Our wonderful companions from yesteryear

This year the comic strip Mutt and Jeff celebrates its 100th birthday. It was the very first to be featured in a daily newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle in 1907. At first it featured only Mr. Mutt, a tall hapless racetrack habitual and his hard luck stories. Later a companion was introduced; a short, whiskered, top-hatted man, Jeff. It was whispered they had met at an insane asylum.

Mutt and Jeff

The creator of Mutt & Jeff, Bud Fisher was born in Chicago in 1884. He was very much involved in horse racing and unlike his ill-fated characters, was a success at the game. At one time he owned over 50 race horses. He died in New York in 1954.

Blondie

Cartoons figured prominently in the fierce newspaper circulation wars of the 1890's. Then they appeared only on Sunday supplements. The only newspaper that had no cartoon strips was the New York Times. I wonder whether it's still the same.

The mighty media baron William Randolph Hearst published the first cartoon only in a section of his Journal, billing it as "Eight pages of polychromatic effulgence that makes the rainbow look like a lead pipe".

For those of us who grew up with these cartoon characters the memories are indelible--Jiggs with his corned beef and cabbages; Maggie and her poodle, the spinach eating sailor Popeye; Blondie and Dagwood; the adventures of Superman and Flash Gordon and the antics of that Cockney Andy Capp were among some of the flamboyant company we grew up with.

By Asoka Weerakoon, Kandy