Click the image for a larger version.
It's getting colder, and there probably are some pretty icy pavements and sidewalks that one might come across this time of year. At first glance this device looks pretty useful, but I think you'd need a much bigger and stronger dog to carry the whole thing around. Also, from that illustration, it doesn't look like you would quite land on the pillow. It would probably need some tweaking before I would use it.
Click the image to see a larger version.
In 1949, King Features Syndicate released a booklet called "Sing With King at Christmas," which included several Christmas carols and showed various King Features comic strip characters singing them. Today's selection features Prince Valiant, the incredible long-running adventure comic strip created by the great illustrator Hal Foster. Prince Valiant, which started in 1937, still runs in newspapers today. The titular Prince lives in the days of King Arthur and does the kind of things you'd imagine a medieval knight would do, apparently including serenading fair maidens. Of course, this song doesn't quite date back to medieval times, so I imagine that picture actually depicts him singing something else.
Click the image to see a larger version.
This is not one of Rube Goldberg's famous devices, but it is useful nonetheless. These days, when most Christmas shopping is done online, this type of outfit and shopping preparation may not be necessary, but you never know. Also, this may have been more useful for Black Friday, but going Christmas shopping anytime in December can still sometimes be quite harrowing.
Click the image to see a larger version.
The Peter Rabbit most people know was created by Beatrix Potter in 1902, and was featured in a number of wonderful children's books by her. The Peter Rabbit in this comic strip, however, was created by Thornton Burgess in 1910 and is better known as Petter Cottontail. The comic strip ran from 1920 to 1948 and was written and illustrated by Harrison Cady. Cady also illustrated all of Burgess' children's stories. The two characters bear many remarkable similarities, though the main difference is that Potter's Peter Rabbit lives in England while the Burgess version clearly lives in the United States. The giveaway there is Jimmy Possum, who speaks in an unfortunate dialect and steals all of their Christmas goodies. Despite that, the comic strip is adorable and enjoyable to read. Hopefully next time Peter will keep a better watch on his goodie basket.
Click the image for a larger version.
I've of course written about Rube Goldberg before, and all of his comic strip inventions are incredibly fun to look at and read. Fortunately, he also did a few dealing with Christmas. This one should be quite useful for this time of year, if you still haven't decided on what to get your significant other yet. Also, I'm sure the target for the blindfolded archer can be switched out depending on who you are deciding for. I would hope not everyone on your list would want perfume, hankies, jewelry, and furs. After all, I'm sure the blindfolded archer is going to expect a present, too, and I don't imagine he's into those things.
The other beautiful thing about this device is that if your savings (A) are not heavy enough to lift the hat (C), then the decision has already been made.
Click the image to see a larger version.
The Katzenjammer Kids is the longest running newspaper comic strip, and still runs in a few newspapers in the United States and several other countries. It started in 1897, and has a very interesting history that I may blog about at a later time. The strip involves two kids, Hanz and Fritz, who are generally mischievous, their mother Mama, and The Captain, whose relationship to Mama and the kids has never really been made clear. All of them speak in some kind of strange pseudo-German dialect, which I find kind of fun, and which I hope isn't offensive to anyone of a German persuasion. I don't find the Asian sailor in The Captain's crew to be quite as fun, but he only gets one line in this strip, so I can ignore it.
Since it's December, I felt the need to take some time and share some comic strips related to Christmas, because I like Christmas and I like comic strips. I also felt the need to share some comic strips that most people may not be familiar with. They were well-known in their time, but it seems that these days the only comic strip that most people know is Peanuts (which they often mistakenly call "Charlie Brown"). So, to start off, here's a Christmas comic strip featuring several comic strip characters of yesteryear:
Click the image to see a larger version.
This is a Mutt and Jeff strip from 1913, drawn by Bud Fisher. You can see Mutt standing in the center giving the toast, with Jeff sitting to the left of him. Going counter-clockwise, we have R.F. Outcault's Buster Brown, Winsor McCay's Little Nemo, Nemo's buddy Flip, Frederick Burr Opper's Happy Hooligan, T.E. Powers' Gloom, E. Pluribus Dingbat from George Herriman's The Dingbat Family, Tad Dorgan's Silk Hat Harry, Mr. Newlywed and his baby from George McManus' The Newlyweds, Pinkey from Jimmy Swinnerton's Little Jimmy, T.E. Powers' Joy (who goes with Gloom), Pinky's friend Shrimp, Harry Hershfield's Desperate Desmond (who mentions Hershfield's other character Dauntless Durham), Polly's Pa from Cliff Sterrett's Polly and Her Pals, and finally, Jiggs from George McManus' Bringing Up Father.
Isn't it great to see all these comic strip characters having a wonderful Christmas celebration together? I'd love to be there, if it were possible. If only I was a comic strip character who lived in 1913.
One of the interesting things to me about the history of comic strips is the affect that they've had on the English language. I've written about how a cartoonist's name has made it into the dictionary, about how strange holidays have been created and named in comic strips, but actual words being coined in comic strips is a different thing. It has happened a few times, though.
