A small pile of Eek & Meek daily comic strip clippings, 1967-1970
I recently acquired some comic strip clippings for my collection, and it came with a bonus batch of clippings for a strip I don’t collect, but I’m glad to have. I don’t know much about cartoonist Howie Schnieder, but I was aware of his Eek & Meek, though I didn’t realize it ran so long! I think of it as an early 1970s strip, which may be when it was most popular. Or maybe it’s just because my own newspaper, where I read the comics through the 1980s and 1990s, did not have it. Anyway, it’s fun to look at, which is the first thing a good comic strip should achieve. It’s also pretty funny.
Eek & Meek was a gag-a-day strip about anthropomorphic mice, though much later they would turn into people. I much prefer these mouse designs, though. The humor reminds me of early Johnny Hart B.C., and there’s something of Fontaine Fox in these poses. He really gets a lot of expressiveness into these characters that are really little more than stick figures, but there are other cartoonists who do this today. The drawing is interesting in its own way, as syndicates at the time became less concerned about detail and more on simplicity, or even so-called “bad” drawing, which is nearly always not actually true, but yes, much simpler compared to strips popular through the 1930s and ’40s. There’s something about it that reminds me of Stephan Pastis’s wonderful Pearls Before Swine, too. The drawing, in one sense but also the humor. I wonder if Stephan liked Eek & Meek growing up? I’ll have to ask him. Anyway, here are the eighteen clippings I have in chronological order, ranging in dates from 1967-1970:
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
I’m *loving* Paul C. Tumey’s latest book, The Art of Milt Gross Volume 1: Mastering Cartoon Pantomime – Judge 1923-1924. I’ve become even more interested in this era, when the old comic weeklies are still going, and newspaper comics are just getting started. Gross is a great example, from drawing cartoons for the humor weeklies and moving into newspaper cartooning, an evolution that still has room for exploration and lots of historical work. Several pioneering newspaper comic strip artists either started out with Judge and the like, or grew up reading those publications and carried that influence into their earliest strips. I also enjoyed this book because Gross’s cartoons here are still very funny.
A Milt Gross original of Dave’s Delicatessen exhibited at the Charles M. Schulz Museum. On loan from the Cartoon Art Museum, San Francisco, CA.
A couple of years ago, I curated an exhibition at the Schulz Museum on some of the comics that Charles Schulz grew up reading in the 1920s and 1930s. While working on that, I got to know the older comics I wasn’t familiar with, including Milt Gross’s newspaper comic Dave’s Delicatessen. But what I saw from that time included some racist caricatures, which, though abhorrent even then, were very widespread. However, in his earlier work found in this volume, his anti-Klan stance is loud and clear. Gross drew a number of comics ridiculing the Klan and their targeting not only of Black Americans, but also of Jewish Americans, like Milt Gross. A brave thing to do in 1920s America.
In his book, Tumey uses this delightful portrait of Gross, which was originally published in the January 24, 1925, issue of Judge. It’s a wonderful construction of photography, cartooning, and photo manipulation. The very funny Three Horses painting on the back wall caught my eye, and it did for Tumey, too. He mentions the repeated appearance of thisThree Horses image in a couple of other cartoons by Gross. One cartoon from June 1924 was published in Judge, and again later, in his comic strip Nize Baby, on October 2, 1928. But there was something familiar to me about it. Something … else.
Image courtesy the author and historian, Paul C. Tumey.
And then I half-remembered. I’d seen this before. Not the Milt Gross version, but something so similar, I feel they’re probably connected — a print of a painting that hung in some elderly relation’s home. I think it’s quite likely that Gross was lampooning a very famous work of art from the 1840s — A painting by J. H. Herring, Sr., titled “Pharaoh’s Chariot Horses.” Prints of the image were available almost immediately after the paint dried, and they (and knock-offs) remained popular for decades. So much so that these prints had essentially become kitsch by 1900. As affordable color printing became more widespread, cheaper prints of this painting quickly became available. In the original, the horses are all white. In some versions, one or all of the horses’ colors are changed. The original was round, but square and rectangular versions also spread. Herring’s powerful image also became popular as a tattoo design by the 1920s1. I think there’s at least a possibility that Gross is referencing this image and having some fun with it.
After messaging my parents, they remembered it too, which helped me solve my mystery, but it might not solve it 100% for Milt Gross’s reference.
Will Milt Gross’s version now become a tattoo? Time will tell. With Paul C. Tumey’s book (and the rest of his planned series), we will all get to know Gross’s work better, and maybe with more appreciation, we’ll see more of it. I hope so.
John F. Herring, Sr.’s The Pharaoh’s horses, 1848.
A later square tribute piece.
