Why is there no Platinum Age Forum? 5 5

[BOOT]

Opper is one of the early greats. He could produce refined illustration but also really got loose and fanciful with his cartoons.

[BOOT]

We tend to think of the transformation of "collecting" from niche pastime to obsessive money-centric mania which occasionally makes the news as a recent development, but no -- here's Frederick Opper in 1891 to tell us otherwise.

What a great Opper piece and funny observations on collecting.

 

It may not be strictly a human obsession. Check out bowerbirds and how they collect color-coordinated objects to decorate their nests, supposedly to attract potential mates...

 

Almost exactly how I got my wife!

[BOOT]

Posted a whole thread about this 1849 comic. Check it out if you want.

Digest version - 1849 hand-colored comic book with costumed super hero and killer clown

 

 

[comicjack]

Imagine if that book had an overdue library card

[markseifert]

Almost forgot it was that day. Punch, 1850.

 

[BOOT]

Imagine if that book had an overdue library card

It's stamped on the inside "Withdrawn". Probably obtained via library sale...

[BOOT]

Here's another early comic from Alfred Crowquill...1849 - How He Reigned and How He Mizzled...This one is kind of obtuse...

 

[Scrooge]

I'd love to see some interior to that one. The topic is intriguing from the cover ...

[BOOT]

I'd love to see some interior to that one. The topic is intriguing from the cover ...

Here are some pages... "He explains thus !!!"

[markseifert]

 

1852, Yankee Notions #4, probably written by Thomas Strong, a few possibilities for artist (not Strong in this case) which I need to do some research on. But I think Strong would have been comfortable with giving artists some sort of instruction from his penny valentine experience, and a lot of the material in YN feels like it's from one mind to me.

 

America's first comic super 'hero' character? (he calls himself hero, though if you read it close, you'd probably be more inclined towards villain. Of course we could say that for many icons of the era)

 

That aside, this is pretty clearly a comic super-character origin moment. Jeremiah Oldpot seeks out an inventor who is expert in "Electro-Galvanic-Vulcanized India-rubber." He combines several of the inventions to create an outfit with highly unique abilities.

 

He is then "delighted at the prospect of achieving a world-wide reputation for courage and prowess."

 

It's clearly a comic sequence, and the origin moment generally fits any number of comic characters created since.

 

Is this the first one?

[Scrooge]

I'd love to see some interior to that one. The topic is intriguing from the cover ...

Here are some pages... "He explains thus !!!"

 

Thanks for the pages. So, it is as the cover suggested a swipe at railroad owners, here one day and gone the next with their profits. Do you get the same reading of this?

[markseifert]

I'd love to see some interior to that one. The topic is intriguing from the cover ...

Here are some pages... "He explains thus !!!"

 

Thanks for the pages. So, it is as the cover suggested a swipe at railroad owners, here one day and gone the next with their profits. Do you get the same reading of this?

 

This would be the dawn of the robber baron era. (a little earlier in UK than here)

 

"He sees how a great deal of the Railway business may be kept in the dark."

 

(Meaning, he sees that the ways the railroads are raising money to build out and acquire can be exploited)

 

Then... he's doing well, he has respect, even the moment with the Queen.

 

"He does an extraordinary number of lines!"

 

(Could be building, more likely acquiring various rail lines to combine them -- because that can mean stock transaction rather than, you know, building assets. I know less about UK, that's what would have been done here, often)

 

Then... he's getting wealthy (probably via financial manipulations and shell games of various sorts) . His board starts to notice things are amiss.

 

And... he's gone rather than face the fury of (stockholders, the public, etc).

[Scrooge]

Yes, we're in agreement on this.

 

Raillery in the title was such a nice touch that from there I had a sense of where this was going. Though 'raillerie' is more commonly still used in French, it's really in disuse in the US but to a contemporary, the alliterative title certainly packed a punny punch.

[markseifert]

Yes, we're in agreement on this.

 

Raillery in the title was such a nice touch that from there I had a sense of where this was going. Though 'raillerie' is more commonly still used in French, it's really in disuse in the US but to a contemporary, the alliterative title certainly packed a punny punch.

 

The things I've studied just to understand comics (and dime novels & story papers)... I've proven my grade school teachers so very wrong.

[markseifert]

Yes, we're in agreement on this.

 

Raillery in the title was such a nice touch that from there I had a sense of where this was going. Though 'raillerie' is more commonly still used in French, it's really in disuse in the US but to a contemporary, the alliterative title certainly packed a punny punch.

 

Ok! And here's the historical inspiration for the strip. It's about George Hudson, known as the "Railway King" (hence the crown here). The clue is the "York You're Wanted!" on the cover, part of Hudson's machinations involved the York and Midland Railway.

