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[SuperScrounge]

Hello

A while back I came across an oddball of a comic collection and tried to find some other comics that were just as odd (since one of the reasons for the Reading Group was to expose people to books they might not normally read), but none of the ones I looked at came close, so I decided to go with early comics related.

Max and Maurice
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=85727
An English translation of Max und Moritz which was influential to later comics.

The Yellow Kid 1896
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=26549
This year contains what is considered the first Comic Strip (page 36). Some of the comics might be hard to read since they were printed the size of a newspaper page, but enough should be readable to get a feel for something from the dawn of comics.

Daffydils
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=73904
This is the oddball. Done by by T. A. Dorgan more well known for his comic Silk Hat Harry's Divorce Suit (some of which is reprinted here). This feels like stretching the term comics to it's limit. I don't expect anybody to read the whole thing, I only did because I was indexing it for the GCD.

Well, I'm off to my bunker to hide from the lynch mob, er, I mean, I hope you enjoy these choices, or at least find them interesting.

[Quirky Quokka]

Well SuperScrounge, you’ve certainly picked some unique ones there. I’ve just had a quick look through and there’s certainly some interesting artwork. I think I could even emulate the stick drawings for Daffydils. Interesting to see the early days of comics. Looking forward to having a closer look.

Cheers

QQ

[Robb_K]

Hello

A while back I came across an oddball of a comic collection and tried to find some other comics that were just as odd (since one of the reasons for the Reading Group was to expose people to books they might not normally read), but none of the ones I looked at came close, so I decided to go with early comics related.

Max and Maurice
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=85727
An English translation of Max und Moritz which was influential to later comics.

The Yellow Kid 1896
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=26549
This year contains what is considered the first Comic Strip (page 36). Some of the comics might be hard to read since they were printed the size of a newspaper page, but enough should be readable to get a feel for something from the dawn of comics.

Daffydils
https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=73904
This is the oddball. Done by by T. A. Dorgan more well known for his comic Silk Hat Harry's Divorce Suit (some of which is reprinted here). This feels like stretching the term comics to it's limit. I don't expect anybody to read the whole thing, I only did because I was indexing it for the GCD.

Well, I'm off to my bunker to hide from the lynch mob, er, I mean, I hope you enjoy these choices, or at least find them interesting.

I'm very familiar with Wilhelm Busch's "Max Und Moritz", as I got a very large anthology of Wilhelm Busch's illustrated poems and stories many years ago from some German friends of mine published in the early 1900s.  I know them only in Deutsch Sprache, so it will be interesting to see how it was translated into English.  Busch is one of my favourite cartoon artists.  I really like the inking style of the late 1800s.

I have also read several pages of "The Yellow Kid".  But, I'll look forward to seeing others.

I've never read Daffydills, although I did have a look through its pages at the artwork, and read a few pages, when it was uploaded to this website.  I'll actually read its remaining pages now. 

[The Australian Panther]

And now for something - completely unexpected!

I believe there is another copy of Max and Maurice [M&M] 
somewhere on this site. Under a different name.
This one was only uploaded by Lyons a couple of months ago, but I had thought that I had found a copy here a year or two ago.
Both Max and Moritz and the Yellow Kid are considered seminal in the History of the comic strip, [It's not in the Deutsch section] so well done Superscrounge.     

[EHowie60]

Some assorted old oddities this week! I'll give them a look and tell you what I think.

[Quirky Quokka]

Max and Maurice

Well, this was an unusual choice and something I wouldn't have read if left to my own devices. Interesting to see such an early book that had an influence on comics. I read the whole thing. It's not easy to translate rhyming poetry from another language and still get the rhyme and meter more or less right. Whoever did the translation deserves a hearty clap.