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I have a forthcoming article about Tove Jansson, her Moomin newspaper comic strip, and the Moominvalley adventures. She originally published a strip of sorts in a very small leftist newspaper run by her friend and onetime romantic interest beginning in 1947. It was essentially a reinterpretation of one of her early books in a picture story format. When she was brought under the masthead of the London Evening News in 1954, her strip was much more akin to what most of us would recognize as a newspaper comic strip. Jansson was already an accomplished author and illustrator, but she had a few things to work out when it came to doing a daily comic strip. So, she went to London to work out of the newspaper offices there. In September 1954, it so happened that a cartoonist’s office was not in use, though it had only recently been temporarily vacated by the usual occupant: Wally Fawkes. In her letters, she called him “Forks,” which must have been how it sounded to her, especially considering English was her fourth or fifth language. Tove Jansson would work on the earliest Moomin comic strips in Wally Fawkes’ office, under the editors’ supervision and with other cartoonists stopping by to see her progress. But, who is Wally Fawkes?
In the United States, Wally Fawkes’ work is not as well known, but in 1950s London, he had a popular comic strip called Flook. Also a well-regarded jazz musician, he cartooned under the pen name Trog. In my article, I described his strip as starring a boy named Rufus and his fantastical “pig-faced Labubu,” called Flook, though this is perhaps a harsh and overly simplified description. I do stand by the visual similarities to Labubus, though. Labubus? Labubi? Whatever. They’ll be flooding thrift store donation bins soon enough.
FLOOK by TROG, as published in the USA, November 26, 1951
Flook is a magical creature, and his boy companion, Rufus, is … well, a little obnoxious. Rufus has the British version of a “Gee, whiz!” personality, neither real nor particularly engaging. But we root for the duo and the friends they find, as they are thrown against impossible odds and truly evil villains. However, it is difficult to find a collection of this strip in the U.S. for comic strip fans to become acquainted with it. So, my description in the article wasn’t based on very much. I have learned that some of the characters were renamed when the strip came to the U.S., but Flook was not among them.
But, recently, in an online forum, I happened across a comic strip fan asking about Flook. They also couldn’t find any samples online. And since turning in my article, I’ve found I can dig up some samples. The drawing is pretty fun, and stylistically very different from what American comic strip readers are used to. Trog worked with some assistants, and I’m not totally sure what everyone did or when, but in some storylines, you can clearly see other hands at work. So, here is most of a random storyline from Flook by Trog:
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
This little paperback exchange was already closed when I moved to Sidney, Montana, in 2010. I relocated there to become the executive director of the local arts and historical organization and museum. The family that owned the small bookshop were avid readers and also ran a busy insurance agency at 204 2nd Ave NE. I believe they opened the bookshop mainly to satisfy their own insatiable reading habits. During the early 2000s, with the Bakken oil boom, there wasn’t enough time or staff to manage both, so the little paperback exchange bookshop next to their insurance office closed sometime before 2010. I became acquainted with this family through the museum where I was the director, and they had been engaged in the community for many years, even serving on the board of directors. Eventually, after being a little pushy about my genuine interest and curiosity, I was invited to visit the bookshop, which one day they simply shut down, turning off the lights and closing the door—like a dream for book lovers, reminiscent of Tutankhamun’s tomb.
“You mean, it’s still there?” I asked circa 2012.
“Of course.”
‘Of course?’ I asked myself. If it’s closed, then it’s closed. How could it still be there? In a part of the world where people shut the door and walk away from failures, decrepit old cabins, and sagging sod houses stand as proof, so I don’t know why I hadn’t thought a bookshop might be the same. Maybe because commercial space, like all other space in Sidney, had shot up in value in those years, it didn’t seem like anything was going unused and sitting idle. Including it among the failures of homesteads that went bust sounds harsh, but it may not be entirely wrong. Of course, a space like that can’t sit unused forever. Checking in recently, it looks to be a tattoo shop.
On the day we designated for my visit, I stopped by the family’s insurance office. The daughter grabbed a key and led me around the corner to a connected building. She turned the key and popped on the light, apologizing for the state of things. Yes, it had seen better days, but it wasn’t a wreck. I quickly noticed it had been a paperback exchange, which makes sense in a dusty northeastern Montana town that relies on booms and has not learned enough from the busts. A town whose recent history sounds more like something from Hollywood’s depiction of western America in the 19th century than real-life 21st-century life in America’s West. Those who loved to read, that I’d found so far, loved westerns, or romance novels, or mysteries, or spy novels, and that was about it.
