This morning, Barnacle Press received notice of an event occurring in New York City this coming weekend. Rather than paraphrasing what’s already been laid out so well, I present the notice here in its fullness.

Bill Kartalopoulos & Mark Newgarden Present:

COMIC STRIP SERENADE

Please join us on Sunday, June 7 for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to hear forgotten songs inspired by unforgettable comic strip characters!

For one night only, the fabulous Jalopy theater will host a live performance of vintage compositions based on Krazy Kat, the Katzenjammer Kids, Barney Google, Smokey Stover, Li’l Abner, and more, featuring lyrics by Milt Gross, Rube Goldberg, Walt Kelly, and other cartooning and pop music legends.

These songs are lively (and funny) artifacts from the days before television, when comic strips were the dominant form of daily visual entertainment, and from the days before radio, when new songs — published as sheet music — were routinely performed by families and friends in America’s living rooms and parlors. Hundreds of songs based on comic strip characters were published during this fertile period, and co-curators Bill Kartalopoulos and Mark Newgarden will present some of the very best — as well as some of the most wonderfully obscure!

Many of these comic strip songs were never recorded, never filmed, and most have never been publicly performed in the decades since their original publication. The event will also feature some later, post-war songs, including a selection from Broadway’s Li’l Abner and Walt Kelly’s memorable Pogo songs. The archival sheet music used for this special performance was provided courtesy of Mark Newgarden’s longtime collection.

A stunning line-up of celebrated musicians will bring these unearthed gems back to life, including:

Doug Skinner (The Regard of Flight, White Knuckle Sandwich)
Peter Stampfel (The Holy Modal Rounders, the Bottlecaps, the Fugs)
Meg Reichardt (Les Chauds Lapins, The Roulette Sisters) with Kurt
Hoffman (Band of Weeds, Les Chauds Lapins)
Robin Goldwasser & Chris Anderson (The Last Car)
John Keen (Ragtime pianist extraordinaire)

…and many more surprises!

Join us after the MoCCA comics festival ends in a relaxing Brooklyn venue for this very special celebration!

Show starts at 9:00 pm
$10 cover

Jalopy
315 Columbia Street
Brooklyn, NY
http://www.jalopy.biz

Subway Directions: F or G train to Carroll St. (first car if coming from North/West). Walk 1 block up Smith St to 1st Place. Make left. Walk down past highway to Columbia St. Make left to 315 Columbia.

Unremarked upon in the press release but of particular note to fans of Barnacle Press, Bill has intimated that they have not only unearthed a tune in tribute to our dear Lady Bountiful, but they will be presenting tunes from the singular musical comic strip: Them Days is Gone Forever! I daresay that this is the first time these songs have been mounted for public approbation! You may be assured that if the Barnacle Bros. were located a thousand miles further toward the Atlantic, we would be in the front row, applauding wildly for each number.

Leo O’Mealia’s Little Pal is a likable enough strip, but I have to admit I’m having some trouble getting excited writing about it. Sure, it’s well drawn; you can certainly place me in the camp of those who admire O’Mealia’s work (especially those Jungle Definitions that Yesterday’s Papers ran a while back). The gags here are fairly standard: our Pal misreads people and tends to put his foot in his mouth. He doesn’t have much to offer the fairer sex. He’s the sort to hurl an alarm clock at the back of a patrolman’s head…you know, the standard stuff of the funnies. Nothing extraordinary, nothing ground-breaking, but solid enough. And the strip ran well into the 1920’s, so it certainly tasted some success. I just wish I could muster some more enthusiasm for our Little Pal here.  The guy seems as if he could use a break. Perhaps he’ll tickle your funny bone; take a stroll around the archives and judge for yourself.

Sometimes it’s the strip that excites you, sometimes it’s something else entirely…don’t get me wrong, the panel I’m introducing certainly has its own charm. And you already know how much we love those comics centering around last century’s big radio craze. It might be easy to dismiss Life on the Radio Wave as just another one of those features were it not in fact the product of a legendary figure not generally known for his work on the comics page - take a look at the signature on one of these panels. That’s right, “Pinto” is none other than Vance DeBar “Pinto” Colvig! Animation pioneer! The original Bozo the Clown! The voice of Goofy! And Bluto! Co-composer of the children’s song Who’s Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?! He even voiced some of the munchkins in MGM’s The Wizard of Oz…good gravy, this guy’s resume goes on and on.

