Friday Ad-On Post

While engaging in my usual Comic Archeology digs (Quick Question: Who was Dryasdust?), i frequently see odd and interesting advertisements from the last 150 years or so. Sometimes, on rare occasions, i'm even clever enough to toss a copy into pile for later reference.

I'm betting most of you already know where this is going, huh?

Yep, let's look at some ads.
Some are very much a product of their time. For example, did it ever occur to you that there was a time when they had to advertise to convince people to buy canned food?

And you get a bonus quiz for entertainment, but i'm not hiding the answers, even if it is Friday.

And then there are products that seem to have faded away - like Yeast Foam? Do they skim an active batch or what?

Sure looks yummy, but that's the artist at work. That's a fascinating looking Yeast Foam block in the package. I'm curious now.

Looking at those old adverts also turns up odd little questions, like...

Is that where the expression "Mum's The Word" comes from, or did they take advantage of a previously existing phrase? There's precedent for both variations, but i am, at this point, wholly ignorant in this regard.
There must be a website.

Meanwhile...
Other products have simply become impossible in today's world-

Yeah. Like they'll ever make a car that can be completely maintained at home again. Much less be able to repair all the previous cars on the road that require major computer diagnostic tools to even evaluate. This is an artifact of a time now gone, for sure.

Other ads are clearly a product of another time for more ... social reasons...

"How Does Your Child Measure Up?"
Nope. This one would never get approved for use these days. Odds are, the person who suggested it would be working somewhere else soon after.

HEY!
Remember when they cured baldness back in the 1950s?

Oh, yeah. St. Helens. We must have lost this knowledge when the volcano erupted.
Ah, well.

But, y'know - There's one thing we can always count on in advertising... Comics!

From pyramids to space craft to advertising - comics is everywhere.

Of course, there's one other thing always to be found in adverts - Sex!
Like the elegant Gartier Watch:

Amazingly, this ad is from the 50s, not the 70s.

adverts from Action, Cavalcade, Confidential, Farmer's Wife, Saturday Evening Post, and The Dude (1932-1959)

Goat? Yak!

As we saw in yesterday's promotional post, Old Doc Yak holds the Guinness World Record for being the First Animal Cartoon. (They leave subjective judgements like "funny" to others)

The man featured on the poster is Sidney Smith, the cartoonist famous for The Gumps - which is credited as the first continuity based comic strip, as opposed to unchanging gag-a-day comics. It's not entirely accurate, but the Gumps are the ones who made it popular and triggered the wave of continuity comics that followed.

Today, however, we're not really interested in them We're here for he who came before - Old Doc Yak and his family. While successful enough to spawn those ground-breaking animated shorts, Yak was only around for 5 years in his own strip. He returned as a Topper for The Gumps for another 5 year stint, from 1930-1934. Old Doc Yak was definitely an Odd Duck at times, but it was also wildly creative when the mood struck. Before we get to the end in 1917, let's jump back to the beginning in 1912.

In the February 5th edition of The Chicago Tribune, he made his 'smashing' debut. Keep in mind that this is 1912 - the comic is still a very young art form, and experimenting with the physical boundaries of comics is a pretty novel idea.

The final introductory strip there ran on 10 February 1912.
And Old Doc Yak's final daily comic ran on 10 February 1917. Just one more odd bit with Old Doc Yak.
It continued to mirror the beginning by having a multi-strip closing to the daily with the Landlord threatening to throw him off the comic page if he can't scratch up some cash:

That was Saturday. On Monday, the new family moved into the House that Yak Built:

We spoke briefly of them last time, and we'll do so again. For now, just note that Sidney Smith had his new strip move into both the vacated newspaper real estate and the home of the previous strip's cast. A most odd, likely even unique, beginning to a highly successful run lasting over 40 years.

Back at Yak -
Here's a half dozen Sundays, the first from 1912, the rest from 1917. They touch on three popular topics for the series:
1) Old Doc Yak trying to get paid...

2) Old Doc Yak trying to cope with his son, Yutch-

and 3) Old Doc Yak loves his #348-

He's a crusty old Goat. That's a common theme, too.
We'll not speculate on what sort of empathetic predisposition that might give me for the strip. I'm going to just presume i like it because this is one Odd critter, start to finish.