Rows upon rows of shelves still filled with fading romance novels. Taking in as much as I could, I thought of one of my favorite writers, Ernest Haycox. This was probably prime hunting ground for books by the acclaimed, though now nearly forgotten, Western writer. I’d inhaled most of the Sacketts series by Louis L’Amour as a kid, and like someone who can’t stand the idea of eating a whole chocolate cake alone, I hadn’t read many Westerns since. But a friend and writing mentor from when I lived in Oklahoma City introduced me to Ernest Haycox’s work, and I pick up his books whenever I find them. This seemed like a good place to look. His books were fun and packed with action and adventure, but the detail and economy of words are a lesson for writers, even several decades after his heyday. Haycox cut his teeth writing for pulp magazines, so each one was a writer’s workshop.
Unexpectedly, between a section of Nurse Romance Novels and Step-Family Romance Novels, I stumbled into a section of non-fiction. After a cursory examination, I figured it was mostly castoffs from local returning college students in the 1980s and early ‘90s. Nothing was very appealing. Then, in a town that considered pizza “ethnic food,” I found a beautiful vintage copy of The Palm Wine Drinkard by Nigerian author Amos Tutuola. A short list of potential owners—people who might have actually read this book—flashed through my mind. I grabbed it, eager for a voice that didn’t speak in the local accent that pushed every vowel through the nose. I’d also recently finished Neil Gaiman’s American Gods for the first time and was eager to read something mythic and possibly a little abstract.
Still looking for any Westerns at all, I kept looking, confident that there must be some here somewhere. And then Haycox appeared. I don’t remember exactly which one; the titles can be unremarkable. I made my way around the piles on the floor, the toppled heaps in the cobwebby flickers of the last fluorescent tubes sputtering light into the cold space. I grabbed the new-to-me Haycox eagerly, flipping it open curious to see if any previous owner had left a mark. No one had, but I don’t know what I was expecting. This was the only book of his on the small shelf of Westerns, mostly Louis L’Amour, again, and Longarm novels, which I was never into. “Thanks!” I told the daughter. I showed her the two books.
She smiled, “That’ll be $1.50.”
I found $3 and told her to keep the change. We laughed the whole time, bantering our way through our mutual embarrassment over not just loving what some would consider the lowest genre fiction, but old genre fiction. And for me, not only did I love it, I needed to dig it up. She finally understood what I had been talking about for the couple of years that she and her family knew me. I was a book addict. I’m not only a reader, but I also needed to hunt. I had to find my own treasures.
Some of the books I flipped through in my search had a large shop ink stamp inside. Maybe inside the front cover, or on the title page. My two books didn’t have the stamp, so I asked if she still had the stamp. She was a little bewildered but already indulgent, so she found it and stamped a sheet of paper with red ink. I confessed I had a collection of such things. Of course, I can’t find this stamp now, but if it ever turns up, I’ll be sure to add it to this article.
It’s places like that, at the edges of the world where books matter that can be the true lifelines for those who love books. These places will have surprises and treasures that the local library quit shelving decades earlier. A place where serendipity weighs heavily in the air, if only you blow a little dust off the books to find it.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
The 2025 edition of something I’ve tried writing before, but never seemed to finish before February, so … we’ll try again. As gift-giving season approaches, I’m starting to be pestered by my loved ones about my Christmas wishlist. As I put a few ideas together, my list is pretty much the same every year: books, books, books, and expensive woolly socks. There have been so many amazing books that have come out or come to my attention this year. Here are the ones I’d recommend to anyone, especially to people who enjoy comics history.
Another Popeye fan and a friend got this at San Diego Comic Con this summer, and I had to borrow it immediately. It’s filled with great art from the entire world of Popeye, not only the E. C. Segar strip but also classic animation and more. If you’re already a Popeye fan or at least a Popeye appreciator, you’ll enjoy this. I don’t know whether R. C. Harvey left more finished manuscripts, but this could well be one of the last books we’ll get from one of the great comics historians.
I’ve praised this book many times, and I won’t be stopping anytime soon. Yes, I was interviewed for it, and facilitated a couple of small bits of this massive and enlightening puzzle. It’s a monumental work. This time, I don’t mean the book’s overall size, but the place it holds in our understanding of comics history. The invention of newspaper comics, and how they were actually created and put into readers’ hands, is an extremely understudied element of the story, and one that is already hard to nail down with the passing of the people involved and the binning of the technology used. Glenn was perfectly positioned not only to make sense of it but also to gather these disparate elements to tell the story. There’s more work to do, but anyone who works on this subject in the future will owe a debt of gratitude to Glenn Fleishman.
A fresh English translation of this Argentinian kid strip classic. Often compared to Schulz’s Peanuts, I think it shares stronger DNA with Ernie Bushmiller’s Nancy, but that’s me. Yes, it’s very political, but seeing the questions and observations of another place and time mirror so much of our own is a comfort, granting a nod of comforting recognition. If Mafalda can weather the storm, so can I. From what I understand, this is going to be the first of a multivolume series, so start collecting them now, or you’ll have to hunt them all down later.
