A topper in comic strip parlance is a small secondary strip seen along with a larger Sunday strip. In the 1920s and 1930s, leading cartoonists were given full pages in the Sunday comics sections, allowing them to add smaller strips and single-panel cartoons to their page.
Toppers usually were drawn by the same artist as the larger strip. These strips usually were positioned at the top of the page (hence their name), but they sometimes ran beneath the main strip. [1]
Toppers were introduced by King Features Syndicate during the 1920s, enabling newspaper editors to claim more comic strips without adding more pages. The practice allowed newspapers to drop the topper and place another strip or an additional advertisement into the Sunday comics section. They also made it possible to reformat a strip from full-page size to tabloid size. [1]
In 1904, Frederick Opper drew his And Her Name Was Maud , about the kicking mule Maud, into comic strips, books and animation, but on May 23, 1926, Opper positioned And Her Name Was Maud as the topper to his Happy Hooligan , and it ran along with Happy Hooligan until both strips came to a conclusion on October 14, 1932. On May 16, 1926, Harold Knerr began Dinglehoofer und His Dog , a topper to The Katzenjammer Kids , which ran until two years after his death. By 1936, to avoid any association with Hitler, the dog's name was changed from Adolph to Schnappsy (a.k.a. Schnapps). [1] Knerr's strip was reformatted for reprints in Magic Comics in the early 1940s.
Billy DeBeck's topper for Barney Google was Parlor Bedroom and Sink, which evolved into Parlor Bedroom and Sink Starring Bunky and eventually was titled simply Bunky. In the mid-1930s, DeBeck added alongside Bunky a single-panel topper, Knee-Hi-Knoodles, depictions of kids' funny remarks (contributed by readers). Bunky spawned the catchphrase, "Youse is a viper, Fagin." A big fan of Bunky was pulp author Robert E. Howard, who liked to quote from the strip, as noted by his friend Tevis Clyde Smith:
His affection for Bunker Hill –"Youse is a viper, Fagin." Kept up with the strip, and retold it in a charming way. Liked to talk Brooklynese, and once entered a local dry goods store, and asked to see a shoitel. [2] [3]
Characters in toppers sometimes turned up in the main strip, such as Herby appearing in Smitty , and Kitty Higgins joining the cast of Moon Mullins . In a few cases, the topper introduced characters later developed into a successful Sunday page, as happened when Krazy Kat became a spin-off from The Family Upstairs and Roy Crane's Wash Tubbs appeared over J. R. Williams' Out Our Way with the Willets Sunday strip. The Wash Tubbs Sunday strip ran in that format from 1927 until 1933, when Crane launched Captain Easy as a Sunday page (featuring Wash Tubbs as a secondary character).
Gene Ahern's topper The Squirrel Cage, which ran above his Room and Board , is notable because of the repetitive use of the nonsensical question, '"Nov shmoz ka pop?", which was never translated yet became a national catchphrase. As a consequence, The Squirrel Cage is today better remembered than Room and Board, despite its 17-year run.
On at least one occasion, a character exited the topper and dropped down into the main strip. This happened on April 17, 1938, when an absent-minded character in the Rosie's Beau topper realized he was in the wrong place and climbed down into the first panel of Bringing Up Father , arriving in the living room of Maggie and Jiggs. [4] During the 1940s, Snookums ran as the topper above Bringing Up Father. In the final episode of HBO's The Pacific (2010), Robert Leckie (James Badge Dale) is seen reading Snookums.
