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| © Michael Chevy Castranova |
So have you looked
IDW’s recently released “King of the Comics: 100 Years of King Features”? At
300+ pages, it’s packed with newspaper comic strips the syndicate started by
William Randolph Hearst in 1915 published over years. Older strips you’ve heard
of, strips maybe you used to read and plenty I confess to never having seen
before.
There’s the
graceful “Dumb Dora” (by Chic Young before “Blondie”), silly “Happy Hooligan,”
the Yellow Kid — from whence the name yellow journalism was derived — and “Boob
McNutt” through “Bringing Up Father,” “Barney Google (before the strip devolved
into “Snuffy Smith”), “Polly and Her Pals,” “Flash Gordon” and “Jungle Jim” to
“Rip Kirby,” “Steve Canyon” (never as fun, I always thought, as “Terry and the
Pirates”) and “Mutts.”
Famous, wonderful
strips and many, many imitators of those famous strips.
The book also has
plenty of photos of the cartoonists, sidebars on movies, animated cartoons and
comic books inspired by these strips, and essays on various genres.
I admit my
favorites are the adventure strips. The excellent cartoon style but serious tone of “Red
Barry,” “Buz Sawyer” and “Little Annie Rooney” are all delightful — even if
each hoped to cash in on more popular strips at the time (“Dick Tracy,” “Terry
and the Pirates” and “Little Orphan Annie” respectively).
And speaking of
adventure strips, chapter 365 of “Slipped” takes us right back into the thick
of the action with our hero, the Scarlet Sparrow, dashing head long into danger
— with no weapons, no plan and no backup. You know, her usual method of
operation.
