Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 14:55:19 -0600 To: [comixschl list] at [socolow.com] From: Robert Beerbohm <[b--rb--m] at [teknetwork.com]> Subject: IN THE BEGINNING by Clark Kinnaird (1890s comic strips) Robert Beerbohm here with a transcribed effort printed from 1948 by a long time King Features staffer named Cark Kinnaird. His thoughts on the evolution of newspaper comic strips have a differing spin on others I have read. This essay was in response to Coulton Waugh's then-current book, The Comics. Comics were also under attack by some and the first comics code for the newsstand periodical versions of comics had been formed Also compare to Roy L. McCarddell's June 1905 article in Everybody's Magazine "Opper, Outcault & Company" (most easily accessible as reprinted in INKS v2#2, annotated by RC Harvey). Ernie McGee's thoughts correspond with much of Kinnaird presented here. There are a couple minor inconsistencies with what is recognized today as correct chronology, as well as some "new" information which may aid those of you researching early strips. I know I learned a bit from this interesting essay when I first read it. ****************** 50 YEARS OF THE COMICS IN THE BEGINNING by Clark Kinnaird Setting Straight Some Facts About the Origin of Comic Strips [issued in 1948 as a full color 12 page mag size giveaway] The newspaper comic-strip has ancestors going back as far as any othe rform of popular art. Cave-dwellers scrawled cartoons of their histories upon walls with charcoal. There are ancient episodic narrative pictures in papyrus, mosaic, tapestry, murals, bas-relief, pottery. But as an art form the comic-strip is peculliarily American in origin. It is an art for which newspapers can take credit proudly. The importance of any art is measured by its influence on us. The newspaper comic-strip has proven a powerful social force, influencing popular habits, speech, fashions, ideas, sympathies, and also other arts. Evidence of the effects of the comic-strip woven into the fabric of society would fill a book as big and fascinating as Menkcken's The American Language. No such book has been done. The comic-strip has suffered from a lack of objective study by historians, and a paucity of honest and discriminating appraisals by others. After only 50 years, the beginnings of the new art are onscured. Newspaper comics didn't begin, as is commonly stated, with The "Yellow Kid." The "Yellow Kid", which made its initial appearance in 1896 [RB: of course this year is too late by two] , was not the original color comic; it was not R. F. Outcaults's first newspaper comic. In 1892, three years before Outcault did any newspaper cartoons, James Swinnerton's "Little Bears and Tigers" became continuing comic characters in William Randolph Hearst's San Francisco Examiner. Swinnerton can be called rightfully the first newspaper comic artist. Outcault's connection with the beginnings of the comic strip was a matter of chance, and his later influence in the formulation of the new art was not as great as is suggested in three recent books on the subject of comic-art. Outcault's chance came because, in 1893, R. Hoe built a four-color press for the New York Recorder. The New York World's proprietor, Joseph Pulitzer, had no idea of what he was going to do with it, but upon learning that such a press was being built for a competitor, promptly ordered one for the World - and offered a premium to the constructor to complete it before the Recorder's machine. But the latter won the race, and in April 1893, it started a series of color pages, "Cosmopolitan Sketches." The innovation attracted nothing except adverse comment, the results were so bad. When the World's color-press was given test runs, a short time later, the results were little better. The original plan to reproduce famous works of art had to be abandoned. The public reaction to the substitute chosen, drawings of New Yurk scenes, was so unfavorable that Mr. Pulitzer ordered the color pages dropped. The color-press stood idle for nine months, and this naturally irritated the brasshats of the business side. The World's general manager, S. S. Carhalho, pressed its Sunday editor, Morrill Goddard, to find something that would enable the World to recapture soem of its investment. Goddard got an idea. Puck, Judge and other humor periodicals featuring cartoons had growing circulations. There was no doubt that editorial cartoons and "gag" cartoons clipped from humor weeklies for attention from the readers of newspapers able to engrave and publish them. Puck used editorial cartoons in color. (They were lithographed and