Talking Comic Strip History...

[Hogan's Alley]

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Dear fellow comics fan:

When a new book about comics history is published, it's a cause for
celebration in the Hogan's Alley offices. When such a book's author is
also a Hogan's Alley writer, it’s especially exciting. The University
of Michigan Press has just published "American Newspaper Comics: An
Encyclopedic Reference Guide, " which is just what the title would
indicate: a guide to every U.S. strip ever published, with start
dates, stop dates, ghost/assistant information and more. We talked to
Holtz about his wonderful new book, which will be worn and dog-eared
as we use it for fact-checking and trivia, and asked him to expand on
his project.

HA: This is a tremendous book. I think cartoonists should be sworn
into their contracts with one hand on it.
AH: If it means each one has to buy a copy of the book, I think I
could be persuaded to favor that motion. On the other hand, I can
imagine a cartoonist with a shiny new syndication contract leafing
through the book and coming to the uncomfortable realization that most
everything has been done before, done well, and yet in most cases
failed anyway. Talk about an undiluted dose of harsh reality!

HA: What is the genesis of the project?
AH: As a young newspaper strip collector--I'm now firmly in the middle-
aged, verging on old fart, category--I was buying any old strips I
could get my hands on, and I wanted to know what the heck it was I was
buying. Over and over, though, I found that the strips, if they
weren't acknowledged classics, were ignored entirely or the
information was sketchy in the available reference books. Worse, there
was a surprising amount of information that was clearly wrong. Having
come to comic strips via comic books, I was used to having an
excellent reference like the Overstreet guide. I saw the need to
develop a reference to newspaper comics that tried to be all-
inclusive. Not a price guide per se, but a reference that would say
how long each feature ran, who worked on it and when, and other basic
information. Twenty-five years of research later, voila!

HA: I can't even begin to imagine the challenges involved in
researching all this information. But what sort of information proved
especially elusive?
AH: Oddly, the early years of the newspaper comic strip are the
easiest to document. The originating newspapers, the ones that
syndicated features to other papers, generally ran all the material
they offered, so if you index them, you have an excellent reference to
that syndicate. Provided, that is, that the newspaper microfilm record
is complete, which is seldom the case. After the mid-1910s, though,
syndicating newspapers rarely ran all their own offerings, so from
then on you have to review many, many newspapers looking for the ones
that started the feature earliest and ran it latest. It's tremendously
time-consuming, and a hit-or-miss proposition. Even popular features
can become very elusive near the beginning and ending of their runs.
Believe it or not, I searched for decades trying to verify the
generally accepted starting date of "Blondie"--finally a few years ago
another researcher found the strip starting on the right date, in the
Wisconsin News, of all places, and passed the information on to me.

HA: Talk about some of your "a-ha!" moments, when you uncovered a
nugget that eluded you for a long time.
AH: I think most people would consider me a complete looney if I
publicly admitted to some of the thrilling moments I've had reviewing
microfilm. Don't make me admit that squinting at some blurry comic
strip on microfilm and finally discerning the scribbled signature of a
third-rate cartoonist on a strip that was forgotten a century ago can
be a red-letter day at the library. I'm afraid researching comic
strips isn't like being in "The Da Vinci Code." But finding previously
unknown comic strips by George Herriman, Milton Caniff and other
acknowledged masters does give me an extra big thrill, just because I
know that in those cases I'm not the only one who will be interested
in the discovery.

I suppose that some of the most memorable moments have not been while
looking at microfilm--shocking, I know. Writing about old newspaper
comics on my website has put me in touch with the relatives of some of
my favorite early newspaper cartoonists. It is a huge thrill to talk
with someone who actually knew one of these pioneering cartoonists.
And they too are thrilled that someone remembers and respects the long
ago work of their relative. Hearing stories about these guys, making
real people out of the bylines, is amazing.

HA: In the course of your research, did any trends become evident to
you that you hadn't picked up on before, in terms of genres,
demographics, etc.?
AH: I think what has amazed me most is the number of cartoonists who
have managed to place features with their local newspapers. Locally
produced features have long been a vibrant part of good newspapers,
and that continues today.

It is tremendously time-consuming for me to find and document these
features, so they are frankly a thorn in my side. However, I do love
them. They demonstrate that any cartoonist who has a work ethic, some
talent, and can sell themselves, is able to get a newspaper slot if
they really want it. It also heartens me that newspaper editors, who
otherwise often seem almost hostile to comics, appreciate the value of
local content in their papers.

The neat thing, and aspiring cartoonists should take note, is that
though business is bad for newspapers these days, that only improves
them as a market for local talent--as long as you work somewhere in
the free to dirt cheap zone. Editors recognize that a strip with some
local flavor, or a cartoon highlighting local history, can be a
significant draw. And once you're in the paper, you're building a
resume, gaining experience, and generally making yourself
indispensable--a good investment in your future!