Eike Exener’s previous book, Comics and the Origins of Manga: A Revisionist History, was excellent and mind-opening for me. If you’re interested in the world of comics, its global reach and evolution, and want a de-mystified understanding of manga in particular and how this rich branch of the comics family tree fits into the larger picture, get this book. I have a lot to learn about manga in general, and Exener’s books have been enlightening, making me finally feel like I’m on the right track.
The Moomin comic strip collections are not new, nor did they just come to my attention this year, but I must evangelize for this hilarious and wonderfully drawn strip every chance I get. More people need to know about it, especially American comic strip fans. Tove Jansson’s Moominvalley is a place I love to visit, where ridiculous adventures launch on preposterous whims, outlandish weirdos pop in and out of the story with even more frequency than real life. With the help of her brother Lars, she created a comic strip that should be more widely known. The Complete Moomin Comic Strip collections by Drawn & Quarterly are my preferred method to collect and read this strip (in ten volumes), but there are smaller paperback collections of single storylines that have been colored and are perfect for younger readers or anyone just wanting to give it a little try. For the holidays, let me recommend Moomin Winter, for when you just need a moment away from the crowd.
A book that is on my own Christmas wishlist! It comes out on December 9, and I’ve not seen it yet, but from what I’ve seen of The Smythes by Rea Irvin, it looks like a ton of fun and incredibly beautiful. I’ve always been an easy touch for anything related to the early days of the New Yorker magazine. I’ve read multiple biographies and memoirs of the early writers and editors there, including some of my all-time favorites like E. B. White and James Thurber. Rea Irvin is perhaps most famous as the creator of the New Yorker’s monocle-wearing classic logo/mascot/colophon character, Eustice Tilley.
This new edition has some new content from the long out-of-print earlier edition of this monumental tome. And, I don’t use the term monumental lightly. This is not only a fascinating work of comics history, it is also lovingly and gorgeously reproduces pioneering comics pages in absolutely massive reprints. The book is nearly the size of a modern newspaper sheet, so it’s still a bit smaller than these gorgeous comics were originally printed, but far larger than we typically get. Here we also have strips we never get to see by artists who would define comics as we know them today, but who did so before anything in comics was truly codified. “Gleeful anarchy,” indeed. Wild formatting, shocking color, and action that cartoonists today cannot seem to imagine.
Easily the greatest title of any book, maybe ever. Another book from the past year or so, from the early days of the New Yorker, but also incredibly charming, fun, sassy humor, and gorgeous drawings. I’m a huge fan of this book, and now of Barbara Shermund. This book has easily been the most passed-around book in my circle of comic nerds and professionals this year. This book won the Eisner Award for Best Comics-Related Book this year.
This book has been out for a few years now, but in case you haven’t seen it, it includes Patrick’s gorgeous drawings and all the fun and humor of one of the greatest comic strips currently running, Mutts. So far, it’s the closest thing we’ve got to an artist edition of Mutts. And how many books have contributions from both Eckhart Tolle and Lynda Barry? I imagine that’s a short list.
If you love Mutts by Patrick McDonnell (who wrote a foreword for this volume), Peanuts by Charles M. Schulz, the work of Mo Willems, and thought “This could use a dash of Gary Larson’s Far Side,” well, look no further. This daily strip, which Webb publishes online, has (thankfully) come out in a second annual compendium. He’s published his comic in little affordable collections, too, but these are great for passing around to friends who’ll enjoy it. These big annual collections (there’s a Volume One, as well) are fabulous, and I keep them for myself.
2025 marks the 75th anniversary for Peanuts. Yes, this book includes an essay by me, and I was on the committee that picked (and argued over) which strips to include in this very special book. This includes history, personal reflections, and so much more. It’s a very special collection. This special edition also includes a collection of stickers, mini posters, a patch, and more, all designed by Chip Kidd!
I’m sure there are books I’ve accidentally overlooked, but for now, this is a pretty good lineup. I’d be thrilled to receive any one of these books as a gift, so I imagine the comics history nerd in your life will too (if they don’t already have it). If you’re the comic nerd, forward this to your friends and family with a note about favorites. All of the affiliate links in this post support local, independent bookshops.
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From the original Swedish, according to Google Translate: Children Note! Note!1 Terribly exciting Serial in adventure! Moomin and the End of the Earth! Coming Soon!2
At first, I thought Moomin was looking at a clock, but I realized it only has one hand, and the needle is shaking. The word on the dial seems to express great concern and reads “Ostadigt,” which translates to “Unsteady.” This image does not appear in the 1947 comic strip, so I’m not entirely sure what it signifies, except that it was likely purposefully drawn for this advertisement. Perhaps it is meant to illustrate the precariousness of the Earth.
