I've just returned from a week away from home visiting family, so the last several posts here were written in the weeks before I left, and set to publish automatically in my absence.
That includes Monday's "Sneak Peek" in which I made reference to the single-panel newspaper comic "Our Boarding House with Major Hoople." Unbeknownst to me, last weekend happened to be the centennial of the very first publication of "Our Boarding House." (Major Hoople didn't make his appearance in the panel, originated by Gene Ahern, until January, 1922.)
D.D. Degg's post marking the centennial includes several examples of the comic; I had forgotten that there was a Sunday color comic version. I think I had been surprised to see it somewhere during a family vacation out west in 1973.
Most of the characters are easily recognizable even as the comic was passed down from Gene Ahern through a series of younger artists. But I got to wondering how Ahern — or his successors — accomplished the Major's transition from his original appearance...
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| "Our Boarding House" by Gene Ahern, ca. 1922 |
...to the Major I used to know, whose mouth always appeared to be sewn shut.
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| "Our Boarding House" by Jim Branagen & Tom McCormick, February 5, 1971 |
Was it sudden, when Hearst hired Ahern away in 1936, or was it more gradual?
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