HA: You've also done a lot of prior research into the history of the
newspaper syndicates, so you went into this project with a lot of
foreknowledge. Even so, did you discover anything notable about the
syndicates, either those few still around or the long-forgotten ones?
AH: Syndicate history is the black hole of comic strip research. There
is so little information about the syndicates available. The trade
papers for newspapers considered them little more than a necessary
evil, so there's not much information there, and few syndicate people
wrote memoirs. Since I consider understanding the syndication business
essential to understanding newspaper comics history, it is more than a
little disheartening how little I've learned in all these years.

To give you an idea, there was a syndicate that existed for about 40
years called World Color Printing. They specialized mostly in pre-
printed Sunday comic sections. They were a pretty major player in
their day, but information is so scarce I'm still not sure of the
answers to many basic questions about them. The syndicate was based in
St. Louis, and I made a special research trip there in search of
information. I came away with few new insights, but I did manage to
find the building in which they operated. It was a two-story brick
structure, probably once part of a whole row of smart brick buildings,
but now standing all alone, everything once surrounding having been
demolished years ago. It was now situated in the middle of a storage
lot used by a chemical company, and since it held toxic chemicals it
was surrounded by a tall chain link fence, topped with razor wire. I
couldn't get near the building, but I could make out from a distance
that above the front window, which was now boarded up, there was a
concrete header engraved with the name World Color Printing in fancy
newspaper script. It was a quasi-religious experience for me, or maybe
like Ahab seeing Moby Dick breaching. For so long I had followed the
trail of that syndicate, that to be confronted with a physical
manifestation of its existence was tremendously moving. Perhaps it is
best that it was behind barbed wire, because had I been able to touch
the building I might well have been completely overwhelmed.

HA: What would you cite as a strip you were previously unaware of that
you consider a lost gem?
AH: Comic strip research is a good fit for me. Because of my highly
inquisitive nature, it's important to find something new and exciting
on a regular basis to keep my interest fresh. So when you ask a
question like that, you'll probably get a new answer every few months.
I suppose the one that really blew me away recently was an incredibly
obscure strip called "The Theatrical Alphabet." Don't bother looking
for it in the book, it was discovered after that was put to bed. This
strip ran as a five-part series in the Baltimore Herald in 1901. The
series illustrates a poem about theatre-folk in the alliterative form
of A is for Actor, B is for Box Seats, and so on. The poetry is pretty
awful in my opinion, and the art is by a very minor cartoonist named
A.Y. Hambleton. So what in the world makes it a gem? Well, it turns
out that this piece of doggerel was written by none other than one of
the greatest and most influential writers of the first half of 20th
century, H.L. Mencken! For any reader not familiar with Mencken, whose
fame I suppose has simmered down somewhat these days, a discovery like
this is about on a par with finding out that Robert Frost wrote dirty
limericks or Stephen King scripted Care Bears cartoons.

The other nice thing about this discovery is that it was a real
community effort. Cole Johnson discovered the strip and sent me scans,
I identified the cartoonist, and then when I ran it on the website, a
reader identified the poem as having been written by Mencken--our
readers are a freakily brilliant bunch. Isn't that awesome?

HA: As you continue your research, will owners of your book have a way
to get updates or errata?
AH: Good question, and I'm currently in a dialogue with my publisher
on this exact point. We need to come up with some solution since the
research still goes on. For now, I do continue to constantly post the
fruits of new research on the website, but I do not post book updates
specifically.

HA: I know the personal sacrifices that a project like this requires.
The long nights and weekends only represent the tip of the iceberg.
Can you talk a bit about what you consider the toll something of this
scope takes on you? Would you honestly do it again if you knew what
you were getting into?
AH: Hmm...could we go back to questions about comic strips?

It would by simple and convenient to blame my research work for any
ills in my personal life and career, because it's certainly true that
it is ridiculously time-consuming, and it sometimes causes me to stint
on the attention I give to my 'real' work and relationships. However,
when I start thinking that way I invariably remember that old saw,
"Well, at least it keeps me out of bars." Not saying that I would
become a barfly if I didn't have my newspaper research, but rather
that there would surely be some other consuming passion to take up
that space in my life. If I wasn't doing this, I would surely be
trying to do something--whether it was solving issues in genetic
engineering or amassing the world's biggest ball of dryer lint, there
would be something monumental in the works.

On the other hand, when I embarked on this project twenty-five years
ago I assumed that it would be completed in ten years--maybe less if I
caught a few breaks. I mean, really--newspaper comics? How much
research could that take? Hoo-boy.
____________________________

"American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide" is not
the cheapest book, but if you're serious about comics history and
getting your facts straight (and settling arguments among your fellow
fans), it's indispensable. You can order it from Amazon (with a deep
discount) via this link: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0472117564/tag=hogansalleyma-20.

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