All the white space around the ad is curious also. The ad is placed in the bottom left corner of the front page. Did someone not get the dimensions correct somewhere? The newspaper, Ny Tid, seems to have been a very modest enterprise, perhaps they did not have a way to enlarge it. This would explain why the strips that followed the ad in the coming weeks and months look like they were drawn at print size — more like doodles than formal newspaper comic strips.
If you like the Moomin comic strips, you should back The Comics Courier Issue 3, currently running on Kickstarter. The project is already funded, so *THIS IS HAPPENING,* but your support can put us into some great stretch goals! This project may be especially interesting to you as I have an essay about the Moomin comic strips:
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
I like how this is “Ob!” in Swedish, and because I only speak English, it feels like it’s short for “Observe!” meaning something stronger than just “Look!” ↩︎
This summer, my friend Denis and another friend of his (that I don’t know, named David) took a pilgrimage through the American Midwest, visiting sites connected to comics. From the photos and stories, it sounded like an amazing trip. They are both longtime comic geeks and have a great podcast about Superman called Supermansplaining – they have an episode about their trip.
The first appearance of Popeye as seen in the Harrisburg Telegraph on January 17, 1929.
One stop they made was in Chester, Illinois, the birthplace of comic strip artist E. C. Segar. His newspaper comic strip, Thimble Theatre, became enormously popular in the 1920s. This was an era when newspaper comic strips were among the few forms of shared entertainment available to most Americans. Readers loved following the exploits of the inventor O. G. Wotasnozzle, the savvy Castor Oyl, his sister Olive Oyl, and her boyfriend … Harold Hamgravy. Then, about a decade into the strip, a side character was introduced with the immortal words: “‘Ja think I’m a cowboy?”
Of course, it’s Popeye. He was introduced to captain a boat that Castor Oyl has bought to take Bernice, the good luck Whiffle Hen, with him as he seeks his fortune. Popeye was probably meant to only be a side character, but he completely took over the strip. Fans loved the Oyls, but they went crazy for Popeye. Soon, Popeye was animated on screens and on toy store shelves.
I got into E. C. Segar’s Popeye comic strip only within the past few years. Professionally, I’m a comics historian and curator, and I work for the Charles M. Schulz Museum, creating exhibitions about Peanuts and Schulz. So, when I read that Charles Schulz said, “Popeye is immortal,”1 it got my attention. Schulz loved Segar’s Popeye and praised it often. I had to check it out myself. Luckily, there are great collections of the strip available in reprints.
To my memory, Popeye had his girlfriend or wife, Olive Oyl (I was not totally sure on this), and there was a baby in the picture at some point, Sweetpea, and there was Wimpy, who liked hamburgers but all he ever said was something about paying you back next Tuesday, and then Popeye would get in a fight with Bluto, eat some spinach and eventually kick some ass. Pretty simple, pretty blah. But here’s Schulz, who reinvented newspaper comics, giving Segar’s Popeye the highest praise he can. I had to look into it. After all, I was sure I had never seen this original Popeye, but only much later incarnations.
Luckily, there are fabulous collections available if, like me, you want to check it out. Each of these volumes have great introductions, too, by people who know what’s up:
The stories are funny, the drawings are funny, and the writing is good. Yes, it’s old, but it’s still amazing. Filled with laughs, fun, adventure, and action, I now see clearly why people still like Popeye so many years later.
So, after returning from his trip, when my friend Denis told me about a Popeye Fan Club based in Chester, Illinois, I perked up. Why hadn’t I heard of it sooner? For one thing, it’s very old school. Their website is very Internet 1.0 for those who remember the pre-social-media days of being online. They require you to send a check. There is no functioning online payment. And they print — let me say that again, nice and loud — PRINT a 32-page newsletter and mail it to you for $10 American Dollars, three times per year. No, that’s not $10 plus shipping per issue; that’s $10 for three thick, printed issues delivered to your mailbox within the continental United States. It’s such a treat to get a printed newsletter in the mail, and it brings back what are now fond memories of receiving such things in pre-Internet times. Back when you discovered your niche interests through word-of-mouth or by reading a newsletter or zine, you would mail away with a check, hoping it wasn’t a scam or had already dried up by the time you found out.
So, I sent a check through the USPS, following the instructions on the website, and I received a couple of back issues that I requested (and included payment for) and the latest issue of the club’s newsletter very quickly. All in all, a total and absolute delight.
I share this with you in the hopes that more people sign up. How they’ve kept such an enterprise afloat on $10 annual memberships, I have no idea. Maybe if there are a few more members in good standing, it’ll make it all a little easier and keep it running. CLICK HERE to see about joining up.
In my packet, I also received a membership card and a membership certificate, both of which surprised and charmed me to no end. I love being a literal “card-carrying member of the official Popeye fan club.” I think I’ll frame and hang the certificate in my office at the Charles M. Schulz Museum, though my wall space is already pretty full. I may need to make some hard choices.