 

Wiki tells us:

 

During the railway mania of the mid 1840s many people invested in railway companies, believing it a means of quickly getting rich. In the three years between 1844 and 1846 Parliament passed 438 Acts giving permission for over 8,000 miles (13,000 km) of line, many in direct competition with existing railways.[25] By the mid 1840s Hudson was also chairman of the Midland, Newcastle & Berwick and Newcastle & Darlington Junction Railways. Called the "railway king" by the preacher Sydney Smith, he was said to have the favour of Albert, the Prince Consort. So as to better promote the bills submitted by the railway companies he controlled, in 1845 Hudson successfully stood as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Sunderland.[27] In 1848 the GNR had a line to Askern and the Y&NMR had authority for a branch from Burton Salmon to Knottingley, about 9 miles (14 km) to the north. Hudson and Edmund Denison, the chairman of the GNR, met at the end of 1848 and agreed terms for the GNR to access York via Knottingley, the GNR dropping plans for its own line to York via Selby. As this plan diverted traffic between York and London away from the London and North Western and Midland railways, these two railways formed an alliance, attempting to divert whatever traffic they could via Leeds and handing it over to the YN&BR at Thirsk. In response the YN&BR and Y&NMR co-operated to lower prices to keep the traffic flowing via York.[28]

 

At the end of 1848 the dividend paid by the Y&NMR dropped from ten per cent to six per cent and at a subsequent half-yearly YN&BR shareholders meeting the very high cost of certain Great North shares bought during the merger was questioned. After Hudson admitted the company had purchased them from him, an investigating committee was set up and Hudson resigned as chairman in May 1849. The committee reported on a number of irregularities in the account such as inflating traffic figures and finding capital items that had been charged to the revenue account, thus paying dividends out of capital. No dividend was paid for the first half year of 1849, and Hudson was to pay £212,000 settling claims over share transactions.[29][30]

 

Edit -- haha... and as you say, "Railway Raillery" an early reference that eventually evolved to "Getting Railroaded", "Getting Railed".

Edited November 6, 2016 by markseifert

[markseifert]

Opper is one of the early greats. He could produce refined illustration but also really got loose and fanciful with his cartoons.

 

Ah, man... that is a great strip.

[BOOT]

Yes, we're in agreement on this.

 

Raillery in the title was such a nice touch that from there I had a sense of where this was going. Though 'raillerie' is more commonly still used in French, it's really in disuse in the US but to a contemporary, the alliterative title certainly packed a punny punch.

 

Ok! And here's the historical inspiration for the strip. It's about George Hudson, known as the "Railway King" (hence the crown here). The clue is the "York You're Wanted!" on the cover, part of Hudson's machinations involved the York and Midland Railway.

 

Wiki tells us:

 

During the railway mania of the mid 1840s many people invested in railway companies, believing it a means of quickly getting rich. In the three years between 1844 and 1846 Parliament passed 438 Acts giving permission for over 8,000 miles (13,000 km) of line, many in direct competition with existing railways.[25] By the mid 1840s Hudson was also chairman of the Midland, Newcastle & Berwick and Newcastle & Darlington Junction Railways. Called the "railway king" by the preacher Sydney Smith, he was said to have the favour of Albert, the Prince Consort. So as to better promote the bills submitted by the railway companies he controlled, in 1845 Hudson successfully stood as a Conservative Member of Parliament for Sunderland.[27] In 1848 the GNR had a line to Askern and the Y&NMR had authority for a branch from Burton Salmon to Knottingley, about 9 miles (14 km) to the north. Hudson and Edmund Denison, the chairman of the GNR, met at the end of 1848 and agreed terms for the GNR to access York via Knottingley, the GNR dropping plans for its own line to York via Selby. As this plan diverted traffic between York and London away from the London and North Western and Midland railways, these two railways formed an alliance, attempting to divert whatever traffic they could via Leeds and handing it over to the YN&BR at Thirsk. In response the YN&BR and Y&NMR co-operated to lower prices to keep the traffic flowing via York.[28]

 

At the end of 1848 the dividend paid by the Y&NMR dropped from ten per cent to six per cent and at a subsequent half-yearly YN&BR shareholders meeting the very high cost of certain Great North shares bought during the merger was questioned. After Hudson admitted the company had purchased them from him, an investigating committee was set up and Hudson resigned as chairman in May 1849. The committee reported on a number of irregularities in the account such as inflating traffic figures and finding capital items that had been charged to the revenue account, thus paying dividends out of capital. No dividend was paid for the first half year of 1849, and Hudson was to pay £212,000 settling claims over share transactions.[29][30]

 

Edit -- haha... and as you say, "Railway Raillery" an early reference that eventually evolved to "Getting Railroaded", "Getting Railed".

 

Wow! Scrooge and Mark, thanks for the great review and research!

 

It seems the target of the comic may indeed be Hudson. The multiple lines like a spiderweb, the "railway king" moniker, and the empty chair after he resigned as chairman all seem to fit. It could also be a fictional amalgam of Hudson and other railroad barons of the time.

 

Looking up "mizzle" from the title reveals two different meanings - to rain lightly, and to disappear. So the title has a double pun - rain-->mizzle, reign-->mizzle.

 

I'll go ahead and post all the pages in order...please excuse the duplication but it's probably easier to read them in sequence.

 

Pages 1-4

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Pages 5-8

[BOOT]

America's first comic super 'hero' character? (he calls himself hero, though if you read it close, you'd probably be more inclined towards villain. Of course we could say that for many icons of the era)

 

That aside, this is pretty clearly a comic super-character origin moment. Jeremiah Oldpot seeks out an inventor who is expert in "Electro-Galvanic-Vulcanized India-rubber." He combines several of the inventions to create an outfit with highly unique abilities.

 

He is then "delighted at the prospect of achieving a world-wide reputation for courage and prowess."

 

It's clearly a comic sequence, and the origin moment generally fits any number of comic characters created since.

 

Is this the first one?

This is a great find! Thanks for sharing it! At the very least...

 

IRON MAN PROTOTYPE!

[porcupine48]