Pinto Colvig began his distinguished career as a newspaper cartoonist, a job he soon abandoned to join the circus. In the off season he would again seek work as a cartoonist and eventually return full time to support his new family. It was during this run that he created his best known comics work, Life on the Radio Wave, which was syndicated nationally by United Features Syndicate. As you’ll see, he had fun with the idea, showing us radio spoiling the fun of fibbing husbands and children, or interfering with young love. I realize I’ve gone on about his other accomplishments, but Pinto shows off some strong cartooning skills, I especially like this panel concerning the original broad-casting station. And as much as I wish I didn’t have to give the disclaimer–Pinto really doesn’t give much cause in the majority of these–please keep in mind that these were created in a different era and may reflect a less sensitive approach to ideas of race or sex. I’m not pointing it out, but there is a doozy in the archive…hopefully this won’t scare you away.  To be able to present such rare material from a legendary entertainer is a real treat for us, please take a look around the archive and enjoy.

I don’t know what it looks like outside your window, but there’s a whole lot of snow on the other side of mine. With the sudden arrival of winter comes a certain lovable anthropomorphic snowman. No, I’m not talking about Frosty, that guy totally ripped off my friend here. Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to introduce the original walking, talking man of snow: Frappé! The Strange Adventures of Frappé, the Snowman, and His Papa appeared as a Sunday strip at the very start of 1905, in the midst of what I’m sure was a cold and snowy season. I have but a handful to share, not sure if these are all of them or if some more digging will yield more. This strip immediately scores points with me by cutely referring to Frappe’s young creator as his “papa.” If you’ve been itching to see a snowman pick on an unwitting cop this holiday season, this is the comic strip for you. And did I mention there’s a talking dog too? Talk about gilding the lily. The strip loses points with its portrayal of Native Americans; not exactly shocking for the time period, but you may want to skip this particular outing if you are sensitive to this brand of insensitivity. For the most part these are just silly fun; drag your computer over to the fireplace, kick back and warm up with the strange adventures of Frappé.

With a certain holiday upon us, it only makes sense to run a feature about an escapee from the lunatic asylum. Introducing H.E. Godwin’s Crazy Charlie! Well, this guy doesn’t wear a rubber mask and wield a butcher knife…trust me, though, he’s a total maniac. Just check out this episode where Charlie sneaks out for a round of golf with the ladies! Okay, okay, this one may not be a perfect match for Hallowe’en, but it is a fun strip. Crazy Charlie follows a simple game plan: our titular hero breaks out of the asylum, gets involved in a ordinary, everyday activity such as a friendly game of football or a trip to the beach, but the situation quickly sours and Charlie ultimately finds himself back at the asylum vowing never to leave again. And bonus! We have the complete run of the title from August 9 to December 13, 1903 (as far as I can tell it did not run in this particular paper August 30, and I haven’t found it elsewhere, so worst case scenario we have the full run minus one). Head on in to the archive and enjoy Crazy Charlie’s madcap adventures.

For a look at a couple of these in living color, make sure to visit this post at the Stripper’s Guide.

And so our half-week of Comic Supplement spotlights comes to an end. I hope that you’ve found some new and interesting strips as a result of our endeavors; I know that we’ve enjoyed the opportunity to look over our collection and assemble these lists. Below is my final effort in this regard, ten strips that haven’t been otherwise covered but are eminently deserving of your attention.

Abie the Agent
This is the strip that started it all, for me. When Thrillmer and I first began combing through microfilm and posting the results to our individual blogs (since subsumed by Barnacle Press), it was Abie the Agent who first arrested my attentions. Harry Hirschfield’s strip was one of the first unabashedly “adult” strips, centering on the travails of a little Jewish car salesman as he tries to stake a place in the world. I mention his ethnicity because it’s central to the character and to the strip’s cachet as an example of a cultural shift from the “Hebrew” comedy tropes of Vaudeville to the nuanced Judaic identity that we’ve come to know in the ninety intervening years. By me, the later period stuff became rather pedestrian and typical, but these early strips are earthy and brilliant.

Citizen Fixit
The flipside of Everett True, Citizen Fixit shares Ev’s outrage at the boorish behavior and poor mores of his fellow man, but is decidedly less effective in remedying them, often ending up on the receiving end of flying fists rather than the giving side. In this way, he illustrates the more likely outcome of curbside vigilantism, and generates loads of comedy with his ineffective stabs at enforcing civility.