Reading the newsletter, I vowed to write something worthy of publication for the club someday, and I will proudly add it to my media bio — Benjamin L. Clark, Eisner Award winning comics historian and museum curator. His work has been profiled in the Washington Post, NPR Morning Edition, CBS Sunday Morning, and the Official Popeye Fan Club Newsmagazine.
About the Author: Benjamin L. Clark writes and works as a museum curator.
There’s a lot of good comics chat on Bluesky, in case you’ve not joined up and hang out there. Or maybe you signed up in the early days and haven’t been back — it’s worth dropping in sometime!
I love a silly, nonsensical comics word, but Deb’s question about the word slumgullion sparked a little recognition in me. Was it historical sailor slang for liquor or grog (which was also real, btw)? Was it a soup? No, I thought, that’s Mulligatawny stew you’re half-remembering. Slumgullion sounds like a silly, made-up comics word. And, it has been used in comics as a silly-sounding word.
Like in this screwball newspaper comic strip, High Pressure Pete, signed SWAN by George Swanson. There are characters named the Slumgullions, and also a neighboring town, I think, by the same name. Sadly, I couldn’t read through the strip much to figure it all out. Someone really should reprint a collection of this strip! It has really fun drawing and some good jokes, even around 100 years later.
High Pressure Pete by Swan, originally published 5/25/1931
If I sound unsure about these facts, that’s because I’ve not heard of this strip. But praise from Paul C. Tumey that Swanson’s work is an excellent example of the Screwball school is high praise indeed. Paul’s book, Screwball! The Cartoonists Who Made the Funnies Funnyis a great resource for learning about the funny, pioneering newspaper comic strips. If you’re into the old comics at all, you should grab a copy of this important book if you’ve neglected thus far to get a copy.
Comic artists will grab any silly-sounding word and try to use it in their own way, whether their syndicate editors realize what it really means or not. (I’ve heard from one such newspaper comic editor who had to tell Jim Davis he couldn’t use “schmuck” in Garfield, but that’s another story.)
Back to our question! It’s here, in a comic strip titled Dick Dippy’s Uncensored War Diary, that we see the actual definition of slumgullion in action:
Dicky Dippy’s Uncensored War Diary, signed with a name I can’t make out and HOLT in other installments, originally published 12/27/1927
Digging back through online newspaper archives, I see slumgullion largely defined as a ground beef stew with tomatoes, often some pasta, and whatever else you feel like. Then, finding this article helped shed light on several corners, and perhaps gave us a lead on the humorous use we find in Deb Perry’s original question! Maybe you’ll spot it toward the end of the first column, too.
The Arizona Republic, April 10, 1985, page 77
It makes sense that Mark Twain would use the word! The oldest use I found in print goes back to the Gold Rush days in California. It seems there were places in California named Ground Hog Glory, and a newcomer Slumgullion Bar had people laughing. There seems to be no place today known by this name, btw, which is too bad. But, Twain’s use does not surprise me. Humorists of old had some of those same instincts as the newspaper cartoonists of yesterday, and the better ones today. Of course, he’s going to find a funny word and latch onto it.
St. Louis Globe-Democrat, St. Louis, Missouri, originally published, Friday, April 29, 1853
I also found other 19th-century uses that indicate a mess. One, which brought a euphemism for stew to mind, described a hillside collapsing into a muddy mess in a mudslide full of rocks and logs. But, it seems in Deb’s example, slumgullion might be a beverage, not a stew. So, what is Mark Twain’s experience with slumgullion in his classic, Roughing It, about his life in the western gold country?
He described it as a beverage thus:
Spot illustration of “Drinking Slumgullion” from the 1886 edition of Roughing It by Mark Twain. “Illustrated by eminent artists” is the only art credit, sadly.
“Then he poured for us a beverage which he called Slumgullion, ” and it is hard to think he was not inspired when he named it. It really pretended to be tea, but there was too much dish-rag, and sand, and old bacon-rind in it to deceive the intelligent traveler. He had no sugar and no milk — not even a spoon to stir the ingredients with.”
Mark Twain in Roughing It (1886)
Was the illustration that accompanies the text informed by Twain? He kind of described it as “pretend tea,” and here we see his mug steaming away! Is that the “Eminent Artist’s” interpretation, or did they have access to Twain to get it right?
No matter what, it’s a very funny drawing, and as a humorist and travel writer, it’d come as no shock to me to learn that Carl Barks, the genius behind the Donald Duck adventure comics Deb is so fond of, had read Twain. Barks wrote and drew all kinds of adventure stories, often citing his reading of National Geographic as his major reference and influence. Had he also read Mark Twain? Could this one silly drawing in Twain have inspired Barks?
