Buster Brown 1902 0

[Yellow Kid]

Buster Brown first appeared in the New York Herald on 4 May 1902 and was an immediate success for Richard F. Outcault.  Unlike his Yellow Kid, which only appeared in New York city papers, printing advances made it possible for Buster Brown to appear nationally and he was very popular for virtually the next 20 years.  While there are detailed lists of when the Yellow Kid was published and the title of each strip, and also for Pore Li'l Mose, there doesn't seem to be anything comparable for Buster Brown.  I hope to publish such a listing for Buster's 1902 appearances and now need the titles of four strips to be able to share that information.  If anyone can contribute the title of any or all of the strips published on the following dates, I would really appreciate their help.

The dates are: 8 June 1902, 15 June 1902, 22 June 1902, and 7 September 1902.

Thanks for your help!

[pemart1966]

Did you check Heritage?  They've been auctioning BB strips from the estate for a while now.  Failing that, maybe they can put you in contact with the estate - it may have that information.

Someone should put the complete BB and Li'l Mose strips together in book form.

Good luck!

Edited January 29, 2020 by pemart1966

[50YrsCollctngCmcs]

As a kid where we were introduced to Buster Brown through the line of shoes that were still being sold pretty much everywhere. We had no idea he was a comic character. What a brilliant bit of marketing though as those shoes were being sold 60-70 years after he came up with the strip.

 

[pemart1966]

I just stumbled across your similar request from a few years ago for Pore Li'l Mose...were you able to complete that?

I wonder whether any of the Pore Li'l Mose original art survived?  The estate seems to have a lot of BB but I haven't seen any Mose yet.

[Yellow Kid]

Luck was with me and I was able to complete the Pore Li'l Mose inventory and it appeared as an article in Hogan's Alley a couple of years ago.

I helped the estate with their collection and they did have PLM tear sheets, and one piece of BB original art with PLM in it..  They also had six pieces of Yellow Kid original art used to create some of the monthly postcards.  They only had two pieces of BB original art from early 1903, which was within the first year of the strip's publication, but nothing from 1902.  It was an amazing experience to visit them with a good friend and help them inventory the collection.

[pemart1966]

2 minutes ago, Yellow Kid said:

Luck was with me and I was able to complete the Pore Li'l Mose inventory and it appeared as an article in Hogan's Alley a couple of years ago.

I helped the estate with their collection and they did have PLM tear sheets, and one piece of BB original art with PLM in it..  They also had six pieces of Yellow Kid original art used to create some of the monthly postcards.  They only had two pieces of BB original art from early 1903, which was within the first year of the strip's publication, but nothing from 1902.  It was an amazing experience to visit them with a good friend and help them inventory the collection.

Cool - but no Li'l Mose stand alone original art pieces?

When is your PLM book coming out? 

Did Outcault originally save all of his original art or was it just random pages?  

[Yellow Kid]

No stand alone PLM original art.

No PLM book in my plans.

Outcault saved some of his art but it was nearly all work after1910.  He did save tear sheets from 1895 forward, and the family collection probably had about half of them up to 1906 but then fewer and fewer each year.

[pemart1966]

1 hour ago, Yellow Kid said:

No stand alone PLM original art.

No PLM book in my plans.

Outcault saved some of his art but it was nearly all work after1910.  He did save tear sheets from 1895 forward, and the family collection probably had about half of them up to 1906 but then fewer and fewer each year.

Thanks!  I was wondering if he had saved all of his art from day one and then over the years had sold some of it/gave some away etc  It's amazing that the family has any of it left after all of this time but good on them for saving what they did over the last century plus.

Did the family know if there was anything special about the year 1910 that caused him to start saving some of his art?  Was there any rhyme or reason to the pieces that he did save as opposed to all of it?  He was quite the visionary for doing that.

 

Edited January 30, 2020 by pemart1966

[Yellow Kid]

Perhaps because they were saving so many Sunday tear sheets, which were more colorful, the family didn't see the need to also save the original art.  Perhaps the paper tossed the art away once it was published. 1910 was just a year I picked as an arbitrary dividing point because so much of the art collection was created after that point.

Edited January 30, 2020 by Yellow Kid

[Robot Man]

Glad to see some one with such passion trying to preserve and document the medium we all love for future generations! 

[Yellow Kid]

Thanks, Bob, I really appreciate your encouragement.

If you missed it, in Overtreet #47, pp. 1198-1201, is an article about the trip my friend, Hans Pedersen, and I made to visit and to help evaluate the Outcault Family Collection.  For people interested in the work of Richard F. Outcault and the birth of the American comic, it was an incredible experience.  RFO didn't create the first newspaper comic, but the Yellow Kid was the first character to have a continuing role, demonstrate that a comic could sell newspapers, and also be merchandised successfully.  He went on to create Pore Li'l Mose, the first black character that was portrayed with sensitivity, and then later hit the jackpot with Buster Brown.

Edited January 31, 2020 by Yellow Kid