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I included the topper for this one, not necessarily because it has anything to do with Christmas (though maybe the radio was a gift), but because it includes an exterior panel with a hobo walking in the snow, which makes it winter themed, I guess.
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Here's a Salemsan Sam from C.D. Small, complete with another Roughin' Reddy topper. I enjoy the gag in this one, but also the interesting imagery in the second to last panel, with the speech balloons emanating out of the telephone wires. Such an image may not make sense to some younger readers.
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Roughin’ Reddy was a “topper” strip created by C. D. Small, which, as toppers were, was printed above the main strip he drew at the time, Salesman Sam. Small took over for the strip’s original creator, George Swanson, when Swanson was hired by another syndicate. Small not only took over, but emulated Swanson’s art style so completely that their work is nearly indistinguishable. It’s amazing, then, that Small was able to create a companion topper that matched the same style.
I would have included the Salesman Sam strip that accompanies this, but it doesn’t have anything to do with Christmas, so I left it out.
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I enjoy living in a state where there is no snow to shovel. I'm not a fan of snow, at all. I'd much rather be singing Christmas carols, like Mutt and Jeff do here, though I'm not sure how one would "make some dough" doing it. Perhaps caroling was a bit different in 1942.
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The Christmas comic strip tradition continues, beginning with Mutt and Jeff, originally created by Bud Fisher. Jeff seems to have a different idea of what "out in the woods" means than I do. It seems to be more along the lines of "out in a snowy field near a few buildings." Perhaps they decided that avoiding private property owners would be easier than possibly having to avoid bears.
While I've previously written about political cartoons coining political words, like Gerrymander and McCarthyism, it isn't the only kind of word that political cartoons have been known to originate. Oddly enough, not only have political cartoonists gone on to create children's toys, but in the case of the teddy bear, a cartoonist was the inspiration for a toy craze that continues to this day.
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As we've seen with the Gerrymander, it seems that words coined in relation to politics have incredible staying power, especially when describing things that politicians continue to do. Associating an image with a word, as is done with political cartoons, also helps to cement it in people's minds. It also helps a great deal if the word refers to a particular well-known person. Such is the case with another political buzzword, McCarthyism.
While for some the word only brings to mind a particular time and place, it's still used by many today to describe certain undesirable political tactics. It generally refers to a political attack or character assassination of a political rival by means of wild, unsubstantiated claims about them. The man who lent his name to the word was Republican senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin, who in the 1950s claimed to have an extensive list of people in the US government who were communist infiltrators. This led to large scale investigations of his claim, which never bore any fruit, and McCarthy never revealed any of the names he claimed were on his list. This ultimately led to his being officially condemned by a large majority of the Senate.
The man who coined the word, and who was one of McCarthy's most vocal critics, was political cartoonist Herbert Block, who generally signed his name "Herblock." The word first appeared in one of Block's cartoons as a label for a large bucket of tar sitting atop several smaller buckets, which the Republican elephant is being coerced into standing on. Block had been critical of McCarthy previously, and would continue to be so afterwards, but this was the only time that he would ever use the word, at least in a cartoon.
This is because, interestingly, Herblock himself never saw anything special about it. He downplayed the status of the cartoon and the word by saying there was "nothing particularly ingenious" about it, and that he "had no thought of creating a new term," but that there was simply no better word to describe what was going on. Still, the word quickly became popular and widely used to describe not only McCarthy but also those who supported him. McCarthy personally condemned Block for the cartoon, and even accused the State Department, the department that he insisted contained the highest number of Communist infiltrators, of paying Block, and called him a "man who is actively committed to oppose attempts to drive Communists out of government." It was true that Block created a pamphlet of cartoons for the State Department, but they were all anti-Communist, and neither he nor the Washington Post ever received compensation for it.
McCarthy and his supporters tried to take back the word, and used it to refer to those with a particular brand of patriotism. McCarthy even used it in the title of his autobiography. These days, however, it's mostly used in a negative sense, which may be another part of its staying power: people don't tend to forget a good insult.
