Before Popeye II

Binnacle Jim
by Everett E. Lowry,
30 Mar 1907
The World, Vancouver, B. C.

Before Popeye I

Katzies Ghosts : Frederick Burr Opper

The Katzies ghosted by Frederick Burr Opper, creator of Happy Hooligan. According to my freind Holmes "I agree that this is likely an Opper creation, but it's even more of an admixture than it first appears! The black man is Sam from Jimmy Swinnerton's "And Sam Laughed" strip!"

And that is not all, the character of the mule is a spoof of Opper's own 1904 comic strip And Her Name was Maud!

Bedelia, I'd like to steal ya, was a top jazz hit of 1903. One mystery remaining, who are "der Raxies," vaudeville artists ?

Winnipeg Tribune 27 July 1918. Original was copyright King Features Syndicate 1904.

Before Popeye

Does this sound familiar ?

"Was I ever captered by pyrates, says you ?"

"Wall now, 'f that ain't th' most amoosin' thing I ever heard tellon!"

And the old seaman laid back and bellowed a haw! haw! in his best quarterdeck that made the windows rattle, and the small group of loungers that had gathered its way into the little fisher's shanty exchange expectant glances.

"Why, stow me away!" he continued, after getting somewhat the better of his merriment.

"The next thing I know some lubber'll come cruising alongside here and arsk 'f I was ever keelhauled er cast ashore an' et by cannybles, er somethin'. But see here, matie (and the old sea dog winked a blue weather eye at the young fellow who had so innocently put the question and was growing very red in the face) don't you git flustered, not you, it ain't no fault o' your'n you don't know moreabout th' dangers o' sea life, not by a jug full, 'cept wot you've read, mebby in them story books, 'at ain't more'n half true I reckon."

This was from the Vancouver World of April 13, 1907 in a text feature illustrated in a fantastic comic style by an artist who signed himself Lowry, the 'y' at the end of his name dipping to make a ship's anchor.



The Title was Bill Bunk captured by Pirates, a sequel to Bill Bunk and his Shipmate Sam, Unheard of Adventures of Two Sailors on a Deserted Island on April 6, 1907. But this is not all, there was also a Sunday page titled "Binnacle Jim," beginning on March 30,1907, and copyright by Otis F. Wood. Under a long header at the top were nine panels with balloons and narrative text underneath in thesame sea dog patois, "arter" for "after" &c.

Binnacle Jim smokes a Popeye type pipe, wears a Popeye sailor hat and suit, and mangles the Queen's English like all tough sailors do. Unlike Popeye he sports a beard. There are also plenty of fisticuffsin both Bill Bunk and Binnacle Jim, all in all it's too close to Popeye to be a co-incidence, Segar must have seen and been mightily impressed with Lowry's sailors, impressed enough to recycle them as the world renowned spinach-eater in later days. Other strips in the Vancouver World included many other strips copyright to Otis F. Wood.

Binnacle Jim also seems to have ben known as Peg-leg Pete and Binnacle Bill.

Everett E. Lowry has the following comic strips credited in the SFACA collection >

And His Name is Mr. Bones,

1914

Bobby Make-Believe,

1940

Bub--He's Always to Blame,

1905-1909

Prof. Fakem the Naturalist,

1907

Simon Simple's First Lessons in Clownism, 1907

The three Bill Bunk tales from the Vancouver World were >

April 6, 1907. Bill Bunk and his Shipmate Sam, Unheard of Adventures of Two Sailors on a Desert Island.

April 13, 1907. Bill Bunk Captured By Pirates.

August 20, 1907. Bill Bunk and his Cargo of Monkeys.

Nip and Tuck Pt. 4

The Little Journeys of Nip and Tuck,
March 20, 1909,
The World, Vancouver, B. C.

Nip and Tuck Pt. 3

The Little Journeys of Nip and Tuck,
April 10, 1909,
The World, Vancouver, B. C.

Coming Soon A Trip to the Moon

The Little Journeys of Nip and Tuck Pt. 2

The Little Journeys of Nip and Tuck,
April 10, 1909, from The World,
Vancouver, B. C.

John R. Neill's Nip and Tuck 1909

The Little Journeys of Nip and Tuck
Saturday, March 10, 1909
Vancouver World newspaper.

John Campbell Cory (1867-1925)

John Campbell Cory was born Sept 11, 1867, probably in Helena, Montana, and died 25 Nov 1925 in Denver, Colorado. By 1889 he was in Chicago working as a newspaperman. His comic strip work began in 1897 for the New York Evening Journal. In 1898 he drew “The Funny Side of Life in Montana.” He was the “star man” in the Sunday World's New Comic Weekly, edited by Geo. W. Peck (“Peck's Bad Boy,”) that began in December 1900. Cory drew sequential gags for the New York World, and then moved on to the McClure Syndicate. By 1915 he was doing another strip titled “Cory’s Kids” for the McClure Newspaper Syndicate and was staff cartoonist on the Chicago Herald. Cory, formerly of Helena, Montana, was a member of New York's Rocky Mountain Club, formed for residents and former residents of the Rocky Mountain States in 1907.

A few years back I found a Shenanigan Kids strip signed "Cory" by this artist Here. Comic historian Alfredo Castelli sent me some samples of John Campbell Cory's work like the above sample of "Cory's Kids" and a long letter from which I gathered the biographical information above.

But this is not all -- if you look at the Katzies strips Here (particularly the horses in the third and ninth samples) there is an unmistakable resemblance between those and the horse in the "Cory's Kids" strip above.

"The Katzies" daily strip began in the Winnipeg Tribune on January 6, 1917 and ran to August 21, 1918 changing title to "The Shenanigan Kids" along the way and was copyright King Features Syndicate.

Two Domestic Comedies

Two Domestic Comedies: The Outa-Luck Club by Frank Willard author of Moon Mullins and Wedlocked by Leo O'Mealia author of Jungle Definitions. Both strips shown from September 1-4, 1921.