Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Surprising 100-Year-Old Drag Queen-Themed Comic Strip By "TAD" Dorgan

(Click for bigger.)

Here's another instant favorite from my stack of over 800 Hearst-brand "TAD" comics clipped from the Memphis News Scimitar: a "Silk Hat Harry's Divorce Suit" from just a few months shy of 100 years ago. Did you know that female impersonators were called "female impersonators" in 1913? Well, now you do.

I'm having a lot of fun scanning and reading all these old comic strips. I've already gotten through all 577 "Indoor Sports" panels, and now I've moved on to the somewhat less rewarding "Silk Hat Harry" (later titled, depending on the paper, "Judge Rummy", "Judge Rummy's Court", or "Old Judge Rumhauser") strips. Tad's philandering dogs make for fun, classic "plop gag" strips, but the slice-of-life "Indoor Sports" panels with their detailed realism and penetrating look at urban manners are much more accomplished and seem more "modern."

More to come!

4 comments:

Civic Center said...

Gosh, it's The Crying Game condensed into six panels. What do you think "SOME SWIM THAT?" means?

Peteykins said...

I believe "Some swim that" means "that was a good practice session."

Anonymous said...

I was going to ask the same thing as Michael. The joke is kind of ruined if you can't understand the words.
-tasha

samael7 said...

Definitely more gag-oriented, but I love it. And I'd swear that "Jerry Ox" looks like some pictures I've seen of Julian Eltinge.