First some comments on the story. [Spoilers ahead] It was interesting that it started with a preface that let us know the bad boys would get their comeuppance in the end. So it set it up as a morality tale in seven acts. Max and Maurice were certainty nasty little boys and I couldn't find any redeeming features in them. We were off to a grisly start with the hanging deaths of the poor chickens. Then poor innocent Spitz gets a belting and cries in agony when Widow Tibbets thinks he's eaten the roast chickens. As I'm an animal lover, we're not off to a good start. More grisly scenes await as the poor cleric seems to have his face burnt to a crisp in an explosion (though we're told he recovers), the naughty boys are baked in the oven and then survive only to have their bones crushed in a hopper. Fun and games for everyone. I was thinking it was too grisly a tale for children, but then a lot of the early nursery rhymes were gruesome. Goosey Goosey Gander threw the old man down the stairs, Humpty Dumpty shattered and was never put together again, and Oranges and Lemons starts out well but then has the chopper coming to chop off your head. Jolly Old England indeed!

Though on a positive note, there was some interesting word play with made-up words (e.g., 'But the rogues are down instanter/From the roof, and off they canter, p. 16; AND 'In the Baker comes, and snickers/When he sees the sugar-lickers, p. 46).

It was good to see there were consequences to the bad deeds, but would children have paid heed to the message and mended their ways? Or would it have all been jolly good fun?

Now for the art. I thought the illustrations were really good, though I thought Max and Maurice were creepy-looking from the start. Maybe they were intended to be. There was good slapstick humour in many of the drawings, the characters were suitably odd, and there was a good sense of movement and action. I could have done without seeing the poor chickens choked and hung, but I did like the full-page illustration on p. 15 that showed what was happening on all three levels of the house at once (from basement, to main floor, to roof). A bit of an inconsistency where Mr Buck loses one of his shoes on p. 22 when he falls into the river, but has it again when he flies out of the water thanks to some geese on p. 23. The different contortions he gets into on p. 24 are brilliant at illustrating his belly-ache. Also lots of movement in the series of illustrations where Uncle Fritzy deals with the bugs.

Fitting that the boys' remains are finally eaten by some farmyard ducks after what they did to the chickens in the first trick. Hopefully this wasn't a typical way in which adults dealt with naughty children at the time 

I also looked through the ads at the back. The mind boggles at what might be contained in books of Nonsense Cookery and Nonsense Botany. I googled the names, but alas, couldn't find anything. Though I was mildly impressed that the Children's Friend series included stories by Louisa May Alcott (of 'Little Women' fame) and Susan Coolidge (author of 'What Katy Did'). Presumably those stories weren't so grisly.

An interesting selection, SuperScrounge. Now onto the next!

Cheers

QQ

[Morgus]

'super, I'm glad you highlighted these. It's good to see where a lot of the history started. I'm with Q.Q. in praising the author's translation skills of M&M. 'When I took Goethe, they went into how hard it was to translate the German into English and still keep it in poetic style and not make it doggerel.  It's an amazing feat when you think about it. And yeah, the 'humor' was kind of grisly. But you can see where the Katzenjammer Kids got their influences or at least some of them...
The Yellow Kid was a marvel. It should also be pointed out that some of the newspapers themselves were bigger in size then...those strips were monsters! Booth Tarkington had a line in 'Magnificent Ambersons' where he remarked 'they had time for everything'.  You can see that in these strips. I mean how long would it take to do each justice? Half an hour?
I was reminded of Stan Mack with the Dorgan work. Or Feiffer when he got on a tangent. They also brought to mind the Crumb brother in the film (Charles?? Can't remember) who got more and more verbose as his mental state deteriorated.
But, no, it was a good trio of selections. I've been meaning to sit back and look up the Yellow Kid, so this was a good as time as any for it. But I won't lie either. I just don't have the time to do much more than glance at them. But they are beautiful. Thanks.

[K1ngcat]

Max & Maurice

Okay, I can see how they influenced the Katzenjammer Kids, but I have to take everyone else's word about the artwork, though Busch does seem unusually good at drawing bird's bottoms. And there are so many!

Before this came the famed Struwwelpeter, which also describes young children coming to very sticky ends. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/12116/12116-h/12116-h.htm recommended for ages 3 to 6? Really?

I suppose in general they're no more bloodthirsty or macabre than Grimm's fairy tales.  I'm genuinely impressed by the coining of the word "instanter," which I daresay has never been seen outside of the English translation. But I'm sorry I can't really say I enjoy this unusual work, I think it's just a bit too icky!

