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Bottomed out? If only!…

Through good times and bad, comic strips have played a Greek chorus-like role in American life.  Inspired exceptions (Krazy Kat, Calvin and Hobbes) aside, the comics pages have given voice (or voice bubbles, anyway) to the dreams– and nightmares– that Americans share.

So lest one be carried away by the recent updraft on Wall Street, one might consult Cathy… …  and indeed, one might consider Comics Alliance‘s round-up of “15 Suicidally Depressing Newspaper Comic Strips.”

As we swallow our selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, we might recall that it was on this  date that the first “cartoon superstar,”  Felix the Cat, premiered in a daily strip (1923, in the Daily Sketch in England, though the panels were quickly picked up across North America).  Created by Otto Messmer (for producer Pat Sullivan), Felix had been a film star since 1919, and was in an estimated 60% of U.S. cinemas when he debuted in the funnies…  Appropriately perhaps, Felix was the first image ever broadcast on television by NBC, as RCA chose a papier-mâché Felix doll for its 1930 experiment via W2XBS New York in Van Cortlandt Park. Shot on a rotating phonograph turntable, the image was chosen less for its celebrity than for its tonal contrast and its ability to withstand the intensely-hot lighting necessary… source: TVHistory.com 




August 1, 2009 at 12:01 am


Tagged with 15 Suicidally Depressing Newspaper Comic Strips, Calvin and Hobbes, Cathy, Comic strip, Comics, Comics Alliance, Felix the Cat, Krazy Kat, NBC, Otto Messmer, Pat Sullivan

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