Sadly, i do not believe that any of his cartoon survive:

Old Doc Yak (1913)
Old Doc Yak and the Artist's Dream (1913)
Doc Yak's Christmas (1913)
Doc Yak, Moving Picture Artist (1914)
Doc Yak, the Cartoonist (1914)
Doc Yak, the Poultryman (1914)
Doc Yak's Temperance Lecture (1914)
Doc Yak, the Marksman (1914)
Doc Yak Bowling (1914)
Doc Yak's Zoo (1914)
Doc Yak and the Limited Train (1914)
Doc Yak's Wishes (1914)
Doc Yak's Bottle (1914)
Doc Yak's Cats (1914)
Doc Yak Plays Golf (1914)
Doc Yak and Santa Claus (1914)

Note:

Old Doc Yak is unrelated to Old Doc "Yak Yak" Yancy (played by Joseph Kearns) from the old Harold Peary Show radio program. I believe he has no connection to Louie L'Amour's Old Doc Yak, from the story of the same name, but Yondering is not in my collection, so i have yet to be able to ascertain for certain. With a character this old, one can never be sure who might have been a fan.

Digging The Funny Animals

Quick Quiz:

Who holds the Guinness World Record for the First Animal Cartoon?

You want hints?

He was a goat.
And his newspaper comic strip ended 100 years ago - the dailies in February of 1917, the Sunday strips a few months later.
(But he did return as a Topper for another comic with his final appearance being over 15 years later)
He starred in at least 15 cartoons produced in 1913 & 1914 by Selig Polyscope, the people who brought you Tom Mix, Harold Lloyd (who brought you Jackie Chan), the 1910 Wonderful Wizard Of Oz film, Fatty Arbuckle, and Bomba, The Jungle Boy Wamba, Child Of The Jungle. (But Wamba came first, by over a dozen years)

Worked it out?

No?

Want me to shut up and stop trying to make a spoiler gap of words here and just get on with it?

Very well. Ladies, Gentlemen, and those still working it out, or who have come to a different destination, may we present-

Old Doc Yak is one of the latest finds excavated in my Comic Archeology digging expeditions.
Join us tomorrow for a trip back 100 years (and 105 years) for the beginning and end of this uniquely creative early comic. (And learn the Answer to who replaced him successfully for the next 42 years.)

Grizzly Bear Escape From Savage Island Stalked By Sex-Starved Voodoo Girls!

One thing that my Comics Archeology expeditions can frequently generate is odd looks. When i start pulling out old fanzines, APAs and garage press publications, hand printed and stapled together, the looks start. Especially when the title is something like Man's Guts.

Friends, acquaintances, and strangers alike respond in the same way - "Dude! WTF?" (Yes, i spent a lot of time frequenting conventions and shops in California) "Why are you even looking at that crap? And, seriously - that title? What kind of pervo are you?"

Well, skipping past trying to categorize or classify, i'll merely acknowledge without labels and move on to the primary question. My answer is typically along the lines of "I've never seen it before, don't know what it is. It's got drawings and it's cheap."

Seriously, that's more than reason enough. Sure, plenty of it turns out to be crap - that's to be expected as per Sturgeon's Revelation. But then you mine those little gems that so vastly tip the balance and make it very worthwhile. By this point, you've probably figured that this is one of those occasions. Let's look at the table of contents and see what we've got here:

Kamikaze Nudes of the Secret Pacific Empire?  
Lesbian Mudwrestlers Behind Bars?  
Bayou Kingdom of Undead Cuties?!?
Okay, maybe the titles are a bit misleading for the intent of the zine, hm? Let's listen to what the Editor has to say for the introduction to this new publication:

 I included the North Carolina address as a point of reference, in case you were inclined to debate how heartfelt the editorial might or might not be.

As for overall quality, in these pre-computer days of xerox or mimeograph printing, options were quite limited for an amateur press. Mimeographs allows no photographs, and any images were typically hand drawn - backwards. So it's no surprise that the book's text is strictly two column type-written pages...

 So - what the frell are we doing here?

I don't know if you clicked for the bigger view of that cover above, but let's take a closer look now...

That's Bruce By God Timm's signature hiding there.
I've been a big fan of his work since a few years before this, when he and Neal Hansen (Spyder) were working together on Whisper. But you're far more likely to be familiar with him from his style setting design work on the Batman cartoons...

...sorry. I meant the Batman Animated shows...

...and the follow-up Superman animated series...

NOTE: This image contains nudity and has

been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive

of the original post to view the artwork.

Oops. Pardon us, Lois.
Obviously, there's a Blue Monday feature on Timm down the road a piece, as likely implied on our previous peeks at his Naughty And Nice side. But today, we not only get a Bruce Timm cover, we also get a full page illustration for each story!

Kamikaze Nudes of the Secret Pacific Empire

Lesbian Mudwrestlers Behind Bars

NOTE: This image contains nudity and has

been moved to our back room for adult content.
Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive

of the original post to view the artwork.