Jerry on the Job
Along with Abie, this is the other strip which caught my attention in the early days of this project. Jerry is a diminutive young man who works at an office when he’s not sneaking out to go to the movies or making time with the ladies. One of my all-time favorite features.

Monkey Shines of Marseleen
Norman Jennett is a name that should, by all rights, be as well known as Swinnerton or Sterrett, but fame has eluded this strip about a very clever clown and his endless supply of bright ideas. This strip has such beautiful artwork and inventive uses of comic grammar, I find it hard to believe that it’s not better known.

Mr. Jack
Oh, I shouldn’t like this strip as much as I do. Mr. Jack is a rake and an inveterate philanderer, an anthropomorphic tiger who most always meets with violence at the hands of his wife, the young ladies who are the objects of his attentions, or their beaus, but he lives his life with no regrets. A behavioral role model he’s not, but he is very, very funny.

Old Opie Dilldock’s Stories
I fell in love with F.M. Howarth’s instantly recognizable art the moment I saw it, and my ardor only deepened the more that I read. Opie is a teller of tall tales that are too good not to believe. Opie adventures throughout the world, and the details Howarth includes in his depictions of foreign peoples reveal his affection for humanity.

One Way Ticket to Laughterville
I’m a sucker for corny jokes, and these pages are full of them, along with poems, cartoons, and other comic tidbits, with contributions from such literary notables as Dorothy Parker. You could spend an afternoon in worse ways than perusing this feature.

Out Our Way
Part of the fun of poring over piles of vintage newspapers and reels of microfilm is just getting to know the era and its people. Each Out Our Way panel is a slice of life from a bygone era, and its gentle wit is keenly appreciated in this hectic and cynical age.

Uncle Mun
When we added this feature to the Supplement, I remarked that Uncle Mun is nothing less than a gilded age Bat-Man, capable of performing feats of ingenuity that boggle the mind. I’ve certainly seen better-rendered strips, but Mun possesses a verve and charm that I find irresistible.

Various Comics and Features
Lastly, I’d like to call attention to this catch-all category that’s likely to be overlooked. This page is where we stow all of the odds-and-ends that we come across in our trips through vintage newspapers. There are odd stories, stunning illustrations, and many limited-run and one-off comics that don’t warrant their own headline.

This list isn’t necessarily meant to reflect my ten absolute favorite comic strips of all time, but rather gives me a chance to highlight just a few more strips you really should visit in our archives. I would hate to see these get lost in the shuffle. We’ve covered a lot of great features over the past few days and many of the strips below could easily have been placed on previous lists. So here are ten more titles: some are weird, some are zany, some are fantastic, all are worth getting to know if you haven’t met them already. I hope you’ve enjoyed going through these lists with us; look for Holmes! to close out the celebration this afternoon with his final picks.

Buddy Tucker
Buster Brown is one of my absolute favorite strips of all time, but, as you know, it’s been covered. If you too share great affection for Buster, be sure to check out R. F. Outcault’s spin-off series, Buddy Tucker. Buddy as a character is certainly cut from the same cloth as Buster, but the reading experience as a whole is a bit more surreal with all of Buddy’s talking animal friends and his adventures with such human pals as Alice in Wonderland.

Bungleton Green
A number of artists worked on Bungleton Green over the years, with the look and tone changing drastically with each iteration. Currently we have samples from the creator of the strip, Leslie Rogers. The full Sunday-style pages we have on display feature some beautiful cartooning. Bungleton really deserves a wider following.

Diary of Snubs, Our Dog
I don’t know if it was Paul R. Carmack’s intention to ratchet the cute factor of this strip to near impossible heights, but that’s what he accomplished. If you’ve ever wanted to sneak a peek at the private thoughts of the sweetest darn puppy in the whole world, this is your chance!

The Explorigator
It didn’t run for any great length of time, but Harry Grant Dart’s The Explorigator left an indelible impression on its readers. This one is simply gorgeous and packed to the gills with imagination; when people complain about the current state of the comics page, it must bring them to tears knowing something like this once existed.

Lucy and Sophie Say Good Bye
I have a real soft spot for this strip: it’s repetitive and I can think of at least a hundred that are better drawn, but that does nothing to change my love for Lucy and Sophie. What must newspaper readers of 1905 have thought of this? I’m sure our modern take is a little different…but still, the passionate lip-locks those two engage in, oblivious to the danger and chaos surrounding them, is enough to make any innocent bystander blush.

