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Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Jay V. Jay, Part 1: Laura Johnson
“Modish Mitzi,” the clever fashion strip ... is the work of three New York girls—two fashion writers and an artist. They are Laura Johnson, who is the artist; and Virginia Vincent and Jeannette...
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Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Jay V. Jay, Part 2: Virginia Vincent
“Modish Mitzi,” the clever fashion strip ... is the work of three New York girls—two fashion writers and an artist. They are Laura Johnson, who is the artist; and Virginia Vincent and Jeannette...
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Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Jay V. Jay, Part 3: Jeannette Kiekintveld
“Modish Mitzi,” the clever fashion strip ... is the work of three New York girls—two fashion writers and an artist. They are Laura Johnson, who is the artist; and Virginia Vincent and Jeannette...
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Obscurity of the Day: Digby
To Golden age comic book fans the name Harry Lampert is well-known. Although he did not spend a great deal of time toiling in the comic book bullpens, he happened to be paired up with Gardner Fox to...
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One-Shot Wonders: Every Day is April Fools' Day by Archie Gunn, 1897
This is a public service announcement: on Monday beware offers of tinned nuts, requests for you to fetch implausible seeming items, notices of lottery winnings, and check mirrors often for "Kick Me"...
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Wish You Were Here, from Cobb Shinn
\It apparently took a team effort of the Scofield-Pierson Company and Import Post Card Company to publish a series of postcards in 1907 that visualized some of James Whitcomb Riley's beloved poems....
View ArticleJeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The 300 for 1999 -- Top Rookies of 1998
In 1998 newspaper editors again went to the entertainment medium (movie and television) for the biggest rookie, trying again to get the kids to read newspapers. Of course this did not work in the long...
View ArticleJeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The 300 for 1999 -- Biggest Winners and...
After its big debut last year with 60 papers, Zits continued its growth by adding another 21, which is the biggest gainer of the year. Dilbert continues its growth adding another 13 papers. Baby Blues...
View ArticleJeffrey Lindenblatt's Paper Trends: The 300 for 1999 -- Overall Results
This year’s survey lost 3 papers, the News-Pilot (San Pedro, CA), San Bernardino County Sun (CA) and Pottsville Republican (PA). So the total for this survey is down to 254 papers. The loss of these...
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Obscurity of the Day: Tumble Tom
In their heyday New York's evening newspapers were designed with the evening commuter in mind. The stories tended to be short and punchy, the headlines lurid, and the comics catered to grown-up humour...
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One-Shot Wonders: Bertie's New Duck Suit by Ed Carey, 1902
In the heyday of Yellow Journalism, when Sunday circulation figures were more important to newspaper publishers even than the company's profit or loss, all sorts of freebies were given away with...
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Wish You Were Here, from R.F. Outcault
Outcault produced many of these calendar advertising postcards, some for specific advertisers, like this one, some more generic. The Rockford Watch Company was not a particularly major player in the...
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Obscurity of the Day: The Vidiots
As we've discussed many times before, TV listing pages, with their acres of boring tables, were ripe targets for a cartoon series to brighten things up. By the 1980s, though, the TV-centric gag panels...
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Magazine Cover Comics: Sally's So Sentimental
Sally's So Sentimental ran as the Newspaper Feature Service magazine cover series from March 22 to June 6 1931. The art is credited to Philip Loring, who I believe is in actuality Paul Robinson, and...
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Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Ramona Fradon
Ramona Fradon was born Ramona Dom on October 2, 1926, in Chicago, Illinois, according to the Cook County, Illinois Birth Index at Ancestry.com. Her parents were Peter Domboorajian (not Dombrezian*) and...
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One-Shot Wonders: Weekday Gag Array, 1904
An array of single panel gag cartoons was a familiar sight in 1900s papers, especially evening editions. Here's one such grouping from a 1904 edition of the New York Evening Journal, featuring four...
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Wish You Were Here, from Dwig
The A. Blue "Help Wanted Series 500" was quite extensive and popular, but this is only our second card from the series to show up on Wish You Were Here. Many more to come should we be granted decades...
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Toppers: Snookums Has a Growth Spurt
George McManus' juggernaut comic strip Bringing Up Father featured the topper strip Rosie's Beau for many years. But in 1944 after a run of nearly twenty years sitting above Jiggs and Maggie, I guess...
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Obscurity of the Day: Herbert Johnson's Daily Cartoon Panel
Fame can be fleeting; just ask Herbert Johnson. Or, actually, don't bother because he's quite dead. But if he were alive, he'd no doubt be flabbergasted at the nearly universal response of "Who?"...
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Obscurity of the Day: Papa Knows
The panel cartoon Papa Knows, by writer J. Kenneth Bolles and artist Fred Royal Morgan, is fascinating to me on a number of levels. Some of those points of interest are geeky newspaper comic...
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One-Shot Wonders: Pinky Doolittle Stumps the Goat by Herriman, 1901
Here's a strip by Herriman that ran in the McClure syndicated comics section of November 3 1901. George serves up a tremendously animated sequence, a very oddly horned goat, and a well-executed gag in...
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Wish You Were Here, from Walter Wellman
Here's a 1909 card that was probably self-published by Walter Wellman. The gag somewhat depends on the postcard recipient being aware of an organization known as "The Black Hand", an old-timey name...
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Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: Frank Tashlin
Frank Tashlin was born Francis Fredrick Tashlein on February 19, 1913, in Hudson, New Jersey, according to the New Jersey Birth Index, at Ancestry.com, and his World War II draft card. His parents were...
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Obscurity of the Day: Louis Wain's Cat Comic Strip (1st Series)
Starting his artistic career in the 1880s, Louis Wain quickly became a popular and incredibly prolific artist in British publications, where he specialized in humorous cartoons of cats. By his...
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Toppers: Boots and her Buddies
I really like how the NEA syndicate came up with interesting and original ways to add toppers to their Sundays in the 1920s. Unlike everyone else scrambling to follow in the Hearst footsteps, NEA...
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