Mark Kausler’s CatBlog

Mabel Doesn’t Care

Mabel is from 19191208 to 19191220.  If you can find my former comment on this post’s strips, please look them up. My blog was hacked and this post disappeared. Good Hunting!

Now Listen, Mabel: The value of a Quarter

Here’s “Now Listen, Mabel” from 10-27 to 11-6-1919. The theme is Office Rivalry for Mabel Millarky’s affections between Jimmie Doozinberry and his best pal, “Sam”. A Quarter was really a coin of value in those days, often the love struck swains would have to decide whether calling Mabel long distance in Prune Beach or being able to afford lunch was of the greater importance. “Sam” seems to always know his way around Mabel’s schedule and things like being kind to Mabel’s mother in the 11-6. Garge again anticipates Dagwood Bumstead’s early troubles with his rivals for Blondie’s affections in Chic Young’s “Blondie” in 1930. It’s been a long time since the old Catblog had a new post, I hope you enjoy it, readers. Remember to right-click the strips above and select, “Open image in new tab”. The strips will appear in a new window, open it, click on the strips displayed and you should see them larger. Remember that the daily comics of 1919 were displayed across the top of a very wide newspaper page, and took up 10 columns. That’s why there is so much more to read and look at then our contemporary comics, which are seldom more than three columns wide and are all crowded together on one page.

Mabel Returns

Here’s “Now Listen Mabel” from 10-19 to 10-25-1919. They come from the pages of the San Francisco Examiner. Here Mr. Herriman is dealing in silent comedy slapstick, as Jimmie Doozinberry’s rivals for the attentions of Mabel Millarkey (including Jimmie) get tossed out of her front door repeatedly. In the 10-19, Herriman says “We who have ever dealt in gentle humor..”, a well placed caption introducing this knockabout comedy sequence.  I love the crazy poses the suitors take as they go sailing through the effulgent ether. “Mr. Bibbles” in the 10-24, wearing the striped coat, is a ringer for Charlie Chaplin, out of his tramp costume. I wonder if George Herriman ever played tennis at the Hearst San Simeon estate with Charlie Chaplin? Make sure and blow these up as large as you can, so you can appreciate the lettering and the pen work of Garge. You know how to do it, don’t you? If not, just click on the image with your mouse and select “Open Image In New Tab”. This should open the selected strips in a separate tab. Within that tab, just click on the image and they will be displayed larger. Nearly as large as the S F Examiner used to run them, which was clear across the page (more than 10 columns wide). Please enjoy the strips and Happy Holidays to you all.

Mistaken Identity Mabels

Here’s another week of the rare Herriman daily strip, “Now Listen, Mabel” from Oct. 13-0ct. 18th, 1919. Mabel was also the name of George Herriman’s wife, Mabel Lillian Bridge. The gags here would just about fit Archie and Reggie in the 1940s Archie comic books. Jimmie Doozinberry’s constant wooing of the beautiful Mabel are continuously frustrated and flummoxed. Garge works the “mistaken identity” gags hard in the Oct. 14th and Oct. 16th through the 18th. Jimmie is surprised by a black couple wearing Mabel’s and her Dad’s shoes in panel three of the 10-18. Mabel’s dog “Tizwin” is mistaken for another pooch in the Oct. 14th. As Jimmie and another suitor wait for Mabel in the Oct. 15th strip, Mabel cozies up to a third lover, Jack. The house in the Oct. 15th strip looks a lot like the house that Garge lived in at 2217 Maravilla way in the Hollywood Hills, complete with the low adobe wall in the front of the property. I am unable to come up with a definition of a “Jinji’s Bush”, which Jimmie hides behind in the Oct. 16th strip. It MAY be a Japanese flowering bush from which a tea is made. That’s my educated guess. Can any of my readers help me with this puzzle?

Mabel and Her Pups

Ji

Mabel and Jimmie match wits and dating success as Jimmie tries to prove that he loves Mabel’s pup, “Tizwin”, when he really dislikes dogs. Did people really kick dogs around with such alacrity in 1919?  In 1912, a popular song called “They Gotta Quit Kickin’ My Dog Around” or “The Missouri Dog Song” was recorded for Victor. If you search for it, you can hear it, the lyrics are not easy to figure out. I’m sure the song was well remembered in 1919, and perhaps Garge used dogs and shoes as a nostalgic reminder of those canine kickin’ days. These strips are from Oct. 5th through Oct. 10th, 1919 with the strip from Oct. 7th missing. The San Francisco Examiner printed these all mixed up and out of date sequence, so I tried to restore order to them. The dogs in “Now Listen Mabel” don’t speak in anything but “grrrs”, “rowrs” and “Graaa”s. English is reserved for dog conversations in “Krazy Kat”. Remember to pass your mouse over the images until you get a menu that has the item: “Display Image in New Window”. Click on that, and you will be able to see the strips in a different window and displayed larger. If they are not immediately larger, just click on them with your mouse. Enjoy these for now, Mark

