Blog.Arkholt

Read my thoughts.

Subscribe via RSS
Subscribe via Email

Tags

Twitter
Mastodon
Bluesky
Tumblr
Dribbble
Arkholt.com
The Bird Feeder

© Arkholt • All rights reserved.
Made with Yellow.
Lateral theme by Juh Nibreh.
Style based on StayPuft by David Lecina.

Leo the Little Leaguer, December 23, 1966

2022-12-02

Leo the Little Leaguer, December 23, 1966

Click the image to see a larger version.

Leo the Little Leaguer, or in this case just Leo, was a single panel comic created by Walt Lardner that ran for a fairly short time, though it did get picked up by a few high profile newspapers. It was, as its name suggests, about a kid who plays Little League baseball, and generally had jokes revolving around that and other sports. From what I could find, it started in March of 1966, and most client newspapers didn't carry it past October, but at least one stuck it out until the end of the year. Lardner's art style was delightful, and the gags weren't too bad, so it's a shame that it didn't last longer than it did.

Comments

The Timid Soul, December 16, 1951

2022-12-01

The Timid Soul, December 16, 1951

Click the image to see a larger version.

I begin my annual tradition of posting winter and Christmas themed comic strips in December with a new personal favorite, The Timid Soul. I wrote about Caspar Milquetoast earlier this year, and here he is in a situation that I could definitely empathize with. While I'm not quite as milquetoast as Caspar, I'm pretty close. I think my personal approach would be a bit different, though. I'd probably just close my eyes and root around in the drawer or closet until I found what I was looking for. Sure, there is the risk of feeling something unfamiliar and wondering if it's a gift, but it would still allow for some kind of surprise. Besides, if she's smart she'll hide it in the drawer where I put all the shirts that I don't like and never wear, so there's no chance I'll ever look in it.

Comments

Comic Strip History - Keeping Up With The Joneses

2022-01-25

Keeping up With The Joneses

Here's one that surprised even me, and one which comes with a little bit of uncertainty that I hope to clear up.

I was, in fact, quite uncertain about this myself when I first started researching it. I have been aware for many years that there was a comic strip called Keeping Up With The Joneses, created by Arthur Momand, that first appeared sometime between 1913 and 1916. The strip revolved around the McGinis family, who were always trying to one-up their wealthy neighbors, the Joneses. The Jones family never appeared in the strip, of course. They were merely referred to by the McGinises constantly, usually in reference to how jealous they would be if they saw what one of the McGinises had purchased or done. According to Momand, this was inspired by his experiences after he moved to New York, and he and his wife's attempts to not be shown up by their wealthy neighbors. He realized how futile it was to do so, and wrote a comic strip to satirize this. The Jones name was, according to him, chosen due to how…

Comments

Unexpected Comic Strip Creators - Mickey Spillane

2022-01-19

Mike Hammer

Detective stories and comics have gone hand in hand ever since the early days of the medium. One of the most famous comic heroes, Batman, first appeared in the pages of Detective Comics, which has become one of the longest running comic books in history, as well as lending its name to one of the two biggest comic companies, DC Comics. Even before Batman's debut, Dick Tracy and others were solving crimes and mysteries on the newspaper page. Those kinds of stories have always been popular with readers, but I imagine they were also popular with writers and newspapermen, given that mysteries and intrigue gave readers a big reason to pick up the next day's paper to find out what happens next. In order to create a popular detective strip, it seems logical that a newspaper syndicate would look for someone already skilled in writing that kind of narrative. In 1934, King Features had done it with Dashiell Hammett, who I've written about previously, and in 1953 a much smaller syndicate, Phoenix Features, would get t…

Comments

Comic Strip History: Milquetoast

2022-01-10

The Timid Soul, 1940

Milquetoast was a word that I first encountered in a comic strip, though not the one this blog post is focused on. In Berkeley Breathed's strip Bloom County, and its sequel strip Outland, there was a character named Milquetoast, who was apparently a cockroach, though he didn't look much like one. I remember being ignorant of how to pronounce his name, though I didn't really give it much thought as I figured it was just a weird name Breathed had come up with.

It was certainly a strange joke word created by a cartoonist, but not one coined by Breathed.

The word first appeared in 1924, in a comic strip called The Timid Soul by H.T. Webster. Webster had been doing single panel gag strips for the New York Tribune since 1912. His panels appeared under a number of different recurring titles, which would change depending on the subject matter of the gag, but none of them had any recurring characters. In 1924, he moved to the New York World, and while he did continue his other panels under their various other tit…

Comments