(Apologies for some janky index linking; I'm doing this remotely on my phone, changing the names in the FTP editing function with my digit. Rather imprecise. Anyway, should work from now on.)

Of all the things I’m half-surprised to learn, it’s my love of ‘teens and 20s newspaper cartoons. Not always for the art; certainly not for the laughs. But it’s a big part of popular culture that seems confined now to the comic historian nerds who keep their work alive. Mostly it slumbers in archives, in microfilm, at the Library of Congress. There’s little effort to revive them in book form; it’s been done a few times, but I can’t imagine they’re particularly successful.

There’s so much of it. I’ve two years worth of updates on the subject. Herewith a few excerpts of stuff to come.

This is a tall-tale-teller strip. All cultures have a BS-spinner, but this guy seems a little sour.

So . . . Lightnin' is the name of the old man AND the mechanical flea he inventer? And where's Percy, the Mechanism Man? All will be explained.

Now, my favorite part: ROBOT, BEAT THE LIAR

A big Sunday strip, and a distinctive style. What's the story?

Percy, the "mechanism man," entered the world on October 1, 1911, always smiling, serene, silent, eager-to please, and thereby doomed to wreak havoc on everyone nearby. His inventor was a 35-year-old veteran comic artist, Harry Cornell "H. C." Greening.

(Note: I didn't get the strip from that site; I got it from newspapers.com, which everyone should subscribe to.) More bio on the artist here, concluding with the note that he vanished from the records towards the end of his life, and we've no idea when or where he passed.

An anonymous comment said "He died in 1949 of diabetes."

Citation needed, perhaps.

Here's something to amuse yourself this day, and compete with your fellow Bleatnicks.

Don't worry, you don't have to squint - there's a much bigger version here.