More later.
All the best
K1ngcat

[crashryan]

I'm genuinely impressed by the coining of the word "instanter"

But wait! According to the Online Etymology Dictionary the word was already a couple of hundred years old.

instanter (adv.): "instantly," 1680s, from Latin instanter "urgently, pressingly," in Medieval Latin, "presently, at once," from Latin instans "present, pressing, urgent," literally "standing near" (see instant (adj.)).

[EHowie60]

Max and Maurice
You know what? I think I've seen their First Trick, with the hens, somewhere before. Can't recall where though. Perhaps it was a cracked.com article, "Seven absolutely terrifying children's books" or some such. Busch definitely does not pull any punches with these "tricks". This is well beyond the Tom Sawyer brand of mischief! I agree that the translator has done a good job keeping the poems fit to the meter. The tricks are nasty, and the punishment! Swift and violent, my goodness! This was quite a read, though on the whole? A fun read.

[Robb_K]

Max Und Moritz
I am very impressed that the translator kept well to the gist of the story's general meaning in all cases, and the specific meaning in most cases, except where finding an ending sound that would keep a similar rhyming sound AND meaning was impossible.  In the most egregious cases, no attempt to rhyme the two sentence lines was made, rather than resorting to have the general meaning be different.  I know how difficult it is to translate Hochdeutsch to English in even remotely literal correspondence.  But to also keep a similar tempo and have rhyming line endings added too, is grueling work, requiring a tremendous knowledge of English vocabulary, including stilted, no longer-used terms, that had fallen out of the language long ago, as well as being comfortable with, and being used to using reversed, and other different word orders.  This translator did a very impressive job on this very difficult task.  The spirit of Busch's work seems to be about as well represented as possible given the differences in the two languages.

As to the stories, I'll admit that having the two mischief-makers end up being baked in an oven to near death, and ground to bits while alive is a mite too strong of a punishment for their deeds.  But, what they did to the teacher could possibly have killed him, and the cumulative effect of their constant reign of terror upon their village was likely to get one of the less-balanced villagers mad enough, into a frenzy to actually murder them.  So, I DO take it as not only a morality tale, but also a warning to little would-be career naughty boys to think twice about going up that road in life.  Someone with a less-developed prefrontal cortex of his brain might well decide to rid his community of a brash young source of irritation in a very nasty way.

I love Busch's artwork.  He was one of the first well-known artists to illustrate narratives in very animated cartoony-style.  It's easy to see that he was influenced by Struwel Peter's theme in this book.  But his art style approach to it was all his own. 

[EHowie60]

The Yellow Kid
You know, I was vaguely familiar with The Yellow Kid but I had never seen a full illustration before! They're actually rather impressive. So many characters and so much going on! I especially like the baseball game on page 10. I swear I spotted Alfred E Numan on page 24. It is a bit of a shame that the small text is hard to read in this format.

Must have been an X-Ray craze in 1896 New York with all the references to them in the ads. I like when you can tell little things about a time period by examining art. Like the gold standard/silver standard debate in the United States, which I vaguely remember learning about in school. All the political editions of The Yellow Kid are full of gold and silver references.

[K1ngcat]

Daffydills

Well this is indeed an oddity, but so it seems was Thomas Aloysius Dorgan, a gifted cartoonist who took to drawing as therapy after losing all but the thumb on his right hand.  He was also a gifted wordsmith who is credited with inventing many American slang expressions still in use today. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1996/06/20/the-man-who-cooked-up-the-hot-dog/77d896db-c25d-4f9d-b233-2db3da93e62e/

This collection contains precious few of his fine cartoons and is mostly rough hand lettered puns (some of them funny, some excruciatingly laboured) ending in what we might call catch phrases if he were a TV personality or a standup comic. Like the Panther I was very taken with "Quick, Watson, the needle!" when I saw it on the cover.  I rather tired of it after seeing it on almost every page, but I guess that's what catch phrases are like. I particularly enjoyed the stick man shorts wherein the protagonist works a long and exhausting day before departing, saying cheerfully, "Nothing to do till tomorrow!" I don't know why, it just struck a chord with me.

Anyhow, weird as it might be, I still found it entertaining, glad you drew my attention to it.

