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Off the Record was a pretty standard single panel comic without any recurring characters that ran for quite a long time, from 1935 to 1984. I haven't been able to find that much information on it. The Lambiek Comiclopedia says the comic was started by Carl Kuhn, and taken over later by the artist of the strip you see here, Ed Reed. Lambiek has no page for Kuhn, however. Wikipedia has no page dedicated to the strip or either of those artists, but it is in the list of newspaper comic strips and also mentions Kuhn. Allan Holtz's encyclopedic reference guide American Newspaper Comics lists Ed Reed as the original creator and has no mention of Kuhn. He also says he has strips in his collection from the early 40's, presumably signed only by Reed, so even if Kuhn had started the strip he wasn't the main producer of it for the majority of its run. The rest of the internet is fairly silent on the matter, especially on the existence of a cartoonist named Carl Kuhn. I do know…

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I hope no one was woken up too early today, and I hope that if they were they will learn not to give a bass drum to a child for Christmas next year. Merry Christmas, everyone!

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Little Jimmy, by Jimmy Swinnerton, was one of the very earliest comic features with recurring characters. The titular character Jimmy was often seen getting into trouble, as well as causing it. Jimmy doesn't appear in this particular strip, however, and all the trouble is caused by Mrs. Perkins' dog Violet. Of course, one could say that the Major has actually caused the trouble himself by kicking Violet in the first place. I'm sure the real Santa is always very kind to animals.

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Virgil Partch, creator of Big George, was more well-known for his single panel magazine cartoons, but due to the prodding of his friend Hank Ketcham, creator of Dennis the Menace, he eventually made it into the newspaper. He had to tone down his humor a bit from his magazine work, as his gags weren't always family friendly material. Still, he clearly didn't have trouble coming up with enough gags for the papers to run, because the strip ran for 30 years. In fact, Partch was able to work extremely far in advance of his deadlines, so he actually had years' worth of strips backlogged. This came in handy for the syndicate after his death in 1984, as they had enough material to continue printing new strips for another 6 years!

Here we see Big George himself, the bumbling husband and father wearing the Christmas stocking. With how early some kids get up on Christmas morning, and with how stressful the holiday season can be, I can completely understand somehow getting a…

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Bobby Make-Believe was created by Frank King, who is better known as the creator of Gasoline Alley. Bobby only lasted from 1915 to 1919, and Gasoline Alley came along in 1918 and is most likely the reason why Bobby's strip was scrapped. Bobby seems like the type of kid that would fit right in with the Gasoline Alley folks, though, and the strip has a similar aesthetic and writing style to what King would write later.

Unlike yesterday's strip, Bobby isn't entirely selfless and says if he ever met Santa that he would ask him for things for himself as well as make sure the kids he doesn't like don't get anything. Still, he has a good heart and cares about his friends who are less fortunate, and would make sure Santa brings them something nice that they would like. I love that he mentions the kid on crutches who can't use toys, and asks Santa to bring him some books instead. It also seems to be implied that he has a bit of a crush on Virginia, given that he asks Santa…