Jimmie’s Sax-o-telephone

Here’s “Now Listen, Mabel” from 9-25 to 10-4-1919. Starting in the 9-29 strip, Jimmie Doozinberry’s pal butts in on Jimmie’s harmonica serenade over the telephone to Mabel. The office rival uses a saxophone, probably a C-Melody Saxophone, which was in use in the 19-teens and 19-twenties in parlors and small ragtime jazz bands. Frankie Trumbauer, a C-Melody saxophonist and friend of Bix Beiderbecke in the twenties, did some great jazz recordings with the saxophone. It’s very funny in the 10-3, that Mabel prefers the yowling of two pre-Krazy cats to the sound of Jimmie’s sax. It’s interesting that the saxophone was invented by Adolphe Sax in 1842, and is really a brass instrument, like a cornet, with a clarinet mouth piece on it. The saxophone is louder that most other woodwinds, hence it’s versatility used in symphony orchestras and jazz bands. The instrument in the last panel of the 9-26 is a Barrel Organ. That little handle was turned, and a wooden “roll”, similar to a player-piano roll, would rub up against the keys and valves, producing a rather screechy melodic sound. The Barrel Organ dated to 1854, and the gag here is that Mabel and party are expecting Jimmie to show up with a traditional instrument, not a mechanical one. I love Garge’s layout in the 9-26 as well, one long panel in the middle of the group having a picnic, and the first and third panels laid on top of the sartorial scene. I love the design of the office telephone, The mouthpiece has an unusual white cylindrical shape, quite unlike the standard “candlestick” telephone of the era. Dial phones first came in to use in December, 1919, so Jimmie’s office phone would have been operator-assisted dialing.

I hope you enjoy these strips, readers. To enlarge them to full screen, just right-click your mouse on the image, and you should see a “Open in New Window” item in the menu list. Click on that, and you should see the strips in a new widow, much larger. Enjoy, Mark

“Dagwood” Doozinberry

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Here’s “Now Listen, Mabel” from 9-18 to 9-24-1919. “Mabel” seems to me like a forerunner of “Blondie” in the early 1930s when Blondie and Dagwood were courting. The 9-20 strip is especially close to the writing in “Blondie”, as Mabel seems determined to spend all of Jimmie Doozinberry’s money, even at a tea date for two! Also the 9-24 has a Chic Young situation, as Mabel winds up with “Sammie” at a thank-you dinner she is supposedly throwing for Jimmie. Mabel is not quite the ditz that Blondie was in the early 1930s, however. She seems just a bit craftier, and is more deliberately playing the field. I also like the way Garge depicts office life in 1919, with simple desks all grouped together in a big room, no partitions or cubicles in those days. The big boss was the only guy who got an office with a closable door.

Magnifying these images is still a bit of a chore. But there may be a “built in” magnifier in the blog, just pass your cursor over the images and they “may” enlarge in a small window to the right of the comics. If that doesn’t work, just open them in a new window. You know how, don’t you? Enjoy!

Now Listen, Mabel Strips

Here are the next six “Now Listen, Mabel” dailies from the pen and knife of George Herriman, 9-11 to 9-17-1919. 9-11 through 9-13 introduce Mabel’s dog “Tizwin” who  barks at Jimmie accidentally through Mabel’s telephone. When Jimmie tells Mabel that Tizwin sounds just like Mabel over the telephone, she gets irritated and walks out on him. Mabel tosses the insult back at Jimmie in the 9-13. In the 9-15 through 9-17 strips, Jimmie keeps trying to talk to Mabel on the office telephone much to the disgust of his boss. In the 9-17 strip, Jimmie is introduced to Mr. Gindus (where is Garge getting these character names?), who seems to be another supervisor. Gindus intercepts a call to Jimmie from Mabel, but Jimmie handily steps on Gindus’s head, saving his bacon with Mabel.

I still need advice on making these strips clickable in Word Press. I tried using Classic Editor and Block Editor to edit the pictures, and tried various sizes and uploads. None of that worked, you now have to use your mouse to make the images appear in another window, where you CAN make them bigger. If anyone can help me figure this out, I would be very appreciative. Thanks for reading!

Have a Comic Weekend

Hi Readers, Must be some kind o’ record for the Catblog, three posts in a week! Hope you like them. Here’s the next batch of Herriman’s “Now Listen, Mabel” from 9-4-1919 to 9-10-1919. Look at that last panel in the 9-10, a real balcony crowd scene masterpiece! Have a great Comic Weekend!

A New Post at Last!

Hi Readers,

We’ve been off the “air” for awhile, just for how long I don’t know. I have been neglecting the Catblog, and I’m sorry for that. The site was hacked near the Holidays. The Go Daddy Web Host people came to my rescue and restored the Catblog, including the Archives! They did a great job, but it was costly. Maybe I will put up a “Go Fund Me” page for the Catblog. You may remember a particularly creative hack the Catblog went through a few years ago when I had 5000 unwanted users from Russia! They took advantage of a security leak and I had to eliminate all of them ONE AT A TIME! Word Press is pretty good to write on, but their rules are complicated. You have to have the “latest version” of Word Press installed, or there are breeches possible. Word Press seems to put up a new version about every two weeks!  Having a blog is like maintaining a little fort in the digital wilderness, constantly vulnerable to attack by the aboriginals. And sometimes they are more “original” than “aba”s. Here’s hoping you are all well that read this blog, and bless you for doing that. A good friend of this blog, Charles Brubaker, the eminent cartoonist, wrote to me and told me the blog was down, thanks Charles! A Better New Year to y’all and now here’s another batch of “Now Listen, Mabel” by George Herriman: 8-27 to 9-3-1919. Jimmie is fired from the Moonshine Comedy Films Studio for trying to satisfy Mabel’s ambition for him to be a star. In the 9-1 through 9-3 strips, Jimmie fools his own father by wearing a tuxedo as he escorts Mabel to a fancy dress party. Remember that these strips are “clickable”, so just click on them to enlarge.