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S'Matter Pop was a comic created by C. M. Payne, and is probably best known, if it's known at all, as being an early influence on the young Charles Schulz, who would go on to create the comic strip Peanuts. It should not be confused with the similarly titled but completely unrelated strip "Say Pop!" which was also created by Payne a few years later. Those two should also not be confused with the other unrelated strip "Take It Easy, Pop," a strip Payne created a couple decades after those two. All three, as well as the other comic strips he created, are truly a joy to look at because of Payne's dynamic and expressive art style. It's simple and kind of messy, but it's unlike anything else you might see in the newspaper. I love the shape of the word balloons, as well. Instead of just trying to make sure they're out of the way of the rest of the artwork, their shape calls attention to them and integrates them into the artwork more.

In this particular strip, Pop shows us one of the best ways to answer a child's question about Santa Claus: be honest, but use big words the child doesn't know to confuse him and have him assume you're simply confirming what he already thought. Works every time. Probably.

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Mutt and Jeff are always an interesting pair, because there's always a quite perplexing logic to their schemes. While getting a divorce is certainly a way to get out of having to get your wife a Christmas present, it generally comes with a large amount of other problems and costs (believe me, I know). I don't see any way that even a fur coat could cost less than the bill Mutt will receive from Sir Sidney the well-known barrister. I imagine Sir Sidney would have a very nice Christmas, though.

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Bringing Up Father is all about a man who gets rich unexpectedly, and moves into a much larger house than he's used to. I'd imagine that along with that would come more closet space and therefore more options for hiding Christmas presents, but I guess Jiggs and Maggie still went for the same one when deciding where to hide them. Good thing Maggie wrapped hers first.

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Krazy Kat needs no introduction, as I've posted about him previously, but I couldn't resist another round of Christmas comics with him.

I realize Krazy's dialect may be a bit difficult to decipher in this one, but in short, he determines that cold snaps always happen in winter, and never in summer. In summer, there are only "hot snaps," which isn't a commonly used phrase but certainly should be.

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Somebody's Stenog was another "working girl" comic strip from the 1910s and 1920s, much like Winnie Winkle. Unlike Winnie Winkle however, who was written as intelligent and competent, the stenog of the title, named Cam O'Flage, was written as a bit more aloof and empty headed. Still, she pulls a clever trick in this strip by taking advantage of her boss's greed as well as his penchant for eavesdropping on his employees' conversations. The only problem there is that she'll have to actually buy him something now.

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Winnie Winkle was one of the first of many "working girl" comic strips that came out of the 1920s, and was certainly one of the most popular. It ended up running for an impressive 76 years, and spawned a series of Dell comic books and even a few movie shorts. It was even one of Roy Lictenstein's major influences.

This strip in particular shows off cartoonist Martin Branner's simple but elegant style, with some brilliant crosshatching in the trees. I'm also a big fan of the lettering. So many cartoonists of this era were horrible at it, but the text here is very clear and easy to read.

And of course I love the joke.

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They'll Do It Every Time was a single panel strip that ran for 80 years(!) and was created by Jimmy Hatlo. Readers were known to submit ideas for many of the gags, such as this one, which involved the inability to get a usable photo for a holiday card. These days it's not as much of a problem, what with digital cameras and all, but in the days when you had to bring your film somewhere to get developed, and you had to wait to find out how terrible your photos were, it was much more of a frustration. Still, I don't think anyone would really notice if you cut the photos in half and taped the good halves together and tossed the bad ones.

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This strip probably won't make much sense to anyone who doesn't know what a milkman is or how milk delivery used to work. For those who don't get it, take this as a learning opportunity and look it up. I know, you shouldn't have to do research just to get a joke, but think of it this way: if you do the research now, you'll get all the other milkman jokes I'll post on this blog in the future.

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Here's Herman again, and he's finally gotten up the courage to actually ski down the slope. His unfortunate accident here may have been what he was afraid of in the strip I posted yesterday. It also makes me wonder if the Valley Lodge tailor shop put certain obstacles on the slope on purpose to drive business to them.

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As it's now December again, I'm reviving my blog to bring you another month full of great Christmas and winter-related comic strips!

I decided to ease into the season with a winter-themed Herman comic strip. Herman was a strip created by Clyde Lamb, not to be confused with the other comic strip named Herman by Jim Unger, which is completely unrelated. Here we see Herman doing what I would most definitely do were I ever to find myself at the top of a ski jump: realize that the ski lift is far more entertaining and far less frightening and taking it down (and maybe taking it up and down one more time just for fun).