During its long run, Pete the Tramp had several topper strips, as detailed by comic strip historian Allan Holtz:
C. D. Russell's wonderful Pete the Tramp went through a trio of topper strips on its Sunday pages. The first, Pete's Pup, was a dog strip, sort of a canine counterpart to the Mutt and Jeff topper, Cicero's Cat. The next was The Topper Twins, my favorite because the name is an in-joke to the industry term "topper". For some reason, Russell alternatively called this strip The Tucker Twins. The last topper was Snorky... It started in 1935 and is believed to have run as late as 1939. Getting an end date on these later toppers can be a Herculean task, because fewer and fewer papers printed the toppers as the decade of the 1930s wore on. In fact, I have no examples of Snorky later than 1937 in my collection; the 1939 date is based on the strip's listing in the Editor & Publisher yearbooks. [5]
In half-page format comics, toppers at times appeared at the bottom; if removed, the remaining comic fit in a third page. Some toppers consisted of only a single panel, an example being those that accompanied Joe Palooka in the mid-1940s. Holtz notes:
It is a popular assumption in newspaper strip fan circles that World War II is what killed the toppers. I'll grant you that it was the coup de grace, but toppers were on the wane well before then. 1935 seems to be the last year when toppers are truly ubiquitous, and thereafter many papers started dropping them in favor of half-page versions of the A-list strips. Toppers become decidedly rare as of about 1940, though many cartoonists kept producing them long thereafter. Some later toppers are so rare as to make one wonder if they ever actually ran in any newspaper—the only evidence I've found of some is on original art. [5]
And further:
You'll hear historians say that the topper strip was a victim of World War II paper shortages. Don't believe a word of it—it's the ads that killed full-page strips, and that killed the topper. World War II only exacerbated an already bad situation. [6]
Some strips continued to supply toppers into the 1960s, and in a few cases even the 1970s. [7] Maw Green in Little Orphan Annie was the last Sunday strip topper, except for the brief use of the topper parodies Sawdust and The Invisible Tribe in Dick Tracy . [1] Many newspapers in the late 1980s ran Jim Davis' U.S. Acres alongside Davis' own Garfield (also the most popular comic at the time). However, both were stand-alone strips and sold separately (also, unlike most toppers, U.S. Acres also had a daily strip until very late in its run).
Some underground and alternative comic artists have used toppers in their work, though not in the context of a Sunday strip. The strip Fat Freddy's Cat appeared as a topper in the underground comic book The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers . Tony Millionaire's weekly comic strip Maakies is perhaps the only contemporary syndicated strip to run a topper (which appears at the bottom of the main strip and lacks a consistent title). Toppers have also been used in some comics by Chris Ware and Daniel Clowes to mimic the format of a Sunday comics page. A variant of the topper, "throwaway" panels containing a "throwaway gag" (inessential to the thrust of the strip) remain common as of 2010 [update] , and allow different formats depending on available space.
Joe Palooka was an American comic strip about a heavyweight boxing champion, created by cartoonist Ham Fisher. The strip debuted on April 19, 1930 and was carried at its peak by 900 newspapers. It was cancelled in 1984.
Bringing Up Father is an American comic strip created by cartoonist George McManus. Distributed by King Features Syndicate, it ran for 87 years, from January 2, 1913, to May 28, 2000.
Wash Tubbs is an American daily comic strip created by Roy Crane that ran from April 14, 1924 to 1949, when it merged into Crane's related Sunday page, Captain Easy. Crane left both strips in 1943 to begin Buz Sawyer, but a series of assistants, beginning with Leslie Turner, kept the combined Captain Easy daily and Sunday strips going until October 1, 1988.
Captain Easy, Soldier of Fortune is an American action/adventure comic strip created by Roy Crane that was syndicated by Newspaper Enterprise Association beginning on Sunday, July 30, 1933. The strip ran for more than five decades until it was discontinued on October 1, 1988.
The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary news service to the Scripps Howard News Service; it later evolved into a general syndicate best known for syndicating the comic strips Alley Oop, Our Boarding House, Freckles and His Friends, The Born Loser, Frank and Ernest, and Captain Easy / Wash Tubbs; in addition to an annual Christmas comic strip. Along with United Feature Syndicate, the NEA was part of United Media from 1978 to 2011, and is now a division of Andrews McMeel Syndication. The NEA once selected college All-America teams, and presented awards in professional football and professional [NBA] basketball.
The Sunday comics or Sunday strip is the comic strip section carried in most western newspapers. Compared to weekday comics, Sunday comics tend to be full pages and are in color. Many newspaper readers called this section the Sunday funnies, the funny papers or simply the funnies.
