Detective Dan Dunn had a child sidekick by October 1935 in the form of an orphan named Babs (shown above from Famous Funnies #16). It feels like they were going for a Little Orphan Annie vibe here, but I’m sure it’s not coincidence that Dick Tracy also had also adopted an orphan son (Junior) just […]
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Famous Funnies #14 (August 1935), saw Eastern Color Printing start to include editor pages as messages to readers. This was a trend started by National Allied Publications (later to become DC Comics) a few months before, and I think it was an important step in building up the comic book industry, as it made the […]
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Here is an full-page color ad to buy the Buck Roger’s Disintegrator Raygun for four bits from Famous Funnies #12 by Eastern Color. Looks like someone on ebay has one of these babies and current highest bid is $77, while a like-new full replica kit is sitting there for a cool $295.
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On to May 1935. One of the more popular strips reprinted in Famous Funnies comic books was Buck Rogers, a space opera character that lived in many forms of media (books, movie serials, television show). Buck Rogers showed up in the first few years of the Famous Funnies comic book.
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Dixie Dugan was a long-running comic strip following a showgirl-turned-career girl and recollected in Eastern Color’s “Famous Funnies”. Wikipedia tells me she was modeled after Louise Brooks, who had a bob haircut.
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Famous Funnies #6 (December 1934) marks the first time that consecutive comic strips were reprinted together in a comic book for better reading. This is a panel from a 4-page section of square-jawed Detective “Dan Dunn“, Secret Operative 48, one of many hat-wearing detectives of the era (the most famous being Dick Tracy).
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Before Lois Lane, there was Jane Arden, the original “spunky girl reporter”. This is a reprint from Famous Funnies #5, November 1934 by Eastern Color (still the only comic book game in town at this point).
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A single panel comic reprinted in Famous Funnies #4, October 1934 by Clare Victor Dwiggins. Every comic seems to be the same thing: Dotted lines depicting Bill’s adventures in the town that day, often getting distracted or into mischief. Clearly an inspiration for the dotted lines in Family Circus.
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On to September 1934, and Eastern Color is still the only comic book game in town. Mutt and Jeff were another popular comic strip back in the day that started in 1907. One-reel silent shorts were produced in 1911-1913. I wonder if this means that Mutt and Jeff were technically the very first film adaptation […]
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Skipping ahead two months to August 1934, we have the second comic book ever sold, Eastern Color’s Famous Funnies #2. This book continued to reprint “funnies” from color newspaper sections into comic book form. Joe Palooka is refereeing a bout between two African American boxers in this page. It’s fascinating to me how comic books […]
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