Madge the Magician’s Daughter
I have really grown to appreciate the work of W. O. Wilson and I would say Madge best displays his strengths. Madge is a beautifully illustrated Sunday page, full of wonder and magic. One of the best in the realm of children’s fantasy strips.

Minute Movies
Ed Wheelan provides us a cast of actors who act out episodic movie serials on paper. It’s a fun idea and Wheelan gets a lot of mileage out of it. It still astounds that he is able to shoehorn in so many panels per strip, can you imagine trying to do this on today’s comics page?

Mager’s Monks
Gus Mager’s Monks are a riot. Sherlocko may be the best known, but you’ll want to check out the antics of Groucho, Coldfeeto, Henpecko and the rest. I’d say the fact that the Marx brothers borrowed this shtick for their names is testament to this strip’s greatness.

Poor Little Income
This one was left off the Odd comics list and I’m scratching my head now as to why, it most certainly is a weird little strip. Income and Expense portrayed as children: an obvious concept, right? I love Maurice Ketten’s scratchy figures which only serve to heighten the abstractness of the affair.

Private Conscience
Foster M. Follett’s Private Conscience is visually a child’s toy soldier brought to life as the personification of one’s own, well, private conscience. You can be sure that those he attempts to aid do not necessarily heed, or even appreciate, his advice. Beautifully illustrated, this strip is representative of the sort of treasures we hope to restore to public consciousness; something this good shouldn’t be lost to the sands of time.

Prepare yourself to enter the world of the strange and unusual. I marvel at the truly unique sensibilities of some of the pioneers of the artform, the comics pages of the past hold such a fun sense of excitement and wonder. That these artists would take their craft to some dark or bizarre places isn’t so surprising. Here we look at ten of the weirdest, oddest, craziest series archived on Barnacle Press. Some of the artists you may recognize from other features, others may be completely new.  It is my hope that no matter what your familiarity might be, at least one of these titles will cause you stop in your tracks and ask aloud “how do they think this stuff up?!”

Enjoy.

Betsy Bouncer and Her Doll
Tom Tucker’s Betsy Bouncer is an otherwise ordinary girl but for the fact that her closest companion is a grotesque almost-human-but-not-quite living doll. The relationship between girl and doll is a nightmarish one as the plaything is constantly plotting oh-so-funny ways to injure her owner.

Billy Bounce
W. W. Denslow was the original artist on Billy Bounce, and while his work is a little out there, the feature under his watch concerns funny, kid-friendly characters at a circus. It’s when C. W. Kahles takes over that things begin to get a bit crazy. Especially once Billy departs the planet to spend some time with the King of the Pollywogs.

Dolby’s Double
Dolby suffers from a unique problem in Ed Carey’s strip, he is plagued by the underhanded doings of a man who is his exact double! This evil twin appears to have no life of his own, he exists solely to torment our man Dolby. And Dolby is such a jerk that his Double has no problem convincing people that Dolby himself is committing his foul deeds.

Goops!
Gelett Burgess’s whimsical Sunday page features the childlike Goops whose appearance, in contrast with the more realistically drawn adults of the feature, cannot help but give one a case of the creeps. This title could have easily been at home on Holmes’s list of Kid Features as the characters were spun onto the newspaper page from a popular series of children’s books.

The Handy Man from Timbuctoo
The titular, hirsute Handy Man and his fascinating tiger appear one day after swimming across the ocean, apparently intent on entertaining children and sticking up for those in need. That the tiger dresses in drag in one episode is just icing on the cake. Charles Edward Schultze of Foxy Grandpa fame is the likely perpetrator of this odd strip.

Home Wanted By a Baby!
I suppose this strip from Clare Victor Dwiggins could have qualified for the Lesser-Known Works list, but it truly belongs here. Here we have the daily adventures of an orphaned baby who: 1) shows up on a doorstep 2) is taken in by a household he ultimately deems unfit 3) escapes by any means necessary, be it by chimney, coal chute, window, etc. 4) stops to ask a random animal or insect about any good homes in the area and 5) moves on to the next doorstep. Repeat as necessary.

Naps of Polly Sleepyhead
Peter Newell’s Sunday page is filled with hauntingly beautiful illustrations. Polly is a girl known to nod off rather suddenly, and when she does the fun begins. Her dreams are informed by the nature of whatever she was involved in before dozing, so we see her world transformed in the blink of an eye, often frighteningly so. Later strips see the premise overhauled, leaving it more in the vein of a mischievous kids strip, but the early outings are simply brilliant.

