Dixie Dugan, December 18, 1938

2023-12-03

Dixie Dugan, December 18, 1938

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Dixie Dugan by J.P. McEvoy and J.H. Striebel is an interesting case of a comic strip adaptation transcending its source material. It was based on a novel by McEvoy that was serialized in Liberty Magazine in the late 20's about a Hollywood showgirl named Dixie, aptly titled "Show Girl." It had previously been adapted into a George Gershwin musical as well as two movies, all of which focused on the Hollywood aspect of Dixie's life. In 1929 Striebel, who had done the illustrations for Liberty Magazine when the novel was first serialized, was tasked by McEvoy with doing the artwork for the comic strip adaptation that McEvoy was writing. The comic strip began as a pretty straight adaptation of the novel, but as the Depression wore on the travails of a Hollywood showgirl who wanted to be a star were not quite as interesting to most people. Dixie's Hollywood career ended and she was more focused on finding any work she could to support her family. The strip took on a life of its own, and it wasn't long before Dixie and the other characters bore almost no resemblance to the source material. By the time the next Dixie Dugan movie adaptation came around in 1943, her Hollywood escapades were not even mentioned and it mainly shows her doing what she can to help the war effort by... being a cab driver?

Anyway, as can be seen here, Dixie doesn't seem to have much interest in Hollywood but more interest in doing a polar plunge with her swimming club. I've never understood the appeal of this myself, but then again I don't really swim at all. I was also not entirely sure why it would be considered a "modern" thing to do, but after some research I've come to find out that it wasn't really a thing until the 20th century. I guess people before then had a little more sense.

Josie, December 19, 1937

2023-12-02

Josie, December 19, 1937

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Josie by Carl Ed was one of the toppers for Ed's comic strip Harold Teen, and appeared either on top or underneath it during the latter half of the 1930s. Although Harold Teen is a strip about high school teenagers, as its name suggests, Josie focuses more on younger children and their escapades. There is much to be found on the Internet about Harold, but not so much about Josie or her friends, unfortunately.

Here we see Butch trying to extort money out of Monty by "selling" him some snowballs that he's made. As with most comic strip bullies, Butch is not very smart, and doesn't realize that strong arming someone into purchasing a weapon generally incentivizes the buyer to use it against you. Butch should work on his salesmanship skills and in the future try to convince Monty to buy them due to their superior craftsmanship and use of artisanal snow.

Napoleon, December 31, 1939

2023-12-01

Napoleon, December 31, 1939

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Happy December, everyone!

This is the magical time of year when Arkholt's blog comes back to life and I post winter and Christmas themed newspaper comics for all to enjoy, and it reminds me that I probably should post more substantive blog posts more often. That might happen next year. Who knows.

Anyway, we begin the month with a wintery, snowy themed comic from Clifford McBride. I shared a Napoleon strip five years ago so it was high time he made a comeback. I just love McBride's artwork so much. It's very dynamic, and you can really feel the movement of it. Napoleon himself doesn't really have much of a role in this strip except as moral support, but I guess that's what dogs are best at. This is also a reminder to always be aware of the structural integrity of every part of your hat before adhering it to your head.

Comic Strip History - I Hate Mondays

2023-06-14

Big George, September 30, 1968

As a kid, I was a big fan of the Garfield comic strip. As I've gotten older, read more Garfield, and learned more about the creator of Garfield, Jim Davis, I became less and less enamored with the strip and now see it as generally very boring and repetitive. One of the recurring jokes in Garfield, and the one that recurs the most often, has to do with the fact that Garfield hates Mondays. This is an absurd idea because, as a cat, Garfield doesn't really have any concept of a weekend, or a work week, or any of that, so there's no reason for him to be so hateful of Mondays in particular. That's what makes it funny, I guess. Jim Davis took it a step further, however, and gave Garfield a reason to hate Mondays, as bad things continued to happen to him on that day and that day only. The worst day of all was, of course, Monday the 13th, it being inherently unlucky due to being a Monday, as well as having an unlucky number as the date. As a kid who grew up in the 90s, I figured this was a thing that Jim Davis came up with, and it was unique to Garfield.

This was untrue.

