same characters with different names and the same overall theme. It lasted for about 10 years, and ended around the same time Salesman Sam did.

In this strip, Pete is the one on the far left in the first panel, and the fuming one on the far right is his boss, Hank Hookem. I imagine Hank is upset because the gift implies that he has no hair. It seems well-meaning, though, as it's…

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This one's a little different, as it's basically just Al Capp giving holiday greetings to a bunch of people, along with a drawing of himself in a Santa Claus outfit. It's probably a bit hard to read, so I've transcribed it for you below:

"To the vets in the vets' hospitals - and to the fine Red Cross gals who take me out to see you - to Father David Dunnigan - Rabbi Isadore Davidson - Levi Jackson - Harold Russell - Walter Winchell - to the man who marinates the herring at Toots Shor's - Joe Dineed, and his amazing 'Purple Shamrock' - John Mason Brown - John Crosby - Arthur Godfrey- Nancy O. - Secretary of Labor Tobin - Miltons Caniff and Berle - Lee and Connie Falk - Rabbi Philip Bernstein - the Saroyans - Jack Goodman - Tex and Jinx - Leila and Kip Hadley - Chic Young - Rube Goldberg - Bob Ruark - Henry Morgan - Colby College - Faye Emerson - Reg Beauchamp - Helen Hayes and Charlie McArthur - Oona and Charlie Chaplin - Drew…

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These are the last two days of Hal Fosters The Christmas Story series. It's interesting to note that while this series originally ran only once in 1948, it was also re-released in 1996. The size that newspapers printed comic strips at that time had drastically decreased from how large they were printed in 1948, so I don't imagine it looked nearly as good as it did originally. It would be neat to be able to run another Hal Foster series, however, since Foster had died 14 years earlier.

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Here are the third and fourth days of the Hal Foster short-run series The Christmas Story. You'll notice that Foster takes a few liberties with the story when writing the captions, but I guess I'd expect that from a man who regularly wrote a comic strip that was an embellishment of Arthurian legend. Still, showing Mary being happy and singing while traveling miles through sleet and snow is a bit of a stretch. I don't really mind it that much, though, because I mostly just pay attention to the amazing artwork. It's definitely hang on the wall material.