inserted.) Why not cartoons in color in the World? Cartoons would not emphasize the crudities of the color process as much as serious drawings would, Goddard reasoned. The World's circulation department didn't think much of his idea. Mr. Pulitzer, having been won over to a new trial with the color-press by his general manager, listened to the arguments and ruled in favor of cartoons. The first full-page newspaper comic printed in color was drawn for the World by Walt McDougall, its editorial cartoonist. [RB here: This jibes with Ernie McGee's letters to Joe Campbell.] The colors were not chosen by the artist or by Goddard, but by the foreman of the World's engraving room. His name deserves to be remembered: Charles Saalberg. He made some history. Goddard wanted more than one cartoon in color, and he thought there should be something that would appeal to readers not interested in the political themes of Mcdougall's cartoons. McDougall was responsible for his hiring Richard F. Outcault, a draftsman for the Electrical World who also had done some cartoons for Judge. A man who could do competent drawings on scientific subjects had as special interest to Goddard, who had made the Sunday World a pioneer in giving science subjects a popular treatment and illustrating them with attention-getting but accurate drawings. Outcault was put to work on comics for the Sunday color pages. The first subject was the adventures of a clown and a dog. Outcault and Goddard experimented with several other ideas and Outcault into a series depicting events in "McGoogan's Avenue," Casey's Alley,' Hogan's Alley." In the drawings there was one continuing character, a nameless and hairless gamin, clad in a flour sack. The colors Saalberg dictated in an endeavor to make a color-scheme behave on the press, caused the hue of this robe to vary, often in the same printing. Once it was flaming red. Came an issue in February, 1896, for which the color-scheme made the garment yellow. Yellow had been the hardest color to print until then, but a new drier for the ink had been found. Thanks to the drier, that day the yellow reproduced so brilliantly as to be a compelling eye-stopper. The kid's face had a yellow tinge, too. It was a year in which yellow could have been expected to command attention. Bryan was making the gold standard a bitter political issue. The Western half of the nation was stirred by the question of unrestricted immigration of the yellow race into the country. Anyway, that glaring color compelled the reader to stop and look. There was a lot of amusing detail for his to see in the big panel. Goddard's great editorial mind, which was to play so important a part later in establishing the American Weekly as the most-read magazine in the world, knew what interested masses of people. Outcault was a master draftsman. A reader, having looked at one of the panels, wanted to see another, and another. The series didn't have a unit name yet, so the reader supplied one himself: "The Yellow Kid." There was one reader of the World to whom "The Yellow Kid" had a compelling interest before it had to readers in general. He was William Randolph Hearst. Mr. Hearst had come to New York to take over the Morning Journal, in September 1895. He had been oen of teh first to comprehend the potentialities of the pictorial journalism made possible by the invention of photo-engraving. Sketch-art and editorial cartoons were important elements of his San Francisco Examiner from the start; and he had been responsible for Swinnerton's development of those first continuing newspaper characters, "Little Bears and Tigers." Naturally, he brought his pictorial ideas to New York. The Journal was the first newspaper to devote a Sunday section to photographs. An enthusiastic photographer himself, Mr. Hearst sponsored contests for picture-makers that gave a big stimulus to amateur photography. He took Frederick Burr Opper, the most versatile and inventive cartoonist since Thomas Nast, from Puck's staff, to draw for the Journal; and Opper and other artists whom Mr. Hearst induced to follow him to the Journal were to have more to do weith establishment of the comic-strip than any others. While the World was still getting discouraging results with its color-press, Mr. Hearst ordered one for the Journal. He spurred his mechanical staff to devise an improved machine, sparing no expense. And before "The Yellow Kid" had hardly made an impress on New York newspaper readers, Mr. Hearst had hired Outcault for the Journal. The reception of the Journal's "American Humorist" section, on Oct. 18, 1896, was not left to chance; it was promoted