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A peculiar thing about US newspaper comic strips is that some American papers allocate different room for strips than others, so how a strip appears in one daily periodical may differ from another. Because of this, some strips are produced with an extra tier (padding, in effect) that often has no direct bearing to the rest of the strip and can therefore be omitted if lack of space requires it, without affecting the story or the punchline.
Strips featuring (but not confined to) HANNA- BARBERA characters were prone to this, as anyone who has ever read the excellent YOWP blog will have seen before now. For years, I'd always thought that the WIZARD Of ID strip below was how it was originally drawn, but as you can see from the above version which I've only just discovered, it initially had three extra panels (including the logo) of which I was unaware for around 48 years.
The one shown below is a greyscale reproduction from The PENGUIN BOOK Of COMICS of a colour version, but I've no way of knowing if the same colour scheme was followed in each presentation. At the moment, I'm recolouring a 'bleached' printout of the greyscale incarnation, but I won't be slavishly following the colour one above. When it's finished I'll post it on the blog for all you cavortin' Crivs to cop a gander at.
Why am I going to all the bother? Well, a copy of the greyscale version has been on my wall for around 43 or 44 years now (though I scanned and replaced it with a cleaned up printout a couple or so years back), and I just thought it would make my room a little brighter if it was in colour (and the colour one above isn't quite clean or sharp enough for the purpose). Anyway, enjoy what I think is one of the funniest cartoon strips ever created.
And, as I suspected, the top colour version has been re-jigged to accommodate a different sized space. Below is how it was originally laid out so that that the removal of the top tier would make it of more manageable dimensions for some newspapers.
I know absolutely nothing about The Wizard Of Id - in which publication did it appear in the UK?
ReplyDeleteDon't have a Scooby, CJ. I first saw it in The Penguin Book Of Comics, and bought a couple of paperbacks containing reprints of the strip sometime in the '70s. It's very funny at its best, usually amusing at its not-so-best. (So same as most great strips I suppose.)
ReplyDeleteThe art looks like the style of the Red Bull TV ads Kid. Could they be related?
ReplyDeleteHorst Sambo created the characters in the Red Bull ads, Woodsy, so no relation - aside, perhaps, from the flattery of imitation. Or, of course, it could be sheer coincidence.
ReplyDeleteOne of my favourite newspaper strips and like yourself I picked these up in paperback format when they came out in the late 70s, although I think mine were from Coronet books. Have to say taking those panels out imho, didnt affect the strip. Colin from memory I think it appeared in the Daily Express, not a paper I purchased so I only got them in book form. I picked up a nice hardback version in Forbidden Planet in Glasgow a couple of years ago for £5 in their sale, lovely wee book.
ReplyDeleteI love the Wizard of Id- I have two paperbacks (The King is a Fink and the Peasants are Revolting) that a relative gave me around 1987ish, and have read most of the 60s/70s paperbacks. My favourite strips were always the ones focused on the Wizard.
ReplyDeleteThe creators, Brant Parker and Johnny Hart also produced a caveman strip called BC, personally I was a little disappointed with BC when I got hold of some of the books a few years ago.
Great post Kid, I feel like re-reading my old books now!
I don't think the panels' absence affected it either, McS, and in my opinion the strip works better as a two-tier one than a three-tier version. However, regardless of whichever strip it was (the same thing was done to Batman newspaper strips of the '40s), the top tier seems to have been designed from the get-go merely for sacrifice, only being there for newspapers which gave space to three-tier strips. I think I'll have to track down a hardback version for myself.
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Glad you enjoyed it, DS. I think my two paperbacks are also Coronet, and if I could remember which box they're currently in, I'd dig 'em out for a read as well. I think I've got a B.C. paperback as well, which was amusing enough, but I prefer the Wizard. All together now - "The King is a Fink!"
The Wizard of Id was in a comic section of a weekend paper years back. Cant remember which one as there were so many. Another similar strip was the little king. Until now I havent seen the strip in 50 years.
ReplyDeleteYeah, could it have been The Funday Times perhaps, a pull-out section of The Sunday Times, LH? I remember seeing it somewhere years ago, but I forget exactly where.
ReplyDeleteI can remember it from around 1965. It had a few American strips..Peanuts,Wizard of Id,Flintstones, Tintin (shooting star ) I can remember the big spider on the telescope. I cannot remember what paper but it was . The Weekend double page comic strip...The Phantom too.
ReplyDeleteIt's much later I seem to remember it from, LH - sometime in the '90s perhaps. Time goes by so fast once you get to a certain age that it's difficult to keep track of it.
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