Although he is best known today for Happy Hooligan (which we’ve been reprinting examples of recently) Frederick Opper was responsible for a number of popular strips in the early 20th century. Here’s an example of Frederick Opper’s strip And Her Name Was Maud from 1906. This page also contains a bonus strip… No Wedding Bells For Him by Jimmy Swinnerton. Eventually we’ll be posting a number of strips by Mr. Swinnerton as well. Click the image to read the strip.
Check out this inspiring commencement speech to the first graduating class of The Center for Cartoon Studies by the great Patrick McDonnell at Tom Spurgeon’s excellent Comics Reporter Blog.
Mr. Spurgeon has also reviewed a recent run (May 13-19) of McDonnell’s Mutts strips having to do with writing a commencement speech here, one of which can be seen above.
Dennis Eichhorn is one of the few cartoonists on this list that doesn’t draw… his comics have been illustrated by many of the best cartoonists around, though. Eichhorn’s stories would still be engaging if they were drawn in crayon, however… he’s one of the most interesting autobiographical cartoonists around, largely because he has had the good fortune of living an extremely interesting life. Just thinking about his sloe gin and beer story still makes me laugh. Some of his excellent series Real Stuff was collected in the book pictured above a few years ago (I think it is out of print, but there appear to be a number of used copies available on amazon).
Click here to go to the lambiek.net entry on Dennis Eichhorn.
At the request of MJ, here are a couple scans I made of Harry Tuthill’s The Bungle Family Sundays. MJ was nice enough to send scans of a couple dailies he had as well, which are also below. Thanks MJ!
Above from October 29, 1933.
Above from November 12, 1933.
Click the above panels to go to the strips they come from.
Click here to read the entry on Harry Tuthill at Lambiek.net.
Click here to read the entry on The Bungle Family at Toonopedia.com.
A number of excellent scans of strips can be found at comicartfans.com by searching for Tuthill. Like this hand-colored original Sunday from 1929. Check out the wild panel layout on this one.
Here are more strips at comicstripfan.com.
Also note that Mr. Tuthill is one of the cartoonists featured in Dan Nadel’s recent excellent book Art Out of Time: Unknown Comics Visionaries 1900-1969.
Here’s another example of F.M. Howarth’s strip The Love of Lulu and Leander from 1905. Click the image to read the strip.
You can see more examples of this strip (and many other classic comics) at Barnacle Press.
Although he is best known today for Happy Hooligan (which we’ve been reprinting examples of recently) Frederick Opper was responsible for a number of popular strips in the early 20th century. Here’s an example of Frederick Opper’s strip And Her Name Was Maud.
Warning: this strip contains the sort of offensive racial depictions that were typical of this era… if this sort of thing offends you, I suggest you don’t read it. Click the image to read the strip.
Here’s what Don Markstein’s Toonopedia has to say about And Her Name Was Maud.
Click on the above image to see the full Count Screwloose strip I scanned from November 23, 1930. Rudy Megaphone is a satire of singer Rudy Vallee, by the way.
Milt Gross’ comics drip slapstick. I don’t think Milt Gross aspired to do much with his comics other than make people laugh… and he was very good at it. That said, he wrote what may be the first graphic novel, She Done Him Wrong (a.k.a. Heart of Gold… recently reprinted by Fantagraphics). I wish someone would do a nice big reprinting of his newspaper work. Don’t miss the ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive link below… great stuff!
See a number of great scans of Milt Gross comics at the ASIFA Hollywood Animation Archive here.
See some Milt Gross comics on Bugpowder here.
Drawn and Quarterly’s recent publishing of the work of Yoshihiro Tatsumi is a revelation (in two volumes so far edited by American cartoonist Adrian Tomine, The Push Man and Abandon the Old in Tokyo). This guy was an underground cartoonist in Japan around the same time as the underground cartoonists in America and Europe were getting started (although he was unaware of their work)… and he has a huge body of work going up to the present day. His artwork in the two D&Q volumes is gorgeous, and the stories are bizarre, entertaining and often disturbing. It’s thrilling to discover such a great cartoonist that I was totally unaware of. I look forward to reading more of his work.
Click here to read the lambiek.net entry on Yoshihiro Tatsumi.
Here’s another example of F.M. Howarth’s strip The Love of Lulu and Leander from 1904. Click the image to read the strip.
You can see more examples of this strip (and many other classic comics) at Barnacle Press.
Chapter nine of Kevin Cannon’s fantastic tale of arctic rapscallion Armitage Shanks, Far Arden, is online… only three chapters to go!
Click here to start reading at chapter nine.
Click here to start at the beginning.
Click here to read more about Kevin Cannon’s mad, mad project.