Two down, one to go...
All the best
K1ngcat

[EHowie60]

Daffydils
I am... struggling to understand the format of this one. Seems each of the three jokes on a page has a elaborate setup, a non-sequiter pun, and a catchphrase. Plus the "nothing to do till tomorrow" strip. The little stick figures are pretty cute, even if a lot of the jokes don't quite land for me. I can see why you'd take note of this one, SuperScrounge. It's definitely like nothing else I've seen on this site.

[Morgus]

Ehowie,  you have found one of the great cartoon rabbit holes of all time; 'The Alfred E. Neuman Origin Debate'. It’s right up there with ‘What was the first rock n’ roll song?’
Seems like there were dozens of people who looked like the MAD magazine icon in turn of the century comics and ads. COMPLETELY MAD by Maria Reidelbach has lots of examples. Harvey Kurtzman started the modern usage by finding one on a post card and running with it. But by then it was all public domain, just like the comics on this site.
Norman Mingo probably should get credit for drawing the definitive versions. Beyond that, you’re on your own. This went all the way to the US supreme court at one time. There IS a connection to the Yellow Kid, but it’s long, arcane, and frankly beyond me.  I don’t need the aggravation.

By the way, anybody able to figure out WHO the market was that the M&M people were aiming for? I keep asking myself who would buy that thing, let alone think it was funny. Hacked off grandparents?? I don’t know...

[Robb_K]

Daffydills

Well this is indeed an oddity, but so it seems was Thomas Aloysius Dorgan, a gifted cartoonist who took to drawing as therapy after losing all but the thumb on his right hand.  He was also a gifted wordsmith who is credited with inventing many American slang expressions still in use today. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1996/06/20/the-man-who-cooked-up-the-hot-dog/77d896db-c25d-4f9d-b233-2db3da93e62e/

This collection contains precious few of his fine cartoons and is mostly rough hand lettered puns (some of them funny, some excruciatingly laboured) ending in what we might call catch phrases if he were a TV personality or a standup comic. Like the Panther I was very taken with "Quick, Watson, the needle!" when I saw it on the cover.  I rather tired of it after seeing it on almost every page, but I guess that's what catch phrases are like. I particularly enjoyed the stick man shorts wherein the protagonist works a long and exhausting day before departing, saying cheerfully, "Nothing to do till tomorrow!" I don't know why, it just struck a chord with me.

Anyhow, weird as it might be, I still found it entertaining, glad you drew my attention to it.

Two down, one to go...
All the best
K1ngcat

Thanks for the link to the article on Dorgan.  I never knew about him before, as a prolific newspaper cartoonist, and the coiner of popular American slang phrases and nomenclature.  I thought those slang phrases and terms were so old that it would be impossible to trace the first person to coin and use them.  The article misspelled the name of the famous sports journalist, Ring Lardner (as "Lander"). 

I wonder if the great length of the first "hot dogs" reminded Dorgan of a dachshund? - thus "Dog"?  I'm convinced that eating dog meat in North America was unthinkable (other than accusing Chinese immigrants of doing that.  So, why were the Coney Island concession holders afraid people would think they were using dog meat?  With that high concentration of population in New York, there must have been a lot of stray dogs around.

[Robb_K]

The Yellow Kid
I really enjoyed looking over blown-up images of that small book's pages.  After having seen only photocopies of a few of the newspaper pages in mostly just black and white, I really liked these full-colour pages.  I really like Outcault's expressive characters.  He really captured the feel of the back streets of poor, New York tenement neighbourhoods during the 1890s.  I like the way he snuck in political messages, in among all the bustle, so that it doesn't "jump out at the reader.  He is a big help in chronicling the life of the poor masses during those times.  I wonder if later comic strip artists, such as Jimmy Hatlo, George McManus, and their like were inspired, or, at least, subconsciously influenced by Outcault's work?

It seems to me that we were taught in school, that The Yellow Kid's brash form of shouting out political stances in front of the American Public that were touchy subjects for the wealthy industrialists causing the poor classes misery was branded Sensationalism; and that, in turn, spawned the term, "Yellow Journalism".

