Birmingham Historical Comic Strips -- Birmingham Post, The Twenties
Like the other Birmingham papers, the 20's were relatively calm for the Post. This seems to be a usual trend through the industry; when the huge space of the strips means that you're only running half-a-dozen strips or panels at a given time and many of those are ongoing story strips, there's not a lot of room for turnover. The changes, by year, after the initial page in 1921:
1921:
In September, The Crazy Quilt became Our Boarding House and, while maintaining some recognizable repeating characters, shifted its focus from the community at large to the small Hoople boarding house, where it would run on for over fifty years.
Our Boarding House,Ahern, none listed
1922:
No changes.
1923:
In July, they ran a short note indicating that Doings of the Duffs was being dropped temporarily due to illness on the part of the artist and would be back shortly. It never came back. Taking its place was Out Our Way, a gentle slice of small town life from James R. Williams.
Out Our Way,Williams, none listed
1924:
In September, they dropped Out Our Way in favor of more ad space.
1925:
In July, they dropped The Old Home Town, which would reappear over in the Age-Herald the next January, and brought back Out Our Way.
1926:
In April, Home, Sweet Home was renamed to The Bungle Family, with a copyright notice for the McNaught Syndicate. It's not clear that the syndication change actually coincided with the name change; the Post had always been somewhat flighty about including the copyright notice for the earlier syndicate, which wasn't embedded in the strip art. Toonopedia indicates that both the syndicate change and the name change had happened back in 1923.
$alesman $am, an incredible unfunny gag-a-day panel with great screwball art by Swan (actually George Swanson), ran from February until May. In June, they added Boots and Her Buddies, a fairly generic young-woman-and-her-social-life strip, by Martin; both were from NEA.
Salesman Sam,Swan,
NEA Service
The Bungle Family,Tuthill,
McNaught Syndicate
Boots and Her Buddies,
Martin,NEA Service
1927:
Everett True shuffled off to stew in his anger in January.
1928:
Fontaine Fox disappeared, temporarily as it turned out, in September.
1929:
In January, the comics returned to the glory of a full page. Fontaine Fox returned, still untitled even though the rest of the world had known it as Toonerville Folks for years. In addition, the adventure strip Wash Tubbs was added, and Salesman Sam returned, reconfigured to run as a horizontal strip.
Wash Tubbs,Crane, NEA Service
Last Updated: July 22, 2010