Big George, by Virgil Partch, which I've covered briefly before, was a single panel comic strip that began in 1960. The titular George was a family man who worked at a 9-5 office job, giving him ample reason to hate Mondays. For the first few years of the strip, Mondays never really came up, and most of the humor dealt with George and his family, or his neighbors, or his hobbies. In 1966 and 1967, however, Partch decided to try some new things with the strip. Some new characters were introduced, such as a hippy with long hair that covered most of his body, the family dog and family cat began to talk to each other and other animals though they had previously been mute, and Partch briefly experimented with breaking up the single panel dailies into a four panel format. None of these things really lasted that long, but one thing that did stick was George's newfound hatred of Mondays.

While some sources will tell you that Partch, during this and later periods, had George expressing his distaste for Mondays every week, that isn't necessarily true. The Monday gags were sprinkled throughout the various months, and there are long periods where the day of the week isn't mentioned at all. However, much like what Jim Davis would do with Garfield over a decade later, it wasn't just that George hated going into the office on Monday after the weekend. Horrible, unexpected things would happen to him on that day, such as someone driving their car into his house, or his roof leaking, or a sign falling on him, or a raincloud raining only on him, or a tree that he's trying to cut down not falling over even after it's fully detached from the stump, or getting shipwrecked on a desert island, or even an actual dragon appearing at his doorstep. While the captions would often mention what's going on as well as the fact that it's Monday, on multiple occasions the caption simply read "I hate Mondays!"

It's unfortunate that, while Garfield became famous for being anti-Monday, George had been hating Mondays for at least a decade prior to Garfield's first appearance. Garfield debuted in 1979, and George first stated that he detested Mondays as early as 1966. Big George is also a much funnier strip than Garfield (though that's all a matter of taste, I guess).

For more information:

Big George at Don Markstein's Toonopedia

Virgil Partch at Lambiek Comiclopedia

Unexpected Comic Strip Creators - Steve Gerber

2023-01-17

Howard the Duck, October 12, 1977

There's a lot to this one, so buckle in.

Steve Gerber was a writer for several Marvel and DC comic books, but his best known creation is the satirical "funny animal" character Howard the Duck. Howard was originally portrayed as a Donald Duck-esque character, but with a much more abrasive personality. In fact, Howard's appearance was so similar to Donald Duck that at one point Disney contacted Marvel Comics requesting that they change the design. Marvel agreed to give Howard a pair of pants, something that Donald absolutely never wears, so as not to infringe on Disney's copyright. Gerber was none too happy about this, and wrote a story about Howard forcibly being given a pair of pants that he subsequently removes. Howard wore no pants for the remainder of the time Gerber wrote him, though the pants were added after Gerber was replaced. I'm not sure how much it matters now that Disney owns Marvel, but I digress.

Howard first appeared in the Man-Thing backup feature in Adventure Into Fear #19 in 1973. He continued to appear in backup features in that comic as well as the Man-Thing comic until 1976, when he received his own title. Howard's solo title proved to be popular enough that the same year, Gerber had Howard make a satirical bid for the presidency, running under the All-Night Party banner. Howard reportedly received thousands of actual, real write-in votes that year, though it wasn't enough to defeat Jimmy Carter. Still, it showed that Howard's popularity was only on the rise.

Possibly in an attempt to bring Howard more into the mainstream, a year later in 1977 Marvel decided to publish a Howard the Duck newspaper comic, written by Gerber himself, and distributed by the Register and Tribune Syndicate. Gerber was quite excited at the prospect, as it would reach a much wider audience than the comic book would, as well as give him some extra income. Although Howard the Duck looks silly and stupid on the surface, Gerber always took writing it very seriously; he wanted to use the satire of the comic to bring important issues to light, and not simply entertain just for the sake of it. The problem, however, was that he tended to use graphic violence and highly suggestive themes in order to accomplish this. It didn't really seem like something that would be suited for the newspaper. Much of the way Gerber wrote the comic book would need to be toned down for the strip, and Gerber was very aware of this. Still, he tried to keep the strip as close in spirit to the comic book as possible, within the restrictions of the newspaper. The strip started out in around 100 newspapers, and fans seemed to really enjoy it.

Newspaper editors, Marvel editors, and syndicate heads felt differently. The strip only lasted until October of 1978, and while it had started strong, by April of 1978 many newspapers had dropped it. It was only in around 20 papers by that time. Jim Shooter, Marvel editor-in-chief, decided at that point to take Steve Gerber off of the strip and put in a new creative team.