like a circus. The evening edition of the Journal, started a month before, said Oct 17: "Ah! There! The Yellow Kid tomorrow! Tomorrow! "Bunco steerers may tempt your fancy with a 'color supplement' that is black and white and tan - four pages of weak, wishy-washy color and four pages of desolate waste of black. "But the JOURNAL'S COLOR COMIC WEEKLY! "Eight pages of polychromatic effulgence that make the rainbow look like a lead pipe. "That's the sort of color comic weekly that the people want; and they shall have it." The World, on the defensive, tried to out-do the Journal's overwhelming promotion. No one in New York could possibly remain unaware that these newspapers had new Sunday sections which had to be looked into. Having looked once, most kept on looking. A new art form developed before their eyes. For the Journal, Opper created "Happy Hooligan," Alphonse and Gaston," and a gallery of other comic-strip immortals. Jimmy Swinnerton, brought from San Francisco, continued his "Little Tigers" and went on to create "Mount Ararat," "Mr. Batch," "Professor Noodle," "And Sam Laughed," and "Little Jimmy." The latter was destined to run for many years - it is still appearing. Mr. Hearst, remembering the Max and Moritz cartoons of Wilhelm Busch which he had seen in books as a child, had Rudolph Dirks start a strip with similar characters: "The Katzenjammer Kids." Louis Wain evolved a series of winsome pictures involving Tabby-cats. Horace Taylor, H. W. Haworth, Carl Anderson, followed these to the Journal. The World tried valiantly to keep up with the Journal's acquisitions of new artists, and the World's artists endeavored to keep up with the development of the new form given to comic-strips by Journal artists and carry it even further. A little later the World fif find a comic-strip genius for itself, George McManus. The Herald woke up and tried to catch up. But the primacy remained with the Journal - a primacy the Hearst papers never lost. As fast as any exceptional comic-strip talent showed itself in any other paper, the Journal took it away. It rarely lost anything it wanted to keep, to other papers. Outcault's departure from the staff, in 1897, did not effect it, for the Journal still had Opper, Swinnerton, Dirks and others of a growing and distinguished company. "The Yellow Kid's" life was brief. When Outcault left the World for the Journal, the World continued to publish a "Yellow Kid" drawn by another hand. And after Outcault left the Journal for the Herald, the Journal also continued running a "Yellow Kid" produced by another hand. But both soon dropped it. In 1898, the form of the comic-strip settled down to what, basically, it is today. In 1898, comic-strips became familiar to the enormous new public attracted to the Journal and World by these papers' more enterprising coverage of the Spanish-American War. When the war was over, the Journal and World held a higher percentage of boom circulation than other papers. Other papers did not have any difficulty figuring out why. Soon most of the larger newspapers in the U.S. bought the Journal's or World's comic-strips, if they could, or started others. Pen and ink manifestations of comic-artists' imagination emerged from the strips as national, then international, characters better known than statesmen. Phrases from the strips of Opper, Dirks and Swinnerton passed into daily speech everywhere. There were popular songs about "Happy Hooligan" and "Foxy Grandpa." "Alphonse and Gaston" became synonymous with exaggerated courtesy - and moulded the impressions of millions about Frenchmen. Mothers began dressing their boys in "Buster Brown" suits, and calling their babies "Snookums," after the character in George McManus' "The Newlyweds." Reading "the funnies" was as fixed a daily habit in millions of homes as coffee. That's the beginning of the story of the most popular 'popular' art. ************************ COMIC ART CAPTIONS: [Note: all Sunday strips in full color] page 2: The cartoon ar right might by called the direct ancestor of "Blondie," "Rip Kirby, "Steve Canyon" and other newspaper strips which are read every day by more persons than listen to any radio program or see any movie. Entitled "God Helps Those Who Help Themselves," and published in Benjamin Franklin's Plain Truth in 1747, it is considered the first American cartoon. Editorial cartoons, cut in wood, subsequently played an important part in formulating American opinion for the Revolution and independence (Paul Revere engraved cartoons for Boston printers). Ever since, cartoons and, from the 1890's, comic strips, have been potent influences. CHIC