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Today's strip is a continuation of the one from yesterday, and raises an interesting question: How many stockings would you put up if you were a centipede? Further, how many stockings would you need if you were, say, a centipede family of four? Would you have enough space in your home to hang all of them? Do centipedes have chimneys? Does centipede Santa have a beard or just more antennae? So many questions.
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I love this one. The absurdity of Ignatz hanging two stockings because he has two feet is already funny enough for me, but the escalation to four stockings due to having four feet is even better. It's kind of odd as far as cartoon animals go, though. We say four legged animals have four feet because they stand on all four of them, but cartoon animals only stand on two. So, do cartoon animals also have four feet? I'm actually inclined to say they don't.
So sorry, Ignatz, only two stockings for you this year.
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It's Papa Who Pays was the topper to Toots and Casper, both of which were created by Jimmy Murphy. This is a fair representation of the strip as a whole, with Papa always coming out with nothing in the end after his family takes advantage of him somehow. I don't quite understand how the situation in this particular strip happens, though. Why would someone give someone a gift, then take the gift back from them to give to someone else? It's re-gifting of an entirely different sort. I guess it was more common in the 20's.
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I've already gushed about Payne's artwork enough, so for this one I'll just say that I love this joke, or joke within a joke. Willyum "makes a crack" about asking for a goldfish from Santa, which you imagine might actually be true given his age, but the actual punchline is that it's a scheme to get Christmas money. Why people pay him for that I can't imagine. Still, it gets a nickel out of Pop, so that's a success. I just wonder what he's going to buy with it.
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Now, some may see the two middle panels on this strip and call them unnecessary, or call C.M. Payne lazy for including them, and they could possibly be correct. However, I think this is really the way some kids talk to each other, with unnecessary repetitions and continual questions, so it works. Besides, it gives us a chance to see more of Payne's wonderful hatching work.