Deb Perry shared a follow-up with some more pages and panels, which gives us the answer in light of what we learned along the way:
STEW
Oh, so it *is* a stew or soup Donald is cooking up for Pete. Yellow Beak just happens to already have a mug on the table when Donald’s nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, serve him some slumgullion, and he downs it in a gulp. So, Carl Barks knew slumgullion was a soup or stew, *not* a drink, and very doubtfully inspired by Mark Twain.
If you want some recipes, there are several that accompany that article from 1985, which are instructive in their own right. Let me know if you find one you like.
Recipes that accompanied the above article from The Arizona Republic.
As you may recall, Action Comics #1 (DC, 1938) sold for $6M not long ago, breaking all previous records for a comic book sold at auction. The sale got me playing a fun “What if?” game in my head, like you do when you hear about big lottery winners. We all do that, right? You can grab a reasonable facsimile of Action Comics #1 to enjoy this comic at home and come along with me as I “spend” $6 million on one-of-a-kind original comic art. The kind of thing that museum curators (like myself) call you up to borrow. I’ll explain in more detail at the end of this post if you’ve started at this point for some reason.
Syd Hoff
Syd Hoff’s work is among some of the most recognizable and enduring illustrated comic work of the 20th Century. You’ve read Danny and the Dinosaur, right? What about the one where they visit a museum? His book about a circus elephant who is forced to make his own way in the big city was a bigger hit at our house, Oliver.
His remarkable collection of cartoons, The Ruling Clawss, which he did under the name A. Redfield for the “Daily Worker,” was recently reissued by the New York Review of Books for the first time in almost 100 years. It’s a hilarious collection, and though a few cartoons perhaps do not carry the bite they did when they were first published, it is still filled with cartoons that give me a knowing, grim grin. I should write a full review of this book, as I don’t think I’ve seen much on it in the year or so it’s been out.
So, now that we’ve acknowledged the Socialist communicator and said nice things, let’s take out the fantasy checkbook fat enough to please a budding oligarch and go shopping.
$159, sold December 2021
It feels completely out of reality that Syd Hoff’s original cartoons and illustrations can be had for less than $200. I have *seen* uninteresting art made by unknown people sell for far more. And not very many of Hoff’s drawings seem to have been sold. Perhaps because the price has been (too) low? I loved his illustrations when I was a kid, and my kid loves them today. Syd Hoff’s work is still widely recognized and beloved. If I saw something in real life that really clicked with me, I’d be very tempted to pay my real money for his work.
Another bargain, perhaps. There are apparently seven more drawings in this lot, but we’re only shown five. More examples of Syd Hoff’s work that was not for children. These also have some rather alarming condition issues with the water damage/ damp staining, but a top-notch paper conservator could probably get that cleaned up and looking a lot better, and better conserved for future preservation. Again, I’m not worrying about that now.
If you’ve loved Syd Hoff’s work and want to learn more about his cartooning, grab that book at the top of this post and a few others of Hoff’s books, The Art of Cartooning, and The Young Cartoonist: the ABC’s of Cartooning can be found on Amazon and archive.org,
$4,755,800 – $3,480 = $4,752,320 remains to spend.
All that gorgeous Syd Hoff art would cost less than the buyer’s premium for some earlier entries. Just astonishing. To sum up the situation I have put myself in, here is a little recap:
Action Comics Number 1, sold for $6 million, image courtesy Heritage Auctions
I will buy art I like, not things I only see as “an investment,” and talk about my selections. Art I want to hang on my walls and live with and enjoy. After spending $6M on original art, conservation funding, gallery space, and state-of-the-art storage will be added as a reward, so I don’t have to worry about it as I’m splashing out for big-ticket items and won’t let my museum curator brain get too distracted about planning and worrying about caring for it all longterm. I’ve worked in museums for over twenty years, so I can’t help but think about these things.
The Rules:
The budget must be respected — I will only spend $6M and must spend all $6M.
In the interest of transparency, I will only shop publicly. Gotta show those receipts. No bidding up the next cool thing to $6M and be done. No deals with a wink and a nod to pay $6M for something not worth anywhere near that and split the difference on the back end. Let’s keep this as above board as high-end art buying can be. [cough] (**My citation of a sale somewhere *is not* an endorsement to shop there for real.**)
And let’s make the prices recent. No buying Jack Kirby art from a fanzine auction in 1972 and owning every piece by Jack Kirby to cross into private hands. So, let’s say anything purchased must be from any 2020 or more recent public sale. Also, no buying a whole comic shop for $6M.
Lastly, as curator of the Schulz Museum, it would be a conflict of interest for me to buy any Peanuts art, so there will be no Charles M. Schulz art on this list, though it’d be a dream come true to own anything by him. This adds more wiggle room to my budget because Schulz’s art is not cheap!
