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Sir Bagby, by Bill and Rick Hackney, was a fairly obscure comic strip that ran from 1957-1966. That's a fairly respectable period of time, though it only ran in about 20 newspapers across the country. Still, I really enjoy the artwork, and the gags are at least as good as anything you see in the newspaper these days. It's a shame it didn't get more exposure. I wonder if Brant Parker and Johnny Hart were aware of it when they created The Wizard of Id, a similarly themed comic strip, in 1964.

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The final Nancy comic of this year.

I have one question, though: Do people still shoot off guns on New Year's Eve, or was that just something they did in 1964? I'd think you'd have enough things that make loud noises that you could probably forego the firearms. Fireworks would probably be sufficient, and would look cooler. That seems to be the prevailing theory around here, anyway.

Happy New Year, everybody!

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That rebus is clever, but it doesn't entirely work for me. What he says is a "bush" looks more like a tree, and a Christmas tree at that. It does break the fourth wall in quite a big way, as well. I mean, pointing to the artist's signature? I didn't know a comic strip character was allowed to do that. Unless, of course, she's not pointing to his signature, but instead has written "Ernie Bushmiller" on the ground for us.

I'm probably thinking a little too hard about this.

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The image quality on this one isn't too great, so I hope you can see and read it. Compared to most Little Orphan Annie strips, this one is fairly mundane and ordinary. However, since this was published in 1926, and the strip debuted in August of 1924, this is only her third christmas in print and only the second away from the orphanage. So, I guess it would be pretty exciting for her, and not ordinary at all.

Merry Christmas, everybody.

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I wonder which Santa Claus Nancy gave the string to. It seems unlikely that she would be able to walk all the way to the North Pole and give it to the one who lives there. That would have to be an extremely long string. Then again, maybe she did. It is a comic strip, after all.

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Dooley's World was a comic strip that ran from 1972 to 1978, and centered around a young boy named Dooley and his living toys. Every year on Christmas Eve, the strip would have the same joke, with the characters trying to recite the poem "'Twas The Night Before Christmas" only for Max the mouse to be unable to complete it. Had the strip run for a few more years, Max may have finally been able to do it, but unfortunately it didn't last as long as it should have.

Dooley's World was created by Roger Bradfield, who spent most of his career as an illustrator, with Dooley's World being his only venture into comic strips. He is probably best known for creating the original look of the Keebler Elves, and for doing many illustrations for the front of cereal boxes. His style was minimal but fun, and while a joy to look at it definitely belongs to another time.

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High Pressure Pete is a lesser known creation by George Swanson, who signed his work and is credited as "Swan." Swanson is better known for his earlier strip Salesman Sam. How Pete came about is very similar to how Gene Ahern's Room and Board did (see an earlier post for more info on that strip): King Features Syndicate wanted Swanson to do Salesman Sam for them, though they couldn't use that title or the characters. Therefore, Charles Small continued to do Salesman Sam at the Newspaper Enterprise Association, and Swanson moved to King Features and created High Pressure Pete, which had the same characters with different names and the same overall theme. It lasted for about 10 years, and ended around the same time Salesman Sam did.

In this strip, Pete is the one on the far left in the first panel, and the fuming one on the far right is his boss, Hank Hookem. I imagine Hank is upset because the gift implies that he has no hair. It seems well-meaning, though, as it's probably meant to help him grow some of it back. As someone who has lost quite a bit of hair myself, I would be very appreciative of such a gift, or at least the thought behind it.

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This one's a little different, as it's basically just Al Capp giving holiday greetings to a bunch of people, along with a drawing of himself in a Santa Claus outfit. It's probably a bit hard to read, so I've transcribed it for you below:

