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Fun but morbid Buster Brown with a hanging gag which would never see the light of day if thought up in current times. Buster also catches heck, is spanked and tied up in this one. There is so much wrong here but was in keeping with social norms at the time it was printed.
Buster Brown was a comic strip created by Richard F. Outcault in 1902 and it ran for almost 20 years. It featured a young boy who dressed in Victorian garb and was always getting in trouble for his tricks and mischievousness. There were frequent spankings with hands, brushes and other items. They often ended with a text panel and a bit of lesson. I found many of these panels quite enlightened and insightful for the era in which they were created in.
Until recently, these Sundays were quite scarce and they continue to be rare but the estate has been releasing them for the past few years so they are starting to find their way into more collections. I have only ever seen two of these in person prior to the ones you see here. I have yet to see these too as they are on the way still.
A bit more history
Richard F. Outcault was a pioneer in early comics. Although not the absolute first comic strip he was the first to popularize sequential art and his Yellow Kid feature was a huge financial success prompting newspapers to start to include more comic strips. Yellow Kid began in 1894 and Outcault was frustrated as the marketing and merchandising of his character was very profitable but he saw little of this. In 1902 he created Buster Brown and it was an immediate hit out performing Yellow Kid. By 1904 he was merchandising clothing and toys including the Buster Brown shoes. It is reported that in 1904 he was making $75,000 per year from the merchandising. That is somewhere between $2 and $15 million dollars per year in 2020 dollars depending on how you analyze it. When he took the strip away from the Herald where he created it to a Hearst paper, he sued to get the Herald to stop publishing the strip with different artists. This is considered among the first court case for creator rights like this. He lost in that the Herald was granted the rights to the title Buster Brown but not the character likeness. So, Outcault continued to create the series but stopped using the title. Outcault started his professional career painting advertisements for Edison light bulbs but went on to huge success in newspaper comics. He retired in 1921 and continued to paint for the remaining decade of his life.
Buster Brown was a comic strip created by Richard F. Outcault in 1902 and it ran for almost 20 years. It featured a young boy who dressed in Victorian garb and was always getting in trouble for his tricks and mischievousness. There were frequent spankings with hands, brushes and other items. They often ended with a text panel and a bit of lesson. I found many of these panels quite enlightened and insightful for the era in which they were created in.
Until recently, these Sundays were quite scarce and they continue to be rare but the estate has been releasing them for the past few years so they are starting to find their way into more collections. I have only ever seen two of these in person prior to the ones you see here. I have yet to see these too as they are on the way still.
A bit more history
Richard F. Outcault was a pioneer in early comics. Although not the absolute first comic strip he was the first to popularize sequential art and his Yellow Kid feature was a huge financial success prompting newspapers to start to include more comic strips. Yellow Kid began in 1894 and Outcault was frustrated as the marketing and merchandising of his character was very profitable but he saw little of this. In 1902 he created Buster Brown and it was an immediate hit out performing Yellow Kid. By 1904 he was merchandising clothing and toys including the Buster Brown shoes. It is reported that in 1904 he was making $75,000 per year from the merchandising. That is somewhere between $2 and $15 million dollars per year in 2020 dollars depending on how you analyze it. When he took the strip away from the Herald where he created it to a Hearst paper, he sued to get the Herald to stop publishing the strip with different artists. This is considered among the first court case for creator rights like this. He lost in that the Herald was granted the rights to the title Buster Brown but not the character likeness. So, Outcault continued to create the series but stopped using the title. Outcault started his professional career painting advertisements for Edison light bulbs but went on to huge success in newspaper comics. He retired in 1921 and continued to paint for the remaining decade of his life.
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A propos de Richard Felton Outcault
En 1894, Richard Felton Outcault est engagé par Joseph Pulitzer afin qu'il travaille dans son journal, le New York World. Il participe au supplément couleur où il développe la série Hogan's Alley à partir du (5 mai 1895). Il ne s'agit pas d'une bande dessinée mais d'une pleine page très chargée qui, chaque semaine, montre la vie d'un quartier imaginaire. Dans ce quartier apparaît, le 5 janvier 1896, un personnage chauve, vêtu d'une chemise de nuit jaune qui devient rapidement très populaire. En 1896, la publication, sous forme d'album souple, des planches parues dans le journal prendra le nom de The Yellow Kid in McFadden's Flat.
Débauché par William Randolph Hearst en 1897, Outcault continue sa série dans le New York Journal en la rebaptisant du nom de son personnage le plus populaire, The Yellow Kid. Pulitzer attaquera Hearst et embauche le dessinateur George B. Luks pour continuer la série dans le New York World : la ville aura donc deux Yellow Kid simultanés.
Pour les américains, Yellow Kid est la date de naissance de la bande dessinée.
Il passe en 1901 au New York Herald, appartenant à James Gordon Bennett junior, qui lui demande de faire un supplément de bandes dessinées, genre qui vient de naître. Ces histoires doivent mettre en scène un personnage présentable. Il commence à faire Pore Li'l Mose2, puis crée Buster Brown en 1902.
