It’s a weekly tale set in the days of old featuring a bold, girly looking prince and told with lushly illustrated panels but no word balloons…no I’m not talking about that Valiant guy, but rather Prince Errant! Errant is the creation of H.C. Greening, so you can count on the fact that it’s going to be pretty out-there (thankfully, it does not disappoint). Follow Prince Errant as he searches high and low for a princess to save and wed, though nothing is ever quite that simple.
Miss Scoopem is a reporter for The Daily Smudge who has a nose for news, unfortunately she tends to pick up the wrong scent more often than not. The creator is Charles H. Wellington, who you may remember from Dreamy Dave. Given these appeared in 1906, the fact that Miss Scoopem starred in her own strip and was the butt of jokes based on her bumbling personality as opposed to strictly her sex makes this one seem a bit progressive (though there are some decidedly non-progressive elements at play too). I certainly don’t get the feeling Wellington created this strip as an excuse to draw a pretty gal as was often the case when a female character took center stage, but I guess we’ll never know for sure…
I’m not sure what’s so up-to-date about these…yeah, I realize they’re over a hundred years old, but still, they lack the sort of zing one might expect with that snappy title. At any rate, please welcome The Animals’ Mother Goose Up-To-Date to our site! The one above caught my eye as it is clearly a take off of McCay’s Dreams of the Rarebit Fiend, or were Welsh rarebit fueled nightmares such a thing back then that this would be purely coincidental? The signature appears to be Goewey (I would guess Ed Goewey, but this appears rather stylized compared to his usual scratchy signature). As far as I can tell, this ran as a series of ten and we have them all.
I’m pretty sure this is from Ryan Walker, dated March 9, 1906. Love the front of that car.
If your summer vacation was a bit of a bust this year, this one’s for you…