[Robb_K]

Daffydils  - by T. A. (Tad) Dorgan
I have several Cupples and Leon books in my collection, as I love the comic strip inking styles of the 1910s-1930s.  But, I don't care all that much about having access to this one, as it only has a few pages with that style of cartoons.  The rest of the book is filled with corny text jokes (which were probably already 50 years old when this book was published), and simple stick figure cartoons with accompanying text jokes, which are also unfunny. 

However, I beg to differ with Crash's statement that having read only this book by Dorgan, one couldn't tell that he was a talented artist and cartoonist.  Just looking at the inking on his dapper Dogs tells me otherwise.  I'm rather surprised that that esteemed publisher took on this book, but I'm guessing that they had already published a few of his other books, filled with standard cartoon illustrations.

It was interesting to see on the very first inner page, that Baseball, must have, indeed, been "The National Pastime" of USA during those times "as advertised".  There was a reference to a major league professional baseball player in a quip (pun) attributed to a secretary leaving that as the note to her former employer upon having run away from her job in midday (never to return)!  Almost no one today would have ever heard of that player, but he was well-known between 1900 and 1915 or so.  And his surname was needed for that pun.

I wonder how sales of this book fared against those of his others?  The stories and jokes make no sense to me, and seem to be just parts of "inside jokes" to himself, with much of the stories and jokes left inside his head, and never got to the paper in this book.

If the illustrations were fully drawn out, traditional style cartoons, as opposed to just text or stick figures, I might enjoy this book.  But with corny, centuries old jokes (if one could even call them that) and only stick figures, there is nothing to enjoy.

[Quirky Quokka]

The Yellow Kid

Must have been an X-Ray craze in 1896 New York with all the references to them in the ads. I like when you can tell little things about a time period by examining art. Like the gold standard/silver standard debate in the United States, which I vaguely remember learning about in school. All the political editions of The Yellow Kid are full of gold and silver references.

Hi EHowie60 - I looked it up and Xrays were just invented the year before, so it was still very current and they were still working out how dangerous they were and what to do about them. Maybe that's why they're advertising an anti-Xray corset. I also liked the fact that Xrays can apparently tell the future 

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

The Yellow Kid

Well this was an interesting one. As others have said, it's hard to read some of the print without zooming in and out, so I mainly looked at the pictures and read bits and pieces along the way. So much to look at and read.

Took me a while to realise this was an American strip rather than British (I know, I'm a bit slow). I guess I was thinking of the depictions of life in the British slums we'd seen in one of the selections last year: Phil May's Gutter-Snipes from Week #283

https://comicbookplus.com/?dlid=82657

But with all of the different references, I eventually worked out where we were. Interesting to see some early political comments, like references to McKinley, suffrage, political conventions and rallies, election night. I'm sure I missed a lot of the references, such as the gold/silver references EHowie60 noted. I wonder if they were able to 'get away' with some comments because they were buried or at least a little camouflaged in some of the cartoons?

The few ethnic characters were drawn stereotypically, as you would expect from the times. Interesting to see the African-American lad holding a sign that read 'Down Wit Ingland', 'Down Wit Spane'. I'm not familiar with the political context of that era enough to know which particular 'War Scare' they're talking about in 1896, but I imagine a lot of the text with the comics in general would have been controversial at the time.

EHowie60 mentioned the prevalence of Xray comments. I looked it up and saw that the Xray was invented in 1895, so still very current for this strip. They can even tell the future! I loved all the little advertising bits in some of the signage around the illustrations, including the anti-Xray corset, which would have come in handy against all that radiation.

Looks like the folks of Hogan's Alley knew how to kick up their heels, in spite of their poor circumstances. Lots of sporting contests and celebrations of one sort or another, though I could have done without the cock fights. So many interesting characters to look at in the pictures.

I did wonder why the Yellow Kid was drawn that way, almost a little creepy, but our friends at Wikipedia say that the shaved head was common in poor areas to rid children of lice and that the yellow nightshirt may have been a hand-me-known from a sister. The writing on the shirt was an attempt to lampoon advertising billboards. I was also interested to read that the term 'yellow journalism' derived from 'yellow kid journalism', and described the type of journalism in which sensationalism and profits took priority. And I was interested that one of the papers it appeared in was owned by William Randolph Hearst Sr. What would Rupert Murdoch say today?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Yellow_Kid

All in all, a very interesting snapshot of the times. This Aussie missed a lot of the references, but I can see it would have been very relevant to Americans at the time (though those being lampooned probably wouldn't have been fans).