For more information:
Herbert Block at Comiclopedia
McCarthyism at Tawdry Knickers
Herblock's History, biographical information on Block and images of many of his cartoons at the Library of Congress
Words continue to be widely used as long as they remain relevant and useful. Since redistricting solely for party advantage, also known as gerrymandering, is still quite the common practice, the word remains with us and will most likely remain for the forseeable future. The word is not as old as the practice it describes, but it does go all the way back to an 1812 newspaper illustration.
The story goes that members of the Democratic-Republican party in the Massechussetts legislature drafted a redistricting proposal which created a winding, snaking district map. Upon seeing this map, either at a dinner party or in the office of a newspaper editor, the creator of the illustration added a mouth, feet, wings, and a tail to it, creating a picture of a dragon-like monster. Someone remarked that it looked like a bit like a salamander, added Gerry's name in front of it, and the term "gerrymander" was born. The resulting illustration was printed in the Boston Gazette in late March, and was later widely distributed to other newspapers favoring the opposition party, the Federalists. It was even reprinted the next year in several Federalist papers, anticipating the upcoming election.
The "Gerry" part of the word refers to the then governor of Massechussetts, Elbridge Gerry, who probably didn't actually have much to do with the original proposal for redistricting. On the other hand, he did sign it, and he stood to gain from it, as he belonged to the party it favored, so the blame was placed squarely on his shoulders.
Interestingly, it's not clear who created the original drawing. Currently, it's fairly widely accepted that the artist was Elkanah Tisdale, an illustrator and engraver who was working in the area. Washington Allston and Gilbert Stewart have also been suggested, though the evidence for them is not as compelling as for Tisdale.
For more information:
The Gerrymander at the Massachussetts Historical Society
The Gerrymander Map at the Cornell University Library digital collection
The Gerrymander and Elbridge Gerry at Tawdry Knickers
For many years, I've relied on a blog called The Stripper's Guide, written by Allan Holtz, for much of my information on very obscure and unknown comic strips. Most times, when I'm researching various comic strips or creators, things that I find there can generally also be found in at least one or two other places online. Unfortunately, in the case of Bob Kane, I must rely solely on the information from The Stripper's Guide, because it seems to be the only place on the open Internet that any solid information can be found on the newspaper comic strips he created.
Bob Kane was the artist and co-creator, along with Bill Finger, of the comic book character Batman. Kane drew the Batman newspaper strip for three years, starting in 1943, and that's fairly well known. While writers and artists behind comic books didn't always work on the newspaper strips with their characters in them, it wasn't unheard of. Certainly nothing about that is obscure or unexpected. Going a bit deeper, Kane also worked on some projects for other comic magazines, and also worked at the Eisner-Iger studio drawing various humor comics. While there, he created the Mickey Mouse rip-off Peter Pupp, among many other things. Still, there is plenty of fairly easy to find information to be had on those topics.
The obscurity comes with the non-Batman newspaper comic strips that Kane produced, or possibly produced.
Editor and Publisher, the newspaper industry magazine, used to publish a syndicate directory at the end of each year, listing features offered by syndicates to newspapers, though not necessarily that actually ran in newspapers. Kane is listed as a creator of a few features, namely "The Losers" and "The Aristocrats" for the Ledger Syndicate and a newspaper version of "Peter Pupp" which was apparently distrubuted by Eisner-Iger Associates. I couldn't find any evidence of their existence outside of these listings, and Allan at The Stripper's Guide hasn't found anything on them either. However, there is one other that he's listed as creating, called "The Little Major", that there is a small bit of information on.
Small, in this case, means next to nothing. The strip was distributed by the short-lived General Features Syndicate, which is an obscurity in itself. Editor and Publisher has little information on the syndicate besides its address, there's no evidence of it being well advertised in any way, and Kane himself never mentioned it or "The Little Major," even in his autobiography.
The reason for its obscurity, and for Kane never mentioning it, is probably due to the amount of material that Kane was producing at the same time. "The Little Major" ran for a year, from 1937 to 1938, at which point he was already quite busy working at the Eisner-Iger studio. Given that it seems the General Features Syndicate was obscure even in its time, it makes sense that "The Little Major" wouldn't get much notice. Then, just a year later, he and Finger created Batman, and that was obviously where most of his focus shifted.