YOUNG's "Blondie" has the largest readership of any comic strip and to millions Mr. and Mrs. Dagwood Bumstead are as real as the next door neighbors. No other strip has ever had so many imitators, and no other strip has ever remained so unique. ALEX RAYMOND, having raised the illustrative standards of the comic strip with the brilliantly executed "Flash Gordon," proceeded to make "Rip Kirby" (above) an example of the modern strip at its best, combining masterful narration and draftsmanship. NO MAN has done more to win recognition for the comic-strip as an art and influence than Milton Caniff, who established "Terry and the Pirates," then won greater popularity with his "Steve Canyon" (above), which is distinuished for both good art and good text. page 3: "Little Tigers" (above) preceded Outcault's "Yellow Kid" below [Note: reprints Swinnerton's "Little Tiger" strip titled "The Flirtation That Failed, Or - How Dare You, You Sassy Thing." Outcault's YK reprinted here is what is considered (even then) the first YK 'true' comic strip, "THE YELLOW KID AND HIS NEW PHONOGRAPH." I question the validity of this claim. Can anybody help out in this?] page 4 & 5: The first appearance in newspapers, in the respective year indicated, of each of the comic-strips represented by characters in these pages, marked teh advent of an artist or character, or both, destined to be an influential factor in comic-strip history, and, therefore, in newspaper circulations. Considering that early four-fifths of newspaper readers are regular fans of those newspapers' best comics, and that this percentage holds in all the 16 languages in which these strips are published, the total readership of just these comics is an astronomical figure alone. The total readership of all comic-strips is something in the realm of higher mathematics. Not all the notable comic-strips being published today are included in this group. There are some conspicuous absences. Each of the group represents a particular innovation in strips that sets it apart in appeal to mass readership. page 6: "Happy Hooligan" had the longest life of Frederick Burr Opper's many memorable characters. "Alphonse and Gaston," who also appear in this [HH] page, were faetured by Opper in a separate strip for years. "Happy Hooligan" appeared first in the New York Journal in 1897. The strip above was drawn 25 years later. page 7: When R. F. Oucault abandoned the "Yellow Kid" and went to the Herald, he started another poor-boy strip, "Li'l Mose." But the Herald, mindful of its carriage trade, had him switch to a 5th Avenue version of his Hogan's Alley boy. The result was "Buster Brown" (above), who might have come from the pages of "Little Lord Fauntleroy." page 9: George McManus originated the "family strips" with "The Newlyweds" in the New York World, 1904, and the Newlyweds' baby, Snookums, became the best known child in the U. S. McManus went on to greater success with "Bringing Up Father," which started in 1912. The same year, in a similar strip, "The Family Upstairs," George Herriman's immortal characters, Krazy Kat and Ignatz Mouse (right) made their initial appearances. page 10: COMICS WERE A SUNDAY FEATURE ORIGINALLY. The first daily comic-strip was Clare Briggs' "A. Piker Clerk" (above), in W. R. Hearst's Chicago American, 1904. "A. Piker" gave readers a racehorse tip a day, and was followed by similar strips in other papers. One, "A. Mutt," which began in San Francisco Chronicle in 1907, became "Mutt and Jeff" (center). A childhood memory of many who are now grandfathers in "Foxy Grandpa" (below), which started in 1900. page 11: No other comic artist ever had the impress of Tad (Thomas A. Dorgan). He has been called a modern Hogarth, but he was a greater artist,with a bigger influence upon the people of his time than Hogarth. Tad invented or popularized dozens of phrases now in common speech: hot dog, bunk, tank town, baloney, crepe-hanger. Tad's undertaker-like concept of the professional reformer (above), became a common symbol for prohibitionists in editorial cartoons of other artists. Winsor McCay is another whose work seems as new and fresh as ever. His classic phantasy, "Little Nemo" (left) has been republished repeatedly and is still in print. McCay, one of the most remarkable draftsmen and prolific producers in the history of comic art, also won fame with his illustrations for the Arthur Brisbane inspirational essays and with editorial cartoons for the Hearst newspapers. page 12: In 1906, "Mr. Batch" by Swinnerton (at bottom) and "Lulu and Leander" by F. M. Howarth were big favorites. Leander eventually got married. Batch never did.