Mickey Finn was an American comic strip created by cartoonist Lank Leonard, which was syndicated to newspapers from April 6, 1936 to September 10, 1977. The successful lighthearted strip struck a balance between comedy and drama. It was adapted to a 400-page Little Big Book and was reprinted in several comic book series throughout the 1930s and 1940s.
Dan Dunn is a fictional detective created by Norman W. Marsh. He first appeared in Detective Dan: Secret Operative No. 48, a proto-comic book from 1933, produced by Humor Publishing. He subsequently appeared in newspaper comic strips from 1933 to 1943.
Little Jimmy, originally titled Jimmy, is a newspaper comic strip created by Jimmy Swinnerton. With a publication history from February 14, 1904, to April 27, 1958, it was one of the first continuing features and one of the longest running.
Tillie the Toiler is a newspaper comic strip created by cartoonist Russ Westover who initially worked on his concept of a flapper character in a strip he titled Rose of the Office. With a title change, it sold to King Features Syndicate which carried the strip from January 3, 1921, to March 15, 1959.
Toots and Casper is a family comic strip by Jimmy Murphy, distributed to newspapers for 37 years by King Features Syndicate, from December 17, 1918 to December 30, 1956. The strip spawned many merchandising tie-ins, including books, dolls, paper dolls, pins, bisque nodders and comic books.
Polly and Her Pals is an American comic strip, created by cartoonist Cliff Sterrett, which ran from December 4, 1912, until December 7, 1958. It is regarded as one of the most graphically innovative strips of the 20th century. It debuted as Positive Polly on December 4, 1912, in William Randolph Hearst's newspapers, initially the New York Journal, and was later distributed by King Features Syndicate. The title changed to Polly and Her Pals on January 17, 1913.
Freckles and his Friends is an American comic strip set in the peaceful small town of Shadyside where young Freckles McGoosey and his friends lived. Although the long-running strip, created by Merrill Blosser, is remembered for its continuing storyline involving a group of teenagers, it originally featured a child at the age of six or seven in gag-a-day situations.
The McNaught Syndicate was an American newspaper syndicate founded in 1922. It was established by Virgil Venice McNitt and Charles V. McAdam. Its best known contents were the columns by Will Rogers and O. O. McIntyre, the Dear Abby letters section and comic strips, including Joe Palooka and Heathcliff. It folded in September 1989.
Out Our Way was an American single-panel comic strip series by Canadian-American comic strip artist J. R. Williams. Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Association, the cartoon series was noted for its depiction of American rural life and the various activities and regular routines of families in small towns. The panel introduced a cast of continuing characters, including the cowboy Curly and ranch bookkeeper Wes. Out Our Way ran from 1922 to 1977, at its peak appearing in more than 700 newspapers.
Pete the Tramp is an American comic strip by Clarence D. Russell (1895–1963) which was distributed by King Features Syndicate for more than three decades, from January 10, 1932 to December 22, 1963. Howard Eugene Wilson, in the Harvard Educational Review, described the strip's title character as "a hobo with a gentleman's instincts."
Alvah Posen was an American cartoonist on several comic strips, but he is best known for his 1933-1960 comic strip Sweeney & Son and as co-producer of the now-lost Marx Brothers film, Humor Risk (1921).
The Register and Tribune Syndicate was a syndication service based in Des Moines, Iowa, that operated from 1922 to 1986, when it was acquired by King Features to become the Cowles Syndicate affiliate. At its peak, the Register and Tribune Syndicate offered newspapers some 60 to 75 features, including editorial cartoonist Herblock, comic strips, and commentaries by David Horowitz, Stanley Karnow, and others.
Charles H. Winner, better known as Doc Winner, was an American cartoonist, notable for his comic strips Tubby and Elmer, plus his contributions to Thimble Theatre, Barney Google and other King Features strips.
Horace T. Elmo was an American comic strip cartoonist particularly active in the 1930s and 1940s; he also ran a comic strip syndication service whose main claim to fame was that it employed Jack Kirby in the late 1930s.
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