Tag Archives: 1940s

Cool and Calculating: 20 Favorite Comic Strip Villains – Part 3

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As the 1930s progressed, comic strip adventuring matured its visions of villainy. And the times were changing, as world war was becoming a reality rather than a distant rumble. As we saw in Part 1 and Part 2 of our favorite comic strip badasses, the thuggish, petty, and naturally mean antangonists of the 20s and early 30s (Bull Dawson, Sea Hag, etc.) had given way to the world-eating maniacs like Ming and The Cobra. By the late 30s, villainy becomes a bit more real and local – often focused on espionage or just personal greed. And the characters are evolving as well, more conniving and cerebral, less tied to gangsterism and power-madness than to cool demeanors and low-key malevolence. Evil was no longer wearing crowns, medieval cloaks or mustaches. They were well-dressed and brainy – the villain next door.

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Penny Parties: Cartoon Sociology Meets the ‘Bobby-Soxers’

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Like all American mass media of the last century, demographics and market forces provide the frame within which trends in comic strip content lived. Harry Haenigsen’s Penny launched in 1943 directly out of the intersection of two new social realities – gal power and the “invention of the teenager.” It is not surprising, then, that Haenigsen took an almost sociological approach to portraying two things he certainly was not – young nor a girl. Like any good cartoon anthropologist, he decided to go native. The Oct. 6 1946 Philadelphia Inquirer reports how the New Hope artist researched Penny by eavesdropping on soda shop conversations and even hosting cookouts for the local high schoolers.

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Quips and Curlicues: Mopsy’s Stylish Return

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Gladys Parker was among the most recognizable and well-reported cartoonists of the 1930s and 40s. It was hard to miss her. She was the spit-curl image of her avatar Mopsy, the sharp-tongued and stylish star of her own single-panel comic (1937-1966). It is hard to say which came first, Parker’s cartoonish look or Mopsy’s, but they shared the same shock of black curlicues, sharply lined brows and eyes, and a precisely “sticked” set of lips. And since Parker was also a noted, audacious clothes designer, Mopsy was a working girl with a seemingly endless closet of ultra-modern fashions.

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Calling Dick Tracy…Again: Shaking Up the Reprint Game

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Chester Gould’s Dick Tracy has been among the most reprinted strips of all time. The reasons are obvious, and I don’t need to rehash this site’s exegesis on my personal favorite. Tracy was the strip that turned me on to classic newspaper comics. Gould’s singular visual signature, his grisly violence, grotesque villains and deadpan hero made Dick Tracy compelling on so many levels. And now we get yet another packaging style from the same Library of American Comics group that finished its magisterial 29-volume complete Gould run, 1931-77. With new publishing partner Clover Press, LOAC has reworked some of its earliest projects, like the magnificent upgrade of Terry and the Pirates and the first six volumes of The Complete Dick Tracy. And now we get slipcased, paperback editions of prime-time Gould, 1941 through 1944. Much more affordable, manageable, and available than the original LOAC volumes, each of which covered about two years of comics, the four $29.99 books are also available as a discounted set from Clover. This new series started as a crowd-funded BackerKit project last year.

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Peg-Leg Bates Gets a Cameo in Hank

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The Weekly Weird. Coulton Waugh’s experimental adventure hero Hank was the first disabled character to lead a comic strip. Shortly after losing his leg, the veteran Hank finds inspiration from real-life Broadway sensation, Peg-Leg Bates. Bates was a sensation on the stage show circuit around the country during the 30s and 40s on Broadway. The sharecropper’s son lost his leg in a cotton gun accident at the age of 12. He was determined to overcomethe disability and eventually turned it into a dance routine. More on Hank and Bates here.

Recovering Hank: America’s Anti-Fascist Hero

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Hank Hannigan was no Captain Easy or Jungle Jim or even Dickie Dare. In fact, he was designed by his creator, Coulton Waugh, as a deliberate antidote to the comic strip adventurer. He was a WWII veteran and amputee who didn’t want to journey (let alone, save) the world. Hank was proud to be a “plain guy,” a grease monkey who craved returning to the garage, marrying his sweetheart, and maybe making sense of the sacrifices he and his fellow soldiers just made. He was the unlikely hero of a short-lived 1945 comic strip that artist Coulton Waugh conceived as a populist corrective to the fantastic escapades of typical comic strip heroes. “To get a new character I go into the subways and actually draw them,” he told trade newspaper Editor and Publisher before Hank’s April launch. “I want the people of America to stream into the strip.”

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A Merry Dick Tracy Christmas

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Christmas always had a special place on the comic strip page. Many artists creatively wove Yuletide celebrations into their storyline or just broke the fourth wall for a day to send holiday messages directly to readers. Over the next few days we will recall some of the most creative examples. But let’s start with one of the heartiest celebrants of the holidays, Dick Tracy, and trace how he and Chester Gould treated the holiday.

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