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Christmas

Your Christmas Funnies: The Yellow Kid

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Last year, we thought we might present a gallery of comic strips from long ago, on the subject of Christmas, starting with the great Little Nemo, from Winsor McCay, who had just been heralded in the 12/28 New Yorker.

This is what we concluded:

Little Nemo was very racist! Especially the Christmas comic strip. Not maliciously racist, but condescendingly and affectionately racist. Maybe you know what we mean. So we thought, well, maybe we can just cut the racist images out of the strip. So we tried that, and the story didn’t make much sense anymore. And it could have created a cause celebre among McCay-fans, if that were ever noticed, our Bowdlerization of a classic old comic strip.

We considered running the strip with a disclaimer saying that we don’t approve of the racism, but please admire the artistry, which they do with Astro Boy reprints.

But Astro Boy isn’t as racist as Little Nemo, and this was really not in the Christmas spirit, running great art that happens to be condescendingly racist.

So we just published a Christmas strip from the Yellow Kid/ Hogan’s Alley, the first comic strip ever, and one of the most beautiful comics ever drawn.

Maybe out of laziness, maybe out of genuine admiration for The Yellow Kid (or maybe a little of both), we’re running it again.

So here it is. Enjoy, and Merry Christmas.

Near Dead

Your Sunday Funnies (Pandemic Edition): More “Yellow Kid”

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Richard F. Outcault‘s “The Yellow Kid,” from the 19th century, is truly a beautiful comic strip, and it was also the first comic strip, as we have noted before. Innovative, beautiful and even often funny. It also dealt with the threat of pandemics in New York city (in this case, yellow fever). Here is some more. Enjoy.

You may contribute to Comics Plus here.

Yellow Kid

Your Sunday Funnies: “The Yellow Kid,” pandemic comics from the 19th century

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More pandemic comics:

While not everyone seems to agree, some commentators now argue that Richard F. Outcault’s “the Yellow Kid,” whose strip originated in the 19th century, was a symbol of the “Yellow Fever”, which would make this not only the first comic strip in the world, but also the first comic strip to deal with the effects of a pandemic.

Whether or not this is true, it was a beautifully drawn depiction of 19th century urban life, focusing on a poor, close-knit community, certainly dark and poignant at times, as this example shows.

We will publish one “Yellow Kid” comic a week, till we run out, or till the pandemic is over.

You may contribute to Comics Plus here.