This is where things get messy.

It's difficult to say why Steve Gerber was taken off of the strip, because the story differs greatly depending on who you ask. Marvel President James Galton sent Gerber a formal termination letter, supposedly also giving a reason for the termination, but the letter has never been made public. Jim Shooter, who had taken over as editor-in-chief not long before firing Gerber, stated that it was simply due to Gerber consistently missing deadlines. Gerber was notorious for turning in comic book work late, and generally in the comic book world this can be dealt with by simply delaying the publication of the comic book. It doesn't work this way in the newspaper world. Newspapers are published on a very tight schedule, in order to be timely and up-to-date. Comic strips generally have to be ready for publication weeks in advance, or newspaper editors get very upset, and in the case of Sunday strips, there needs to be enough lead time to account for the color plating process. This isn't as much of a problem with gag-a-day strips with no continuity, as the syndicate can just send out whatever gags are ready in any order. Howard the Duck, however, was a continuity strip, and according to Shooter and the syndicate, Gerber was turning in work only 6 days ahead of printing, and sometimes even later. Editors were not happy with this at all, leading to many newspapers dropping the strip. The syndicate was even threatening to stop publishing the strip entirely if they didn't hire a new writer.

Marv Wolfman, who took over as writer on the strip after Gerber was fired, speculated that in addition to the deadline issue, it was due to newspaper editors simply not understanding the stories, even though readers certainly did, leading many of them to drop the strip. Gerber believed it had more to do with arguments he had with Marvel over the payment of artists. He stated that the syndicate generally wouldn't pay for a few months after publication, and Gerber wanted the artists to get paid in advance. The advance would have to come from Marvel, but Marvel refused to do so. Gerber is the only one to claim this, as none of the artists on the strip, the main one being Gene Colan, have ever mentioned payment being an issue.

Reasoning aside, Gerber did not take the termination well, and his subsequent actions may or may not have led to him being fired from Marvel completely. As with his termination from the newspaper strip, Gerber's story and Marvel's story about why he was removed from the company differ greatly. Jim Shooter as well as Marvel publisher Stan Lee both contended that his tardiness in turning in comic book work as well as newspaper work led to him being fired, as his contract with them stipulated a certain quota over a certain period of time, which he had not met. Gerber contended that it was for several other reasons, not the least of which was his threatening to sue them for the rights to the Howard the Duck character.

While certainly not the entirety of the reasoning, it may have been part of it. Generally, employers don't take kindly to their employees threatening to sue them. Either way, it seems that Gerber only did so due to a misunderstanding he had about the contract he signed with Marvel, and what rights it gave him to Howard the Duck. A few months after the newspaper strip began, Gerber signed an exclusivity contract with Marvel, which stipulated the amount of work he was required to turn in over the course of the year, and in return allowed him certain privileges relating to Howard. He was given right of first refusal on scripting and editing any Howard the Duck comic projects, the right to be consulted on any creative teams for Howard comic projects he chose not to work on, and the right to be consulted on any future Howard movie or TV projects. The problem, however, is that these privileges would only be extended to him as long as he was employed by Marvel. All rights and privileges would be revoked as soon as he was terminated, and Marvel would retain all rights to the Howard the Duck character.

Gerber seemed to not understand this when he signed the contract, because as soon as he was terminated from the newspaper strip, he contacted Marvel letting them know that he would be taking back all rights to the character, plots, themes, and settings, and threatened to sue Marvel if they infringed on these rights. Gerber had no such rights, either in the exclusivity contract he signed, or the newspaper strip contract that he signed prior to that. Marvel clearly knew this, and did not reply to Gerber about it. Tardiness was certainly a good enough reason to fire him, but threatening the company you work for with a lawsuit is never a good look. Marvel never explicitly stated this was a reason for his ultimate termination, but Gerber believed it was at least a contributing factor.

After this, Gerber seems to have left it alone for a while. No lawsuit surfaced at that time, and while Howard comics continued, they didn't do very well without Gerber. Comic books continued, now with Howard happily wearing pants, but they didn't sell well. The newspaper comic continued under Marv Wolfman and Alan Kupperberg, but it was not well liked by anyone involved. Stan Lee called it the worst thing he'd ever seen, and Wolfman seemed to agree. Given how late Gerber had been turning in scripts, when Wolfman took over he had very little time to write anything for the upcoming strips. Further, they wanted to turn it into less of a continuity strip and more of a gag comic, something Wolfman was very aware he was not good at. The strip ultimately ended in October 1978.