"The Little Major" isn't really too bad of a comic strip, either. The gags are fairly forgettable, but the artwork is quite good. Kane's drawing style definitely lends itself to that kind of humor strip, and I think I actually like it better than his work on Batman.
For more information:
Bob Kane at Comiclopedia
General Features Syndicate at The Stripper's Guide
General Features Syndicate comic strip series at The Stripper's Guide
Fans of mainstream comic books will no doubt be familiar with the name Kubert from one place or another. Younger readers may be familiar with either Andy or Adam Kubert and their comic book work, and older readers will most likely know of Joe Kubert, their father, and his extensive contributions to the medium. It's possible, however, that they may not be aware of Kubert's history with newspaper comics, and especially how extensive it is.
Joe Kubert is probably best known for his work on war comics with characters such as Sgt. Rock and The Haunted Tank, his Silver Age revival of Hawkman, or his work on various DC Comics titles over his 70 year career. He's also fairly well known for founding the Joe Kubert School of Cartoon and Graphic Art, located in Dover, New Jersey. The school boasts some fairly famous and successful alumni, and is still in operation.
Interestingly, the school's mascot, Tor, is actually a comic book character that Kubert originally created for the St. John Publishing Company, and who appeared in a comic entitled One Million B.C.. Tor was a Tarzan-esque caveman warrior, and first appeared in 1953. After St. John folded, Kubert was able to retain the copyright for the character, and in 1959 attempted to pitch it as a newspaper adventure comic strip. He was never able to convince a syndicate to take it on, but the material he created for the pitch was reworked and published at DC Comics in the 70s.
In the 1960s, however, Joe Kubert did draw a syndicated comic strip, though not one with characters that he'd created. Jerry Capp, brother of newspaper cartoonists Al Capp and Elliot Caplin, was to be the ghostwriter of a strip based on Robin Moore's bestselling book "The Green Berets". The strip was to be creditted to Moore, obviously for marketting reasons, though Moore never did any writing on it. Capp first approached comic book artist Neal Adams, but Adams was currently working on another newspaper strip developed by Capp, Ben Casey, and felt he wouldn't be able to take on the extra work. Adams was familiar with Kubert's work, though the two had never met, and suggested Capp contact him. Kubert took the job, and Tales of the Green Beret debuted in September of 1965. Kubert and Capp worked together on it for about a year and a half, but the two butted heads creatively the entire time, and Kubert ultimately left the strip. It only continued for a few more months afterwards, under a succession of various other artists. Also, by that time opposition to the Vietnam War was at its height, and even without the creative struggles, there wasn't much demand among readers for that kind of strip.
Most unexpected were the newspaper strips Kubert worked on in the late 1970s. By that time, he had founded and was teaching at the Kubert School. King Features Syndicate approached him and asked him to assist on the artwork for Big Ben Bolt, the boxing comic originally created by Elliot Caplin. Interest in the strip was waning, and there were very few papers that still carried it, so the syndicate would not be able to pay very much for whoever did draw it. Kubert decided that this would be a great opportunity for his students to gain some hands-on experience, so he enlisted some of them in the project. Unfortunately, the workload was too much for them when coupled with their school work, so Kubert ended up drawing it entirely on his own. This didn't last long, though the strip didn't last much longer either, and ended in 1978.
A similar situation occured when the New York News syndicate contacted Kubert about assisting on artwork for, of all things, Winnie Winkle, the gag strip originally created in the 1920s. At first, the students were involved in its production, and in fact it was signed "JKS," for Joe Kubert School, but in the end Kubert himself ended up doing all of the work. After a year, Kubert decided it was enough. He did feel it was a good exercise for himself and his students, however, as he was a firm believer that an artist should be versatile and be comfortable working in any style.
For more information:
Joe Kubert at Comiclopedia
An extensive interview with Kubert on his career as a whole, at The Comics Journal
An interview with Kubert on Tales of the Green Beret, at Matt Tauber's blog