Bayou Kingdom of Undead Cuties

Menace of the Mail Order Brides

Change from Your Dollar

And that, fellowbabies, is why i dig through those unknown piles so eagerly while others are trying to find what they already know is there.

all art by Bruce Timm, pages from Man's Guts #1 (1989)

Uncomics 002 - Nationally Screwed

NOTE: The images for this article have been moved to our back room following the restructure of this site due to adult content. (Yes, that includes the Will Eisner pages) The text remains for you to decide if you want to go look at the pictures. Please follow this link to The Other Voice Of ODD! archive of the original post to view the artwork.

I've mentioned that part of my Comic Archeology projects is mining through old men's magazines. Some may think this an odd choice of place to look. So let's take a look at National Screw magazine, launched by ... shall we say carnally-infamous publisher Al Goldstein back in 1976.

Right there on the cover - an interview with Bill Gaines - the father of EC comics and Mad Magazine - and an all new comic from comics legend Wally Wood! Turning to the table of contents, the comic art sensibility is immediately evident, with artwork outweighing photos for the article images.

Flip through the magazine and you'll find abundant levels of art illustrations (including Don Martin!) and comic strips...

...the beginning of a four issue serialization of Wally Wood's new (at the time) Malice In Wonderland...


...and even photo layouts in comic book form...


...closing with a Norml ad featuring art by B. Kliban. (another day)

Comics are right there in the magazine's DNA every bit as much as flesh, fetish, and assorted filth.

But enough of all that. We'll come back to some of that later, but that's not why we're here today, let's jump to issue #3 for today's feature comic. In the turbulent 70s, everyone needed a little help to completely grok the ever-changing world around them.

Boundaries were falling, horizons were expanding, and there were no maps to this strange new social territory. Where could people turn for guidance? Who could teach us how to live in these times?

The even more legendary Will Eisner steps up to help with his all too brief guide to The Quality Of Life:

Will Eisner's work from National Screw #3 (1977) all other art from National Screw #1 (1976)

Fewer Death Traps

Welcome to Comics Archeology 303. (What? You wanted 101 from a guy with a 3 fetish?)
Those of you who do not already have your books, please send me all the money.

Today we'll be discussing a very recent find. I was mining an entirely different vein when a glimpse of something called Willie Lumpkin caught my eye.
I started reading Fantastic Four more than 50 years ago. Willie Lumpkin's been around since WAY back in FF#11.
This guy:


Now, let me point out a couple things right up front.
First, as indicated by that '50 years ago' reference, i'm from a time when 'fandom' meant you and a few kids you knew who traded comics for something new to read. Generally you all shopped at the same one or two places with spinner rack (so they didn't have to waste a lot of space on them comic book things). But, y'know - Billy's big brother went up to Macon where the 5&Dime had TWO spinner racks, and titles we'd only heard of in ads in the books our store ordered. That's an event that was on the scale of the San Diego Comic Con (or whatever it's officially called these days. I haven't been in this century) And that's about the extent of new information we got on what was going on in the world of comics.
There were no magazines, no databases, no connections. If you REALLY felt the need to try to connect beyond that little local tribe, your only option was to write to the fans who got their letters printed, once Stan Lee (he was first, right?) started printing their addresses with the letters.
Second, due to some sociopathic hermit tendencies, disconnection remains my lifestyle, despite attempts at otherwise over the years. (Even APAs - topic for another day)

Combine the two, and this means that there are going to be big gaping gaps in my knowledge. I may well know what's known to me, but my knowledge of ignorance is quite limited. That being the case, it may turn out that some things we discover here in Comics Archeology are actually well known to everybody outside my cave. In those cases, perhaps my ignorance itself will be entertaining in this age of reality tv programs.

So - moving along with the topic at hand - Willie Lumpkin.
I chipped around this new vein and found several dailies and several Sunday strips. Lo and behold - they're about a mailman named Willie Lumpkin.

 
And it's credited to Lee & DeCarlo! WTF? Was Stan off writing strips in 1960?
I tried to foist this mystery off on someone else, but just a week later, while reading through an old interview with Stan from Oui magazine back in '77 (Great articles, but no - I didn't just buy it for the articles) and near the end this exchange pops up:

Not long after that, i stumbled across* this in an interview from Comic Book Artist #2:

So - Yup!
Another odd bit in the Stan Lee story of which i was unaware. As lost to history as the names of his children. (Seriously - has anyone ever heard them referred to by name? And who's that Lieber guy working on the Netflix Marvel series? Any relation? Argh - more mysteries!)

===

*(This is why it's hard for me to get too angry at the Universe enjoying itself so much using me as the punchline to many of its jokes. It makes up for it be dumping things i want to know, and strange things i didn't know i wanted to know, in my path for me to find. I'd never know to look for The Man With The Smallest Penis In Existence And The Electron Microscope Technician Who Loved Him, so the Universe sends those things to me instead.)

Willie Lumpkin breaching worlds from Fantastic Four #11 and Willie Lumpkin dailies (1963&1960)