Gerber, still believing that he owned the rights to Howard, would take Marvel to court eventually in 1980, though he would ultimately lose. The contracts he signed made it clear that Howard the Duck was not his intellectual property.

For more information:

The Hooded Utilitarian for an extensive look at the entire story, including many source documents.

Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, December 30, 1951

2022-12-31

Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, December 30, 1951

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Tom Corbett shows us that, even in the far-flung future, people still don't do very well at keeping their New Year's resolutions. So don't feel bad if you don't do too well on yours. Countless humans have done and will continue to do the same.

Happy New Year, everyone!

Pogo, December 28, 1966

2022-12-30

Pogo, December 28, 1966

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Recently I saw a discussion online about why people who create fantasy worlds continue to use Latin and Latin-esque words in their stories. It was pointed out that the reason why is because people associate Latin sounding words with glory, grandeur, and a sort of ancient splendor. One person was skeptical, asking how people could think that after the empire that first used Latin, the Roman Empire, fell. It does seem odd, but Latin has been used in the Catholic Church for liturgical purposes for centuries, and Latin is still used in scientific circles for many things. In fact, Isaac Newton first laid out his laws of motion in a treatise he called Philosophiæ Naturalis Principia Mathematica (usually shortened to just Principia). It was written entirely in Latin, and was published in 1687, 1200 years after the fall of Rome.

So, writing your New Year's Resolutions not only in stone, but also in Latin, would definitely lend an air of importance to them. I don't know if that would make you more likely to keep them, though.

Tiny Tim, December 30, 1951

2022-12-29

Tiny Tim, December 30, 1951

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Tiny Tim and Dotty are, as they should, making resolutions for the new year, but I feel like they laid a sort of trap for Paddy. I think if they were better friends to Paddy, knowing that he wanted to stop eating peanuts, they would have made sure that Paddy didn't see them, or distracted him somehow. Loudly pointing out the giant pile of them was not helpful.

All of this is moot, of course, since peanuts are actually very good and healthy for pigeons such as Paddy, at least in their raw, unprocessed form. Paddy will not want to cut them out of his diet completely, but I guess if he's eating a very large amount he can cut back a little bit.

Toonerville Folks, December 26, 1923

2022-12-28

Toonerville Folks, December 26, 1923

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I wrote a bit about Fontaine Fox last year. One of the things I love the most about his strips is the expressive style, and this is another great example of that. I love how, with just a few lines and a few panels, he can show such a range of emotion on both the father and the child.

It's also kind of amazing how differently children and adults perceive time. We can only think of time in relation to the amount of time we've already lived, and a year in relation to only 3 or 4 years of life is quite a long time. Adults have lived many more years than that, so we don't think of a year as being nearly as long. I think we try very hard to fool ourselves into thinking it's a long time, though.

Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, December 23, 1951

2022-12-25

Tom Corbett, Space Cadet, December 23, 1951

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I must preface this by saying I never expected to see anything like this.

Tom Corbett was a popular science fiction character in the 1950s, inspired by the Heinlein novel Space Cadet. He started out life as Tom Ranger, in an unperformed radio play written by Joseph Greene. His name was changed to Tom Corbett based on input from Heinlein. The comic strip only ran from September 1951 to September 1953, drawn by Ray Bailey, but the character also appeared in comic books, novels, and a TV show. The character, along with the Heinlein novel, popularized the term "space cadet," which I think has fallen out of common usage these days but was a popular phrase for many years.

The stories always have something to do with Tom's adventures with his friends at the Space Academy, and the training that they undergo in order to become members of the Solar Guard. I've been a fan of science fiction and space adventures since I was a kid, and I don't remember many of them, or any of them at all, dealing with any kind of overt religious themes. This is why it was very surprising to me to find this overtly Christmas themed strip among the ones published in the first year of its run. I really enjoy the fact that it not only has a message about peace and goodwill, but also ties the star of Bethlehem to space exploration in keeping with the science fiction themes of the strip.

Merry Christmas, everybody, on whichever world you happen to be.