Comic Advertisements

Here's a variety of comic ads published between 1950 and 1960 in New York. For sale are bullwhips, (use it for self defense or to train cats and dogs,) blackhead removers (using the needle-shaped Vacutex,) Goya's Spanish Nude stamp (25 cents,) disappearing keys (they had a spike on the back of the key with which you would, while feigning a pass, impale it onto the back of your hand,) an invisible helmet, or a 500 page comic book (Treasure Chest of the World's Best Comics.)

More Cartoonist Autographs

More cartoonist autographs from the collection of Don Kurtz.

Ernie Bushmiller

Ernie Bushmiller was born in the Bronx borough of New York on 24 Aug 1905. He landed a job as a copy boy on the New York Evening World and attended night classes at the national Academy of Design. His first published work for that paper was a crossword puzzle design which he carefully initialed.

Fritzi Ritz appeared in 1922, created by Larry Whittington, and was a quick success. Bushmiller took over the strip in 1925. In 1931 the World ceased publication and Bushmiller signed a contract with United Features. Nancy originally appeared in the Fritzi Ritz strip and eased the heroine out of the title role in 1937. Nancy appeared both daily and Sundays.

Bushmiller’s working day started around 2 o’clock in the afternoon and often carried over into the wee hours of the morning. He started drawing his strips with the final panel, the “pay-off gag,” and then worked back through the beginning panels.

Bushmiller died at his home on August 15, 1982.

*Top Jan 21, 1931

*Jan 7, 1933

*March 18, 1933

The author of the cool bottom illustration is unknown but appeared in a newspaper article about Bushmiller in November 7, 1988.

Queen's Jester

Queen’s Jester

A review of caricaturist, author, and editor Louisa Henrietta Sheridan’s annual COMIC OFFERING published by Smith, Elder & Co., (11 November, 1832) > from Barnard Gregory‘s The Satirist; or, Censor of the Times (10 April, 1831- 15 December 1849.)

“Really, Miss Sheridan, you must, judging from this and your previous offerings at the shrine of the comic muse, be a most charming companion - that is, to all who can admire female wit, and who cannot? Miss Sheridan has claims above any other authoress in our language to the long-vacated office of king’s jester; or, as that appointment might not be compatible with her sex; it would be but a matter of justice to create a new one, and establish her in all the rights and immunities of queen’s jester. The Comic Offering is full of most agreeable conceits, fantastic humours, and care-killing recipes, dished up in a rich vein, and with a just perception of the ludicrous. It would be impossible for ennui to exist in the presence of this agreeable work which to all the breadth and satire of Hood adds the delicate colouring which so distinguishes the fascinating tittle-tattle of female society. Let our readers take our word for it, that the Comic Offering will do more to chase the blue devils from the winters fireside, than any other thing that can be brought to the task.”

Women caricaturists were not plentiful in Georgian and Victorian times but there were a few. There was Mary Darly, who engraved the prints of army officer George Townsend (1723-24-1807) who has been called “the first great English caricaturist,” and illustrator the first caricature printed in the Canadian colony. Marie Duval worked on “Ally Sloper” comic pages with her husband Charles Henry Ross, editor of the penny Judy; or, the London Serio-comic Journal beginning the 1^st of May, 1867. The first number of The Girl of the Period Miscellany appeared in March 1869 (an expensive publication at 6d) with illustrations by Miss Claxton, a caricaturist. Comic Offering; or, Ladie’s Melange of Literary Mirth (1831-1835) was a yearly publication and Miss Sheridan shared the artistic duties with Robert Seymour, who lived a short and prolific life, contributing to numbers of publications, such as Figaro in London, The Pickwick Papers and nine numbers of Seymour’s Comic Scrap Sheet in 1839. There were five volumes of the Comic Offering.

Edwy Searles Brooks

I have quite a few story papers and libraries written by Edwy Searles Brooks, author of many, if not all, of the Falcon Swift stories in Boys’ Magazine. Brooks had a unique writing method for churning out fiction, which is given in the following first-hand account by H. W. Twyman, Amalgamated editor of the Union Jack and the Detective Weekly from 1921 to 1937. From “Men at Work,” in The Collector’s Digest Annual, Christmas, 1957, 11^th year.

Falcon Swift

A complete episode of Falcon Swift and “The Abbott’s Skull,” Boys’ Magazine, with which is incorporated 'Pals,' Vol. XVIII. No. 479, May 9, 1931. Published by Allied Newspapers Ltd., Withy Grove, Manchester. Edited and possibly written by Edwy Searles Brooks. Falcon Swift’s earliest adventures took place in 1922.

*Thanks to Kenneth Adcock for the gift of the periodical.