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This is a very early Thimble Theater, nearly 10 years before Popeye would appear. At this time Olive Oyl was in love with Harold Hamgravy, who we see here coming up with a romantic idea that falls flat. After Popeye appeared in 1929, he was so popular that he replaced Hamgravy completely. I'd guess it's because he didn't pull stunts like this.
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Napoleon, like other comic strip dogs over the years, can be a bit bumbling and stupid, but as we see here, he still has a heart of gold. I think I'd rather get gifts brought to me by a dog dressed as Santa Claus than a grumpy old man anyway.
I love Clifford McBride's loose but realistic style. I enjoy the artwork so much, the dialogue is almost not needed in this strip at all. In fact, if I was the editor, I might just tell him to remove it entirely. The images tell the story completely.
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Here we have one of my favorite unknown cartoonists, Cliff Sterrett, with Polly and Her Pals, complete with a topper, which I actually like more than the strip itself. Unfortunately, Polly only appears in one panel, but we do get the ridiculously legged cat in quite a few of them. Sterret's cartoons are more fun to look at than to read, in my opinion, but the gag in this one isn't too horrible.
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This one's a follow-on from yesterday. It seems as though Papa didn't really learn anything from his previous experience, and takes the opportunity to play a joke on Junior. I think Junior has the correct reaction in the end, though.
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Here we have the Sol Hess classic, The Nebbs. It has always been quite common for syndicates and cartoonists to create strips that rip off other, more popular ones. That's how we got Flash Gordon, which ripped off Buck Rogers, and it's how we got The Nebbs, which was a near complete copy of Sidney Smith's The Gumps. It's much less common for the rip off strip to become as popular as the strip being ripped off, but that was the case with Flash Gordon, and was also the case with The Nebbs.
I like this particular strip, because although it isn't necessarily funny, it's still an interesting slice of life. From the beginning, since it's Christmas, you can probably guess what the boy's actually doing, but I guess the mystery is how Mr. Nebb will react. Hopefully he's learned something from this experience.
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I posted a couple Gasoline Alley Christmas strips a couple years ago, but I can never get enough of them. Plus, the strip is nearing its 100th birthday, and amazingly is still running in newspapers, though the current run is a shadow of the strip's former glory.
Here we have a fascinating journey to the North Pole, to meet a Santa Claus who looks quite unlike what most people these days are used to seeing. He employs not only elves to make toys for boys, but also fairies to make toys for girls. Jack Frost apparently lives there as well. It's an interesting strip in many ways, and the art is superb.
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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.