The Funny Papers, 1931

“Gasoline Alley” by Frank King

March 19, 1931: After wandering through the comics pages of 1941, I thought it would be interesting to roll the clock back to 1931. There are a few familiar faces, like “Gasoline Alley,” above; as well as “Tarzan” by Rex Maxon; “Ella Cinders” by Bill Conselman Jr. and Charlie Plumb; and “Harold Teen” by Carl Ed. You may also recognize a very early “Winnie Winkle,” a strip by Martin Branner that lasted for decades; and  “The Gumps” by Sidney Smith. “Mr. and Mrs.” was an unsigned strip done by other artists in the style of Clare Briggs, who died in 1930.   “Life of Riley,” a one-panel strip about dogs by D.T. Carlisle, was new to me, as was “Reg’lar Fellers,” by Gene Byrnes.

And here we are in “Tarzan” in the Middle Ages. “Life of Riley” was apparently a short-lived strip about the adventures of dogs. “Reg’lar Fellers” was apparently another short-lived strip  that seems to have been well-drawn but not particularly clever. Some of the early strips, like “The Gumps,” didn’t seem to worry about the quality of the lettering. I always wonder why Winsor McCay, who was such a great artist, had such sloppy lettering. “Harold Teen” had an odd blend of realism for the women characters, who showed lots of leg (if nothing else), while the men were quite cartoonish. What the well-dressed male cartoon is wearing: spats and squares in “Winnie Winkle.” “Ella Cinders” is drawn with a fair amount of detail – including Zip-A -Tone or something similar -- maybe a little too much detail considering the reduced size at which the panels were reproduced in the paper.   Artists Ellison Hoover and Frank Fogarty did a fairly good job of imitating Clare Briggs’ distinctive style in “Mr. and Mrs.” Wives who are never on time are a perpetual source of humor, evidently.

Comments

[Native Angeleno]

Love it.

Please tell your clone to dig up more from the '30s, especially the early years of the Deepression, for comparison's sake.