Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for December 21, 2023

I’m sure Burns is looking forward to the opportunity of crediting the wrong person for creating The Yellow Kid.

Rat might not be boring enough for PBS.

great idea Rat, start with the Yellow Kid!

Are comic strips really an American creation? There are 2 Dennis the Menaces — One American and one British that were created the same year.

I wonder what Punch would say?

No. Please no!

PBS can also stand for Pearls Before Swine.

The Swiss did the 1st comic strip in 1827

Stories with illustration and dialog like comic strips have existed for a very long time. But newspaper comic strips are an American creation. I think it would be a great idea for Ken Burns to do a documentary on American comic strips.

There are much older – and better -comic strips. My favourite is Little Nemo, by Winsor McKay – 1906!

Baseball is just an adaptation of the English game “rounders”.

Google it and you get several different claims on which was the first comic, some American, some European.

Rat is really on a losing streak here.

Baseball (or base ball, or base-ball) was a British invention, with documented mentions going back to 1700 or even earlier. See “Origins of Baseball” on Wikipedia.

The first weekly comic to feature a regular character was Ally Sloper’s Half Holiday, which debuted in the British humour magazine Judy in 1867.

Jazz was however most definitely an invention of African Americans.

The Black Obelisk of Shalmaeser III is a kind of comic strip. It has five series of pictures, each depicting a different event. It’s definitely _not_an American creation.

httPs://en.Wikipedia.Org/wiki/Black_Obelisk_of_Shalmaneser_III

In 1945 John Nesbitt’s Passing Parade featured comic writers Chester Gould (Dick Tracy), Ham Fisher (Joe Palooka),Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates),Fred Laswell (Barney Google),Dick Calkins (Buck Rogers),Chic Young (Blondie),Harold Gray (little Orphan Annie) Al Capp (Little Abner), Bud Fisher (Mutt and Jeff) HH Knerr (Katzenjammer Kids) Hal Foster (Prince Valiant) Raeburn Van Buren (Abbie and Slats), interesting to see what the artists looked like, and featured many now lost and forgotten comics!

Aren’t those Egyptian carvings ancient comic strips? :D“Why are you laughing?”“Have you seen today Osiris? Bird stick stick eye over bowl snakes! It cracks me up!”

Hmm. Why didn’t the font get larger/more jagged/bolded or something when Rat (allegedly) started yelling at Stephen? I had to reread it two more times to figure out why he flipped over.

Yeah. And where is documentary about the 1st pantomime comic strip BOZO! And BOZO right here on Go Comics even.

PBS………hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!

Sent me down a rabbit hole looking into the history of comic strips. Political cartoons have been around since at least the 18th century, it seems, but the daily newspaper (now web) comic (ie., intended to amuse rather than be political) does seem to have grown out of the US newspaper wars of the 1890s. Of course, I’m sure there was some parallel development elsewhere.

Me Thinks " The Crocs " Are An American Creation ;-)

Look up Rodolphe Töpffer (1799–1846). The USA is not the whole world.

I’m here for the comments.

Love you, Rat. Just the facts.

Stephan’s memory is probably a little fuzzy but there was a wonderful documentary about the comic strip released in 2014. Called “Stripped”, it was a Kickstarter project, not Ken Burns or PBS, but they did include him and Pearls. You can rent it on Amazon and Apple TV, and the DVD is probably floating around on the web, but with that title, be careful as you search. :-)

I got a small laugh when watching Ken Burns’ Civil War series. He mentions fishermen from Presque Isle, Maine going off to war. Presque Isle is not and island and it’s not near the coast. Someone from Presque Isle would have been a farmer or woodcutter.

The first comic strips were painted on cave walls somewhere in Europe by the characters in B.C.

That’s actually a great idea.

I think the earliest American comic strip was The Yellow Kid – 1895-1898

The Bayeux Tapestry is a comic strip, and the primary historical source for the Norman Conquest.

The Yellow Kid (actual name: Hogan’s Alley) is a lot more fun, though.

All this talk about The Yellow Kid. I didn’t think Bart Simpson was that old.

Ken Burns should make a documentary on animated movies and shows, too. They are essential to the creative arts, as much as comic strips are.

Frankly, I find Ken Burns’ documentaries even less entertaining than Pearls Puns.

I love rat’s methodology here!

(joke)

I want to see a documentary about Stephen at an I-Max.

The marginal drawings in some of the ancient manuscripts were pretty funny. That’s where the idea of the Killer Rabbit came from.

Reading through today’s informative comments, I’m struck by how they remind me of the Jackals from Seth Myers’ Corrections.

Yes, being too loud would not fit in with the elitism of PBS.

Yeah Ken, get with it…

Ken Burns does need to do that! Cartoons go back centuries……☺️

Dave Kellett (of “Sheldon” and “Drive” fame) already helped bring a documentary about comics to the screen called “Stripped”

Comic strips are a dying art, who reads those things?

Since PBS now leans left, make sure to include all the hateful political cartoons which seem to overwhelmingly one-sided…

Comic strips may or may not be an American creation. But they are definitely a part of – and a reflection of American culture.

Garfield’s usually pretty quiet. He doesn’t talk, just thinks.

Papa Hemingway the best. I especially like his tome, “For Sale: Baby shoes, never worn.”

He can also do one on junk food and obesity.

I would watch that. It would be awesome.

The documentary “Hand Drawn Life: The History and Influence of Newspaper Comic Strips” is up on Amazon, Google, and iTunes right now. Made in 2019 it contains an extensive history and context/comments by some of the most influential comic artists and historians. PBS turned down this doc because “it didn’t appeal to young viewers, only old people.” Check it out.

What a great idea! I have several books with old strips and the graphics and colors are fantastic!

There is a fantastic 2014 comics documentary “Stripped” with interviews from the biggest in the business, including the elusive Bill Watterson who did the poster for it. Its creator also has a great podcast “Comic Lab” for creators.

People already said this. But I think no one can do a better documentary about comics strips that “Hand Drawn Life: The History and Influence of Newspaper Comic Strips”by Tom Tanquary.

It just so happens that Ken Burns was on one of the late night shows a couple of nights ago and he is producing some about the American buffalos. It actually sounds quite interesting.

There were already “comic” strips in Germany in the 15th Century. Claiming the comic strip is an American invention is as dumb as saying “as American as apple pie” (…) or pretending that American beer is… beer.

Found on the internet: “The earliest known comic book, The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck, was published in Europe in 1837 in several different languages – none of which were English. Four years later, an English version was published in the U.K. The following year, that version was reprinted in New York, giving America its first comic book.” – Nov 22, 2023

Ken Burns or no, Rat just won’t be satisfied until he is recognized as “the most beloved comic strip character of all time”—which is to say NEVER!

Not a bad suggestion!

How about dungeons and dragons? an American creation!