The Onion Sisters
An artist by the name of Nixon provides us with this visually arresting page. The Onion Sisters are, appropriately enough, a couple of anthropomorphic onions who live in a village full of other bizarre vegetable characters. The fact that they hunt and eat animals takes this one to a whole other level.

Terrors of the Tiny Tads
Holmes snatched my favorite Gustave Verbeek creation for his list, but that’s okay as Terrors of the Tiny Tads may actually be the weirder of the strips we have here. Get ready to travel to a landscape filled with wild, nightmarish creatures…if you’ve never seen the likes of a Horseshoenicorn or a Hippopautomobile or some Butterflima-beans, you’ll want to check out this strip right away.

The Woo Woo Bird
There are a few works by H. C. Greening that could have made the list, but I’m going with The Woo Woo Bird. The fact that he’s a talking bird should be enough to raise people’s suspicions, never mind the fact that he’s always talking them into following a path of mischief. The Woo Woo Bird delights in stirring it up, but never sticks around to see it all hit the fan…I can just imagine him off somewhere, high atop a tree, chuckling to himself over a job well done.

Make sure to tune in tomorrow as Holmes and I present our personal top ten lists.

While everything that we post at Barnacle Press is certainly family-friendly, having first appeared in newspapers published in a more genteel era, not everything will appeal to the youngest members of your family. As wonderful as the works of Gluyas Williams are, they probably won’t hold the attention of young kids, with their wordy examinations of prosaic events from one hundred years ago.

So here’s a list of some of the more distinctly kid-friendly fare we’ve got in the Barnacle Press archives. Some are old friends I’m sure you’ve heard of, others are obscure features that we’ve rescued from the dustbin of history. All of them are delightful, I’m sure you’ll agree.

Several of the features we’re highlighting in this list aren’t comics, but illustrated stories and scissors-and-paper activities. We hope that you’ll print some of these out to give to your favorite young’n, but if you want to keep them for yourself, we won’t tell a soul; a common trait shared by the best of children’s art and literature is its wide appeal to grown-ups as well as its intended audience of youngsters.

Good Stories For Children
As the title of this feature implies, these are illustrated stories by Walt McDougall that first appeared in the kiddie section of the Sunday paper. Ranging from flights of home-grown fantasy to tales based on the folklore of other cultures, the illustrations are gorgeous and the stories are quick and clever. I would be remiss in neglecting to mention that there are some portrayals of ethnic types which would not be considered acceptable in today’s more enlightened multicultural environment. But though the characterizations are broad, they’re never mean-spirited, and would make a good stepping-off point for conversations about changing mores.

The Great Dot Mystery
This is a fun one, and an idea that I’m surprised hasn’t stuck around. Each is a single-panel cartoon whose art is largely made up of a dot-to-dot puzzle. The puzzles are actually pretty good, too! Too often, you can make out the image before setting pencil to paper, but C.L. Sherman is too good for that.

Just Dog
This is one of my favorite items on all of Barnacle Press, following the adventures of Robert L. Dickey’s irrepressible Boston Terrier, Buddie, and his canine companions Angus and Bucky. The art is terrific, and the dogs are adorable. What more can a dog-loving comic fan ask for?

Papercraft - LA Times
Long one of the most popular features on Barnacle Press, these papercraft models are whimsical fun for the activities crowd. We’ve provided each one in JPG format for viewing on your screen, and PDFs for printing out, coloring, and assembling. We’d love to see pictures of your finished products!

Polly Evans’ Story Page
Another series of illustrated stories, these pages also include puzzles, games, and cartoons, all created with a high degree of craft and care.

Terhune’s Dog Stories
Albert Payson Terhune’s Lad: A Dog has been in print and greatly popular ever since its first printing back in 1919. Our offerings are from the mid-twenties, at the height of his popularity, and feature the same wonderful tales of doggie derring-do, well-heeled and fetchingly illustrated.

Turr’ble Tales of Kaptain Kiddo
This could have been in Thrillmer’s roundup of Lesser-Known Works by Major Creators, but I wanted to save it for this list, since it’s so wonderful and kid-centric. The creator, Grace Wiederseim, would rise to great heights as the cartoonist behind Dolly Dimples and the illustrator who gave form to the Campbell’s Soup Kids, under her married name of Grace Drayton. Kaptain Kiddo, created in tandem with Miss Wiederseim’s sister Margaret G. Hays–no mean cartoonist in her own right–tells the story of a toddler pirate and his dog, Puppo, as they traverse a series of surreal settings. Cute overload, indeed.

