Comics: JoJo Shares His Treasures

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 2 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about print cartoonists.


Every year at Comic-Con, Assistant Archivist JoJo Baptista busts his bankroll on old moldy newsprint. He's generously offered to share his treasures with all of us. Thanks, JoJo!


As I always say... if you're one of those folks who don't click on the images because you don't think it's worth the time it takes to read... YOU DON'T KNOW WHAT YOU'RE MISSING!

First off, here are some of the backsides of his Comic-Con hoarde...







And here's the GOOD STUFF... choice Cliff Sterrett Polly and her Pals Sundays...



There's an easter egg in this one... do a google image search for the name hidden in this comic and see what Sterrett was looking at when he created this strip!

And here's some prime Milt Gross...





GREAT NEWS! Marc Deckter just stopped by with a huge pile of Milt Gross and Cliff Sterrett Sunday pages and rare daily strips. Hooray for Marc and JoJo!

For more Milt Gross cartoon goodness, see... The Milt Gross Challenge, Milt Gross Sunday Pages and Dailies Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six and Part Seven. Also see... Milt Gross' Cartoon Tour Of New York

Check these out as well... Chic Young's Blondie, Rube Goldberg's Side Show; George Lichty's Grin and Bear It, Cliff Sterrett's Polly & Her Pals Part One, Part Two and Part Three; and Harrison Cady's Birds' Eye Views

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
.

Stumble It!

Comics: Cliff Sterrett's Polly And Her Pals Part Three

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 2 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about print cartoonists.



Cliff Sterrett is one of the most underrated newspaper cartoonists of all time. His strip, Polly & her Pals combined the surrealism of Herriman's Krazy Kat and the domestic comedy of George McManus' Bringing Up Father. To see our earlier posts on this subject, see... Cliff Sterrett's Polly & Her Pals Part One and Part Two.



Many thanks to Kent Butterworth for sharing these rare original comics pages with us.


September 20th, 1936


September 27th, 1936


October 25th, 1936


November 1st, 1936


November 8th, 1936


November 29th, 1936


December 6th, 1936


December 20th, 1936


December 27th, 1936
For more examples of Cliff Sterrett's genius, see Polly & Her Pals Part One and Part Two. Also see... Milt Gross Sunday Pages Part One, Part Two and Part Three; and Rube Goldberg's Side Show.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Comics: Cliff Sterrett's Polly And Her Pals Part Two

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 2 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about print cartoonists.



It's been a while since we featured the work of Cliff Sterrett and his strip, Polly & her Pals. To see our first post on this subject, see... Cliff Sterrett's Polly & Her Pals 1936. Many thanks to Kent Butterworth for sharing these rare original comics pages with us.


February 23, 1936


March 29, 1936


April 5, 1936


June 7, 1936


June 28, 1936


July 5, 1936


August 2, 1936


September 13, 1936

For more examples of Cliff Sterrett's genius, see Polly & Her Pals Part One.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

Stumble It!

Media: Cliff Sterrett's Polly And Her Pals 1936

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 2 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great posts about print cartoonists.


Al Capp once described Cliff Sterrett as "the finest cartoonist of them all". Yet most people have never heard of him or his strip, Polly And Her Pals.

Sterrett debuted the Polly strip in 1912. Initially, it focused on a pretty girl, but as the strip developed, Sterrett turned his attention to Polly's family- specifically, her father, known as "Paw" and her mother, referred to as "Maw". Other characters filled out the cast- Neewah, the family's houseboy; Ashur, the dimwitted nephew; and Carrie, Paw's sister in law. Shadowing Paw through the panels is Kitty, the cat.


Richard Marschall produced a pair of books documenting the Polly And Her Pals Sunday pages from 1926 to 1929. This was the prime era of the strip, with Picasso-esque cubist backgrounds and surreal gags. If you see these books for sale, grab them. By the mid-1930s, Sterrett was afflicted with arthritis, and had turned over a lot of the responsibility for the strip to his assistant, Paul Fung. Sterrett let Fung create the dailies without much input, but he supervised the Sunday pages personally, with Fung simply providing the background detail repeated from panel to panel.

Kent Butterworth brought in a stack of original Sunday pages from 1936 for us to digitize. This era of Polly And Her Pals has never been reprinted, so these delicate originals are particularly important. These oversize sheets are twice as large as the platen on our scanner, so we have to scan them in two passes and splice them together in Photoshop. With the high resolutions we're scanning art at, it takes over an hour to digitize each Sunday page. But I think you'll agree that it's well worth it.

Many thanks to Kent Butterworth for providing these great newspaper comics to us... Another example of wonderful artwork you won't see anywhere else.


January 5, 1936


January 12, 1936


February 2, 1936


February 16, 1936


February 23, 1936


March 29, 1936


April 5, 1936


June 7, 1936


June 28, 1936


July 5, 1936


August 2, 1936


September 13, 1936


September 20th, 1936


September 27th, 1936


October 25th, 1936


November 1st, 1936


November 8th, 1936


November 29th, 1936


December 6th, 1936


December 20th, 1936


December 27th, 1936

For another example of Cliff Sterrett's genius, see Michael Sporn's Splog.

For more great newspaper cartoons, see... Milt Gross Sunday Pages and Dailies Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six and Part Seven; Chic Young's Blondie, Rube Goldberg's Side Show; George Lichty's Grin and Bear It; and Harrison Cady's Birds' Eye Views

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

7.9.08
.

Stumble It!