Art Collection: Two "Judge Rummy's Court" Comic Strip Drawings By "Tad" Dorgan, Circa 1919

(Click either for bigger.)

It's a Tad twofer! I'm not sure of the date on either of these, but the song quoted in the one shown above was copyrighted in 1919, and that's pretty much what I would have guessed. The Judge Rummy comic strips didn't really change much from 1915 until Tad got bored with them in the mid 1920s, so they're hard to date on style.

Both of these are... esoteric. I don't really "get" either of them. The gag in the one above seems to be that the defendant would rather go to jail for a short spell than back to his wife. Har har. The one below just seems to be about the cop not making any sense:

Love the drawings in both of these. Tad was so good at facial expressions and body language. And speaking of body language, both of these end with "plops." Fun! I do suspect that Tad invented the "plop" in the final panel, still so beloved of cartoonists to this day.

Note again that both of these have titles: "He Didn't Want a Comeback" for the top one, and "That Made it Harder" for the second one. The series never really had a consistent title in all papers.

Next in the art collection: a superb but somewhat battered "Nancy" from 1953!