Old Comic Randomness

Thank you to all of our supporters who have encouraged us at the DCR to keep going. Since I didn't quite know what we were going to do, I did a Sunday post over at my site which you can check out. A few weeks ago, I said I was going to post some older comics and I never got around to it with the Garfield debacle and such but I got the strips scanned and ready to go so let's get on with it. If any comics are cut off, just click them.

The Katzenjammer Kids 1906

The main problem I see with why The Katzenjammer Kids is not funny anymore is because child abuse is no longer funny. In my book of Katzenjammer comics most of the strips end with the kids being spanked or beaten and it is hilarious.


Anyone else notice how much Sandy, the Butcher Boy looks like The Yellow Kid? And because I am twelve-years-old, I chuckled pretty good at the "don't never try to get gay wit me" line.

Blondie

1933: Blondie and Dagwood get married. And as we know they would never be happy. As the look on Dag's face in the last panel shows.

Buster Brown 1903

Buster Brown was created by Yellow Kid creator Richard F. Outcault and lasted much longer.



I love Buster's deranged look in the first panel. I also wish comic strips were still the size of the entire newspaper page. The panels are all so expressive and you could have more than one plot in the strip. The only problem I could see is the problem we have now where strips that have run its course are still published and keeping fresh, new strips from making it.

Thimble Theatre

1923: Thimble Theatre debuted December 19, 1919 and starred Ham Gravy and Olive Oyl. Popeye would make his debut on January 17, 1929. This strip shows Ham's love for Olive because he would rather have a children's hospital go out of business than anyone else kiss his girl.

While Olive initially didn't like Popeye, she eventually left Ham to be Popeye's girlfriend and Ham vanished from the strip.

Krazy Kat

1937: Krazy Kat, along with Pogo, Peanuts and Calvin and Hobbes, is considered one of the best comic strips of all time. Krazy Kat, interestingly, is neither male nor female and Krazy's gender seems to change with each strip. Most contemporary authors refer to Krazy as a 'she' but creator George Herriman has stated that "Kat can't be a he or a she".


1917: Here, Krazy uses a Weeja (Ouija) board to find out if he has any enemies and does not like the results.


1919: Herriman's panels always varied from your normal stacked blocks to vertical panels like these which is a nice change from the bland panels today which are made to be moved around, squeezed together or deleted altogether.


1941: Just like Krazy loves Ignatz, Offissa Pupp loves Krazy however I think it is safe to say that Krazy only likes Offissa Pupp as a friend.

Bringing Up Father

1912: One strip that has grown on me over the last couple of years is Bringing Up Father. Created by George McManus in 1913, the strips featured Jiggs, an Irish immigrant, and his wife, Maggie. Maggie was constantly trying to drag Jiggs into upper-class society while Jiggs was satisfied right where he was. McManus passed away in 1954 and the strip was continued by numerous other writers and artists until coming to an end May 28, 2000.

Also, I don't know why the book this strip is from dated it 1912 when Bringing Up Father debuted in 1913. My only guess is that this strip appeared with another McManus strip since McManus said that he'd been using Maggie and Jiggs since 1911 in his other strips or the book was wrong.

WEBCOMICS WANTED

I am planning a webcomic-centric Sunday entry in the near future so if you know of a lesser known webcomic or if you have a webcomic you'd like to have showcased then let me know either in the comments or you can contact me.

Until next time, have a good week.