Start Your Day Well

 Saturday Cream Day.

Al Capp rented out his characters for Li'L Abner for various ad series. You come across them everywhere, but I never really bothered to save or scan them. Still, after seeing so many Fearless Fossdick ads for hair tonic, I just started picking them up everywhere. The same goes for Li'l Abner and Daisy May's ads for Aunt Jemiah's Cream of Wheat breakfast porridge, used in magazines and Sunday newspaper magazines. I have sample of them fom 1944 to 1956 and I am still not sure if and where they were doubled. It is save to assume Capp's involvement in these was minimal, but they do look like the real thing. The quality various from scans I amde myself to samples I got from online material. At the end I have one more with another famous newspaper character.

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The Pest That Lasted

Monday Cartoon Day.

All comic strip collectors know that the Dennis the Menace comic series was not drawn or written by Hank Ketcham. The first issue was done by his friend Al Wiseman and written by Fred Toole. Later, both men would be followed by other assistants, but together they shaped the look of Dennis in the minds of many younger readers. They also were the first to get the tyke involved in longer stories and developed the side characters, like neighbour Mr. Wilson. He also figures a lot in the Sunday version, but those were not made by Ketcham either. Or at least, the ones we know best. I have always had my doubts about the first year of Sundays. Some Dennis fans assure me that Wiseman was reponsible for those as well, from the start. But other sources say he did not quit his day job in advertising before the comic book became an overnight hit in 1953. Anyway, the first year of Sundays do not feature Mr. Wilson as prominently and focus mainly on Dennis and his parents. Furthermore they do not read as well developed stories or gags, but as a series as cartoons. Because I did not grow up in the US and have no sentimental attachment to any version, I think this first year is the best. It has all of the stylistic mastery of the daily panel and just focusses on the same subject as the panel, the terrible things that rotten kid does. In fact, it's just like reading more of the daily cartoon.

Everything But the Sink

Wednesday Advertising Day.

Two miscellaneous bit of Ketchamalia - a newspaper article from 1951 and an ad from 1973 (which he probably did not draw himself).

Gag-A-Minute

Tuesday Comic Strip Day.

A nice early run of the Dennis the menace Sunday, when it was less story- and more gag-based.