As you may recall, Action Comics #1 (DC, 1938) sold recently for $6M, breaking all previous records for a comic book sold at auction. The sale got me playing a fun “What if?” game in my head, like you do when you hear about big lottery winners. We all do that, right? You can grab a reasonable facsimile and enjoy this comic at home, and come along with me as I “spend” $6 million on comic art.
Action Comics Number 1, sold for $6 million, image courtesy Heritage Auctions
I will buy art I like, not things I only see as “an investment,” and talk about my selections. Art I want to hang on my walls and live with and enjoy. After spending $6M on original art, conservation funding, gallery space, and state-of-the-art storage will be added as a reward, so I don’t have to worry about it as I’m splashing out for big-ticket items and won’t let my museum curator brain get too distracted about planning and worrying about caring for it all longterm. I’ve worked in museums for over twenty years, so I can’t help but think about these things.
The Rules:
The budget must be respected — I will only spend $6M and must spend all $6M.
In the interest of transparency, I will only shop publicly. Gotta show those receipts. No bidding up the next cool thing to $6M and be done. No deals with a wink and a nod to pay $6M for something not worth anywhere near that and split the difference on the back end. Let’s keep this as above board as high-end art buying can be. [cough] (**My citation of a sale somewhere *is not* an endorsement to shop there for real.**)
And let’s make the prices recent. No buying Jack Kirby art from a fanzine auction in 1972 and owning every piece by Jack Kirby to cross into private hands. So, let’s say anything purchased must be from any 2020 or more recent public sale. Also, no buying a whole comic shop for $6M.
And lastly, as curator of the Schulz Museum, it would be a conflict of interest for me to buy any Peanuts art, so there will be no Charles M. Schulz art on this list, though it’d be a dream come true to own anything by him. This adds a lot more wiggle room in my budget, because Schulz’s art is not cheap!
Did I forget anything? Write me and let me. Ok, let’s go!
Edward Gorey
As we observe the 100th anniversary of the birth of Edward Gorey this year, I looked at my family calendar hanging in the kitchen, which is Edward Gorey themed, and I realized I don’t think I’ve ever seen any of his original art in person. I’ve seen so much of his work as book covers for all kinds of writers, as posters, and of course his own wonderful books, but not the original art. (The month of March on our calendar is the page from The Gashleycrumb Tinies, where “N is for Neville who died of ennui,” in case you were curious.)
Granted, Edward Gorey is not a “comic artist” in the strictest sense, but his illustrations have influenced so many who have come since, and are so singular, and deeply funny, I cannot skip having him in my dream collection. And, as collecting is a deeply personal endeavor, I’m including him. So, into the auction rooms we go, paddle in hand.
Apparently, there is not a ton of Gorey’s art in private hands. I know he was prolific, so I imagined there would be a lot of great work to choose from. Also, I am shocked at the low prices. Gorey is widely admired, and his work rarely comes to auctions. Even then, selling for very modest amounts is an eye-opener. Maybe because he is sold as “fine art” and not “comic art”? I sense that the comic art crowd would pay more for his art. I selected this piece because it makes me think of the swooning lady at the beginning of the PBS Mystery! series opening, which he also illustrated. I love that opening.
I love boilerplate return letters from authors to fans. I’ve seen some wonderful ones over the years, and would have sworn I had a blog post about some of the postcard versions that have come to light over the years, but I can’t find it. So, I’ll put that on my idea list for another time. Gorey’s delightful return boilerplate reply is perfect. Visually clever and spilling over with details that fans would delight in, and a place for his signature. I’ve never seen one of the replies — were these made? Did he send them?
My very favorite Gorey project might have to be the opening for Mystery! on WGBH/ PBS. This is his drawing for a t-shirt they did for the show. According to the handwritten instructions at the bottom right, the logo goes in the rectangle. A few of these old t-shirts are available on the collector market and command premiums themselves.
I love this piece. I love the linework, the suggestion of alternate dimensions/ realities around us all the time. That feeling you get when you wonder if you could look in a reflection and catch something unexpected. That’s part of why I love Gorey’s work.
They’ve fallen in love, but if you squint from across the room, it also makes an evil face. Perfect for when I’ve not had my first cup of coffee and I’m not wearing my glasses yet in the morning. [chef’s kiss]
I’ve always liked a little bit of spooky fun around Christmas. It’s a moody, ghosty time of year when it feels like the barriers between here and there, and where and nowhere grow thin. Gorey’s art falls into this liminal time and space for me, and having a little pretty, bright-colored paper featuring a plant that people claim is deadly but is actually simply lovely to look at, seems about perfect.
$4,873,300 – $117,500 = $4,755,800 remains to spend.