"To the vets in the vets' hospitals - and to the fine Red Cross gals who take me out to see you - to Father David Dunnigan - Rabbi Isadore Davidson - Levi Jackson - Harold Russell - Walter Winchell - to the man who marinates the herring at Toots Shor's - Joe Dineed, and his amazing 'Purple Shamrock' - John Mason Brown - John Crosby - Arthur Godfrey- Nancy O. - Secretary of Labor Tobin - Miltons Caniff and Berle - Lee and Connie Falk - Rabbi Philip Bernstein - the Saroyans - Jack Goodman - Tex and Jinx - Leila and Kip Hadley - Chic Young - Rube Goldberg - Bob Ruark - Henry Morgan - Colby College - Faye Emerson - Reg Beauchamp - Helen Hayes and Charlie McArthur - Oona and Charlie Chaplin - Drew Pearson - Billy Reed and his Little Club - Joe Lopez of the Copa - Secretary John Snyder - Verne Clark - Bridgeport Univ. - Thompson and Jacque of the Montreal Standard, one of the top newspaper teams in the world - Gregg Sherwood - E.M. Kahn jr. - Al Hershfeld - Dolly Hass - Sid Caesar - Henny Youngman - Joe E. Lewis - Pat Williams - Alex Raymond - Warde Greene - John Wayne - Glorya and Leopold Stokowski - Louis Sobol, the kindliest of all the kolumnists - Big Joe, and may he grow Bigger - Miss Sarah Lewis of New Haven - Billy Daniels - Bob Trout- Fred Friendly - John Cameron Swayze - Davidson Taylor - Leonard and Sylvia Lyons - James and Pamela Mason - Bob and Mignon McLaughlin - Vaugn Monroe - Bob Allen - Harold Stassen - Jack Lait - 'Twenty One' - Turhan Bey - Larry Winship - Lou Cowan - Arnold Horwitt and Lee Rogow - Charlie and Peg Ross - Ben Hecht - Jimmy Cannon - Bob Hall - John Ringling North - George Jessel - Frank Knight - Virgnia Gilmore - Salvador Dali - Rod MacLeish - Frank Sinatra - Doug Edwards - Louis Gardner - Joey Gold, who can get 'em when no one else can - R. Van Buren - Jack Barry - Barry Gray - T.S. Matthews - Christine Lynn - Eleanor Tatum - Ed and Pegeen Fitzgerald - Jean Sulzberger - Dick Williams - Joe Purtell - Betty Crocker - Betty Betz - Kenny Delmar - Carl Hodge - John McLain - Walter Ross - Harriet Van Horne - Morris Ernst - Elinor Marcus - Mort Millman - Bob Emery, and the Small Fry Club - Nick Kenny - Kenneth Banghart - Pat Coffin - Maxwell Coplan - Gordon Johnson - Ruth Cosgrove - to the Yale Record and the Princeton Tiger (thanks for your awards) - Irwin and Marian Shaw - to the talented cartooning Fishers, Bud, Dudley, and Jo, that is - Lyman Bryson - the Atlantic Monthly - Fred Garrigus - Charlie Post - Al Foster - Ralph Foster - Roy Larsen - Smitty Davis - Ann and John Groth - and to all you confused by loyal Li'l Abner readers -"

There are some interesting names in there if you take the time to actually read them. The most interesting to me is his mention of "the talented cartooning Fishers", meaning Bud Fisher, creator of Barney Google and Snuffy Smith, Dudley Fisher, creator of Right Around Home, and probably Jo Fischer, who spells his name a bit differently, creator of From 9 to 5. I'm guessing he's conspicuously omitting Ham Fisher, creator of Joe Palooka, with whom Capp had been feuding since the 1930s. That's a story for a different time.

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These are the last two days of Hal Fosters The Christmas Story series. It's interesting to note that while this series originally ran only once in 1948, it was also re-released in 1996. The size that newspapers printed comic strips at that time had drastically decreased from how large they were printed in 1948, so I don't imagine it looked nearly as good as it did originally. It would be neat to be able to run another Hal Foster series, however, since Foster had died 14 years earlier.

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Here are the third and fourth days of the Hal Foster short-run series The Christmas Story. You'll notice that Foster takes a few liberties with the story when writing the captions, but I guess I'd expect that from a man who regularly wrote a comic strip that was an embellishment of Arthurian legend. Still, showing Mary being happy and singing while traveling miles through sleet and snow is a bit of a stretch. I don't really mind it that much, though, because I mostly just pay attention to the amazing artwork. It's definitely hang on the wall material.