Thanks for finding these on the site, SuperScrounge. A rare treasure.

Cheers

QQ

[Morgus]

Hey, Q.Q.; talking of x rays and our changing viewpoint of them, did you guys have those x-ray foot machines in front of shoe stores? We did.

You stuck your foot through a hole at the bottom you could see your feet bones wiggle around on a peep show screen viewer.
You’d go back and forth. Get the other kids to do theirs.
Have them watch yours. Hours and hours of fun.
No lead shields. No nuthen’. Housed in nice respectable wooden panel boxes. Just like daddy’s cabinet stereo. And you were talking about collective delusion only in terms of the Cuban Missle Crisis.  I now imagine a blue light sabre ray pouring straight out of the thing search beam style. Someone told me there was another model that you put your foot into from the top, which allowed you to see your foot from the front, pretty much like the beginning of Monty Python with that big foot. Imagine the light sabre beam coming out of that.
Guess the ray would go straight up the leg, come to think of it.
There were also a lot of movies by the 30’s going with ‘cosmic rays’ that would give us lots of power for energy or travel. Where was Gyro Gearloose when we needed him?

[SuperScrounge]

'Down Wit Spane'. I'm not familiar with the political context of that era enough to know which particular 'War Scare' they're talking about in 1896,

Probably part of the problems that led to the Spanish-American War two years later.

I looked it up and saw that the Xray was invented in 1895, so still very current for this strip. They can even tell the future!

They can see through time. 

I did wonder why the Yellow Kid was drawn that way, almost a little creepy, but our friends at Wikipedia say that the shaved head was common in poor areas to rid children of lice

Yeah, if you see pictures from the 1890s you can see little bald kids running around in nightshirts. So Mickey Dugan (the Yellow Kid) was a common look for the time that readers of the paper would have understood.

By the way, Mickey has a sister named Kitty that can be recognized by a hat with a very wide brim that also has changing words and images on it.

I was also interested to read that the term 'yellow journalism' derived from 'yellow kid journalism', and described the type of journalism in which sensationalism and profits took priority.

Also when Outcault switched papers and took the kids from Hogan's Alley to MacFadden's Flats the original paper hired another artist to continue their version of the Yellow Kid, so there were two Yellow Kids in two competing papers which I think was another reason for the term 'Yellow Journalism".

[Quirky Quokka]

Hey, Q.Q.; talking of x rays and our changing viewpoint of them, did you guys have those x-ray foot machines in front of shoe stores? We did.

You stuck your foot through a hole at the bottom you could see your feet bones wiggle around on a peep show screen viewer.
You’d go back and forth. Get the other kids to do theirs.
Have them watch yours. Hours and hours of fun.
No lead shields. No nuthen’. Housed in nice respectable wooden panel boxes. Just like daddy’s cabinet stereo. And you were talking about collective delusion only in terms of the Cuban Missle Crisis.  I now imagine a blue light sabre ray pouring straight out of the thing search beam style. Someone told me there was another model that you put your foot into from the top, which allowed you to see your foot from the front, pretty much like the beginning of Monty Python with that big foot. Imagine the light sabre beam coming out of that.
Guess the ray would go straight up the leg, come to think of it.
There were also a lot of movies by the 30’s going with ‘cosmic rays’ that would give us lots of power for energy or travel. Where was Gyro Gearloose when we needed him?

Morgus, that's hilarious. I don't think we ever had such Xray contraptions outside our shoe stores, or at least not in my memory. I hope you were wearing your Xray corset at the time  Though there is a shoe store here called 'The Athlete's Foot' that has something called 'MyFit3D'. You walk on a little area and it takes an image of your foot so they can see where you're pressing down when you walk. Maybe I should have been wearing my Xray corset all this time 

https://www.theathletesfoot.com.au/myfit-3d

Cheers

QQ

[Quirky Quokka]

'Down Wit Spane'. I'm not familiar with the political context of that era enough to know which particular 'War Scare' they're talking about in 1896,

Probably part of the problems that led to the Spanish-American War two years later.

