Crumbling Paper: Billy Bounce and The Teasers (1903) (strip #1)

Posted on April 9, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

Here’s the other side of the Uncle Pike page I posted the other day. Today we have Billy Bounce in “Billy Bounce Cheats the Cannibals Out of a Nice Stew” and The Teasers in “Bobby Gets the Reward.” Billy Bounce is a bizarre character… he’s a big, fat, bouncing ball-boy. His cast is very odd too… I have another one of these I will be posting sooner or later.

Billy was created by W.W. Denslow of Wizard of Oz book illustration fame, which makes a whole lot of sense looking at the characters. It was taken over in 1902 by C.W. Kahles, who did this one (Kahles later went on to create Hairbreadth Harry). This one is by Kahles… it’s a fun, weird strip.

The Teasers is also by Kahles… the main character looks pretty much like Billy Bounce after losing weight, although I actually hadn’t made the connection that the two were drawn by the same person until checking the Ohio State Cartoon Research Library site. Neither strip has a signature, and they have a stylistically very different feel to them. The Teasers uses a bizarre technique of using both word balloons and printed copy below the panels to convey dialogue.

Click the image below to see the full page (warning: contains offensive racial depictions, as is often the case with old comics).

Crumbling Paper: George Carlson’s Pie-Faced Prince of Pretzleberg (strip #1)

Posted on April 8, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

I found these nice scans of an installment of George Carlson’s Pie-Face Prince of Pretzleberg from an unknown issue of Jingle Jangle Tales a while ago on Ebay. These are black and white scans from the original art (which is what they were selling). The pages are gorgeously and inventively designed and illustrated, as always seems to have been the case with Carlson. Fun and crazy stories as well.

I wish someone would reprint his entire output, I’d love to read it all. You can see some more of Mr. Carlson’s work in The Smithsonian Book of Comic-Book Comics, if you can find a copy… he also did a Learn to Draw Comics book that I’ve been meaning to order for ages. It is a cheap Dover reprint, only $5.95, which has gotta be a steal.

Sooner or later, I plan to get around to scanning the issues of Jingle Jangle that I’ve acquired.

Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4

Crumbling Paper: Uncle Pike by A.D. Reed circa 1903 (and some miscellaneous gags) (strip #1)

Posted on April 6, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

Here’s another huge old Sunday scan for you. There are two strips on this page from 1903… the top is

a series of one panel gags by a number of different cartoonists. The only legible signature is that of “Joe Rigby” in the second panel. Here are close ups of the other ones… can anyone out there identify these cartoonists?

From panel 1.

UPDATE: Cole Johnson identified the artist of panel 1 as Carl Anderson.

From panel 3. Looks like “Sanders.”

UPDATE: Cole Johnson identified the artist of panel 3 as C.R.McAuley.

Panel 4 is unsigned.

From panel 5.

UPDATE: Cole Johnson identified the artist of panel 5 as Carl Anderson (as with panel 1).

From panel 6.

UPDATE: Cole Johnson speculates that panel 6 may be by George Herriman… definitely looks like a likely possibility to me as well, although that signature-like scribble may indicate otherwise.

From panel 7. The art looks a bit like James Swinnerton, but I doubt it is him.

UPDATE: Cole Johnson identifies this panel as being by William Marriner.

The second strip is “How Uncle Pike Secured the Unanimous Vote” by A.D. Reed. According to the Ohio State collection, Uncle Pike ran from 1902 to 1905.

I’m not sure what paper these are from… the Ohio State copies are from The Philadelphia Press, and the copyright on these is McClure. Click on the below image to view the strip.

Crumbling Paper: Gluyas Williams Circa 1927 Strip #26

Posted on April 4, 2007 by STWALLSKULL

This is the last item in a series of scans of 1927 strips from cartoonist Gluyas Williams. Thanks again to Zander Cannon for passing these great strips my way. I’m donating the scans to gluyaswilliams.com to give them a more fitting home on the web… hopefully their collection of strips will continue to expand. Click on the image below for the full strip.