Uncle Remus’ Stories
I’m sure that most of you are familiar with Joel Chandler Harris’s adaptations of slave folk narratives, the tales of Brer Rabbit, Brer Bear, and the rest of their animal brethren. While their popularity has waned in recent decades, these stories were an important link in preserving the stories and vernacular of the 19th century African American experience. Read on their own, they’re captivating and beautiful. In context, they’re an important piece of Americana.

Uncle Wiggily’s Adventures
Here’s another Uncle that you’re probably familiar with. Howard R. Garis’s book of Uncle Wiggilly’s Bedtime Stories was a staple of childhood for many decades. Today, many folks share my own initial exposure to this character, through the eponymous boardgame, in print consistently since 1916.

The Upside-Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo
Deliriously weird and endlessly inventive, Gustave Verbeek’s masterpiece is one of the most clever works to grace the comics pages. First, you read the strip right-side-up, then turn the page over and read the second half of the story, as the illustrations switch perspectives! We’ve got links to both views in the archive, so you can enjoy this terrific trip into surreality.

One of my favorite aspects of searching out new material for our site is finding titles and characters that are completely new to me. Especially when they come from big name creators. Chances are you are familiar with the creations for which these artists are best known; it would even be easy to assume that because they are so strongly connected with a famous property that perhaps that is all these artists ever produced. It would be a shame if you missed out on these lesser know works, all of which at the very least show signs of the elements that helped elevate their more popular siblings into the limelight.

Bobby Make-Believe
This dreamy Sunday page predates Frank King’s beloved Gasoline Alley by a handful of years. Similar to Little Nemo, Bobby kicks off each strip in the real world, shifts to the imaginary, and then is forced back to the mundane by the final panel. Lots of fun make-believe adventures in this one.

Danny Dreamer
Clare Briggs has a lot of credits to his name, so many that this one is sure to get lost in the shuffle. Again we’re treated to a boy’s imagination, but this time we see how Danny imagines a situation will turn out before being treated to the real story. Best to stick to the early episodes and skip the dreadful Danny Deamer, Sr. Consider yourself warned.

Hungry Henrietta and Little Sammy Sneeze
A pair from Winsor McCay, perhaps the most appreciated comics draftsman of them all. Henrietta is the story of a girl who develops an extraordinary eating problem thanks to the “good” intentions of her guardians. Little Sammy Sneeze is a boy with a most profound sneezing problem…the set-up may be the same each time, but it’s worth it to witness the devastation that kid’s nose can bring.

Major Ozone’s Fresh Air Crusade
George Herriman is another creator who may well make claim to being the most beloved cartoonist to ever put pencil to paper. While a certain Kat and mouse team will always be the one work associated with him, his Major Ozone has its charms as well. Ozone is a man obsessed with clean air who will go to great lengths to find it. Later strips are by Clarence Rigby and definitely worthy of praise in their own right.

Married Life
Billy DeBeck will always be known as the artist who gave us Barney Google. His Married Life didn’t go on to to enjoy the same acclaim, but is plenty of fun too. This one is a three tiered panel with gags centered around–you guessed–married life.

Millie and Her Millions
Percy Crosby will forever be associated with his kid strips, that’s why it was such a surprise to find this forgotten gem featuring adult characters. This one is a bit more restrained than his later creations.

Mr. Twee Deedle
This one is a bit of a cheat as Johnny Gruelle is best known for his non-comics creation of Raggedy Ann and Andy. That said, Mr. Twee Deedle is a Sunday page you will want to explore post haste if you are unfamilar. What a beautiful, wonderfully fantastic strip!

The Newlyweds’ Baby/Their Only Child
George McManus pokes fun at helicopter parents in this pair of titles (one is essentially a continuation of the other). While not exactly reaching the heights of popularity enjoyed by Bringing Up Father, these characters did enjoy a nice run in the papers of the day.

Old Doc Yak
Sidney Smith gave the world The Gumps and was rewarded by the first million dollar contract given to a cartoonist. Old Doc Yak was supplanted by The Gumps, but by no means is it a work of lesser power. This one is so much fun, and I’m happy to say we have a ton of them. Make sure to also check out the earlier version of Old Doc Yak: Buck Nix.