I looked it up and saw that the Xray was invented in 1895, so still very current for this strip. They can even tell the future!

They can see through time. 

I did wonder why the Yellow Kid was drawn that way, almost a little creepy, but our friends at Wikipedia say that the shaved head was common in poor areas to rid children of lice

Yeah, if you see pictures from the 1890s you can see little bald kids running around in nightshirts. So Mickey Dugan (the Yellow Kid) was a common look for the time that readers of the paper would have understood.

By the way, Mickey has a sister named Kitty that can be recognized by a hat with a very wide brim that also has changing words and images on it.

I was also interested to read that the term 'yellow journalism' derived from 'yellow kid journalism', and described the type of journalism in which sensationalism and profits took priority.

Also when Outcault switched papers and took the kids from Hogan's Alley to MacFadden's Flats the original paper hired another artist to continue their version of the Yellow Kid, so there were two Yellow Kids in two competing papers which I think was another reason for the term 'Yellow Journalism".

Thanks for the extra info, SuperScrounge. Should I admit that I've never heard of the Spanish-American war?   During my schooldays in Australia, we mainly learned British history and most of my knowledge of the US comes from the plethora of American TV shows and my own trips. So if it wasn't on TV and I didn't pass the monument, I don't know about it 

Cheers

QQ

[The Australian Panther]

QQ said,

Should I admit that I've never heard of the Spanish-American war?

I doubt that there are many Americans in the current generations who have ever even heard of the Spanish/American war, let alone Australians.

We have mentioned 'teddy' Roosevelt in this forum before, so here is Teddy and his role in the Spanish American War. 

Theodore Roosevelt - and the Spanish American War
http://www.history-of-american-wars.com/Theodore-Roosevelt-and-the-Spanish-American-War.html

Yellow Journalism?

  Propaganda and the media

Before the sinking of the USS Maine, one American media correspondent stationed in Cuba was quoted as saying that the American people were being greatly deceived by reporters sent to cover the revolution. According to him an overwhelming majority of the stories were obtained through third hand information often relayed by their Cuban interpreters and informants. These people were often sympathetic to the revolution and would distort the facts to shed a positive light on the revolution. Routinely small skirmishes would become large battles. Cuban oppression was depicted through inhumane treatment, torture, rape, and mass pillaging by the Spanish forces. These stories revealed heaps of dead men, women, and children left on the side of the road. Correspondents rarely bothered to confirm facts; they simply passed the stories on to their editors in the states, where they would be put into publication after further editing and misrepresentation. This type of journalism became known as yellow journalism. Yellow journalism swept the nation and its propaganda helped to precipitate military action by the United States. The United States sent troops to Cuba as well as several other Spanish colonies throughout the world.

The two newspaper owners credited with developing the journalistic style of yellow journalism were William Randolph Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer. These two were fighting a circulation battle in New York City. Pulitzer owned the New York World, and Hearst the New York Journal. Through their disregard for responsible journalism, the two men are commonly credited with leading the USA into the Spanish–American War. Their stories swayed US public opinion to believe that the Cuban people were being unjustly persecuted by the Spanish, and that the only way for them to gain their independence was through American intervention. Hearst and Pulitzer made their stories credible by self-assertion and providing false names, dates, and locations of skirmishes and atrocities committed by the Spanish. Papers also claimed that their facts could be substantiated by the government.

American propaganda of the Spanish–American War
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_propaganda_of_the_Spanish–American_War

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PulitzerHearstWarYellowKids.jpg
File:PulitzerHearstWarYellowKids.jpg

Editorial cartoon by Leon Barritt, 1898. Newspaper publishers Joseph Pulitzer and William Randolph Hearst, full-length, dressed as the Yellow Kid (a popular cartoon character of the day), each pushing against opposite sides of a pillar of wooden blocks that spells WAR. This is a satire of the Pulitzer and Hearst newspapers' role in drumming up USA public opinion to go to war with Spain.   

I would attach the image, but I always have trouble with that.

So, that's where it comes from.

So, one could argue that the media hasn't changed much.
Not cheers.