Four Color Comics

A new strip today: the classic humor strip, Bringing Up Father.

Our first features are the 07 and 08 February 1921 Gasoline Alley strips scanned from Walt & Skeezix vol. 1 the Drawn and Quarterly Publications reprint volume from last year. (Click the thumbnail to open a larger version in a new window.)

Ah, yes: the meticulous care we pay to our new vehicles. Actually, the top strip reminds me of a story about my grandfather and his first car. I’ll have to post it in my personal weblog and link to it from here…

Today we introduce a new feature. Bringing Up Father, by George McManus, ran for over eighty years (finally retiring on 28 May 2000), though its creator died in 1954.

The strip was about an Irishman named Jiggs living in the United States who comes into wealth but still wants to keep his old pals, eat corned beef and cabbage, and hang out at the tavern, much to the consternation of his wife, Maggie, a social climber. McManus’s sense of design and smooth lines made the strip stand out on the comics page and were influential on many other artists.

This scan, from a 1970s reprint volume, dates from 1916. (Click the thumbnail to open a larger version in a new window.)

I’ll be the first to admit that this strip doesn’t do a lot for me, but it’s still worth reading as a document of the times. Sometimes it’s funny, but mostly in what we could a sit-com style. It doesn’t have the charm of Krazy Kat

I believe that the above strips are in the Public Domain.