Cartoonist Kevin Huizenga recently credited the "distracted boyfriend" meme — you know the one: a young man turns around to admire a shapely young woman in the foreground who has just walked past him and his none-too-pleased girlfriend — to Frank King, who included just such a situation in his "The Rectangle" feature in the Chicago Tribune on Sunday, April 2, 1916.
Here's another, from 1921, by St. Joseph News-Press editorial cartoonist William Hanny:
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| "You Just Can't Help It, That's All" by William Hanny in St. Joseph (MO) News Press, Oct. 7, 1921 |
Now, granted, this cartoon comes five years after King's; but it's the sole focus of the cartoon, whereas King's distracted boyfriend is just one vignette among many. King drew a bird's-eye view of an entire neighborhood, taking up the top half of a page of a broadsheet newspaper, back when broadsheets were printed on broad sheets.
Furthermore, as the caption for Hanny's cartoon makes clear, distracted boyfriends were familiar and relatable enough. I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't some even older versions of this gag to be found.
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