I stumbled across an interesting fact when reading about the George McManus creation The Newlyweds this week. George McManus is better known for his creation Bringing Up Father, but this earlier strip is interesting in that its title makes use of a word that had not yet been in common usage.
The Newlyweds, also called The Newlyweds and Their Baby after they had one, was about a couple who had, as the title suggests, not been married long. Their names were Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed, so the title refers to a proper noun, not the common noun that we know today. It wouldn't have been a common noun, because the strip began in 1904, and at that time the term newlywed was only used as an adjective. In doing a little more research about this, Dictionary.com dates the first use of the word "newlywed" as a noun to around 1915-1920. Merriam-Webster dates the first usage a bit earlier, to 1908. The comic strip had been around for at least four years at that time. This makes it very possible that the comic strip was a very early, if not the first, usage of newlywed not only as a noun, but as a plural noun. The Online Etymology Dictionary says as much:
also newly-wed, 1907, from newly + wed. Probably owes its origin to a then-popular newspaper comic strip, "The Newlyweds and Their Baby," about Mr. and Mrs. Newlywed, by George McManus in the New York "World." As an adjective, newly-wed is attested from 1833.
Very interesting. I know of some other words that were either coined or popularized by comic strips, which I plan to write on later, but it's great to see that it was happening even from their very early days.
Additional info:
The Newlyweds at Toonopedia
George McManus at Comiclopedia
Years ago, I made a mistake.
It began when I found out something that, at the time, I couldn't believe I didn't know and hadn't noticed up to that point. It came from a post on the Zukahnaut blog, by Ötty Justason, where there was a handy image explaining how the capital "I" should be written when lettering comic strips and comic books. The blog is no longer there, but it can still be accessed on the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.
Basically, the normal "I," without crossbars on the top, should be used in most circumstances, and the crossbar version of "I" should only be used in very specific cases, normally if it's a personal pronoun, the first letter of someone's name, or in an acronym.
Someone I followed on Twitter retweeted this, and I was a bit skeptical, as I had never heard of this rule before. I used the crossbar version of the "I" all the time, in drawing comics as well as in normal handwriting. At the time I regulary drew a webcomic called The Bird Feeder, and I even created a font for use with the comic, based on my normal handwriting, which included only the crossbar version. I replied to him asking if this was a new rule that he'd come up with, or if it was some hard and fast rule that was in wide usage. He said it had been around for at least a century. My response was that comic art has evolved quite a bit in the past century, so it stands to reason that rules from a hundred years ago could be reexamined. I didn't see a problem with the crossbar version, and as long as the text is readable and you can get across what you're trying to say, it shouldn't matter. As a cartoonist, I figured I could just ignore the rule as well as anyone who called me on it.
This was a mistake, and he probably thought I sounded like a complete idiot. After further research I would find out how much of a mistake it was, and how much of an idiot I was.
Read more…Most people think that the dawn of the superhero and the costumed crime fighter was in 1938 and 1939, when comic books started appearing and characters like Superman and Batman were first being published. The truth is that those comic book characters owe a lot to what was happening in the 20s and 30s in newspaper comic strips and are far from the first costumed heroes to appear.
Action and adventure comic strips had existed since the 20s and were quite popular. Some notable examples are Hal Foster's Prince Valiant, which began in 1937, and Milton Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, which began in 1934. The storylines spanned months and years, put the characters in real danger, and always included incredible cliffhangers. The artwork was exquisite, and in my opinion was far better than anything published in golden age comic books.
There were also what were called "crime comic strips," which dealt with policemen and even costumed vigilantes. One of the most famous crime comics was Dick Tracy, who first appeared in 1931. Created by Chester Gould, he not only fought common criminals, but also organized crime. He had his share of fancy gadgets to help him, which he used to deal with his large and very colorful rogues gallery. Not only was he doing all this 8 years before Batman arrived on the scene doing similar things, but he did it entirely in his newspaper comic strip. The only "comic books" Dick Tracy appeared in were reprints of his comic strip adventures. He didn't get a comic book with original material until the 80s.
Of course, Dick Tracy was an actual plainclothes policeman and not a costumed vigilante like Batman. The newspaper comic strip page did have Lee Falk's The Phantom, though, who was. First appearing in 1936, three years before Batman, The Phantom always wore a very distinctive costume and had a secret identity. His real name was Kit Walker, and he was 21st in a long line of men who wore the Phantom costume and fought crime.
Over time, themes from adventure comics such as the secret identity, colorful rogues gallery, skin-tight costume, and handy crime fighting gadgets would become common themes in the superhero comic book genre. They didn't start with comic books, though, but with newspaper comics. Interestingly, both Dick Tracy and The Phantom still run in newspapers today, though with different writers and artists.
More info:
Dick Tracy at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
The Phantom at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Chester Gould at Lambiek Comiclopedia
Lee Falk at Lambiek Comiclopedia
Dick Tracy at GoComics, currently drawn by Joe Staton and written by Mike Curtis.
The Phantom at Comics Kindgom, currently drawn by Paul Ryan on dailies, Terry Beatty on Sundays, and written by Tony DePaul."