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118-483: Joe Palooka is an American comic strip about a heavyweight boxing champion, created by cartoonist Ham Fisher . The strip debuted on April 19, 1930 and was carried at its peak by 900 newspapers. It was cancelled in 1984. The strip was adapted to a 15-minute CBS radio series, 12 feature-length films (chiefly from Monogram Pictures ), nine Vitaphone film shorts , a 1954 syndicated television series ( The Joe Palooka Story ), comic books and merchandise, including

236-459: A poolroom . As Fisher explained in an article in Collier's : Here, made to order, was the comic strip character I had been looking for—a big, good-natured prize fighter who didn't like to fight; a defender of little guys; a gentle knight. I ran back to the office, drew a set of strips and rushed to the newspaper syndicates. Many rejections followed before Fisher's strip was finally syndicated by

354-552: A syndicate hires people to write and draw a strip and then distributes it to many newspapers for a fee. Some newspaper strips begin or remain exclusive to one newspaper. For example, the Pogo comic strip by Walt Kelly originally appeared only in the New York Star in 1948 and was not picked up for syndication until the following year. Newspaper comic strips come in two different types: daily strips and Sunday strips . In

472-428: A "standard" size", with strips running the entire width of a page or having more than one tier. By the 1920s, strips often covered six of the eight columns occupied by a traditional broadsheet paper. During the 1940s, strips were reduced to four columns wide (with a "transition" width of five columns). As newspapers became narrower beginning in the 1970s, strips have gotten even smaller, often being just three columns wide,

590-459: A 1940s board game , a 1947 New Haven Clock & Watch Company wristwatch, a 1948 metal lunchbox featuring depictions of Joe, Humphrey and Little Max, and a 1946 Wheaties cereal box cut-out mask. In 1980, a mountain in Pennsylvania was named for the character. In his home town of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania , Fisher devised the character in 1921 after he met a boxer, Pete Latzo , outside

708-502: A WAC Sergeant , Fisher's Follies , How To Be Popular? , Letter From Home , Mebbe I'm Wrong , Now That It's Over , Smythe the Murp's Ex-Butler , and Two Thousand A.D. Fisher originally changed the appearance of Palooka to fit each reigning real-life champ – until the coming of African-American Joe Louis in the 1930s, at which time the image of the cowlicked blond Palooka remained unchanged. Though his adventures were mostly low-key, he

826-587: A flock of geese (without anybody mourning their demise). Max and Moritz provided an inspiration for German immigrant Rudolph Dirks , who created the Katzenjammer Kids in 1897—a strip starring two German-American boys visually modelled on Max and Moritz . Familiar comic-strip iconography such as stars for pain, sawing logs for snoring, speech balloons, and thought balloons originated in Dirks' strip. Hugely popular, Katzenjammer Kids occasioned one of

944-430: A full page, and daily strips were generally the width of the page. The competition between papers for having more cartoons than the rest from the mid-1920s, the growth of large-scale newspaper advertising during most of the thirties, paper rationing during World War II , the decline on news readership (as television newscasts began to be more common) and inflation (which has caused higher printing costs) beginning during

1062-406: A heavy bar or rod for the hammer handle. Punching is not limited to depressions and holes. It also includes cutting, slitting, and drifting—all done with a chisel. The five basic forging processes are often combined to produce and refine the shapes necessary for finished products. For example, to fashion a cross-peen hammer head, a smith would start with a bar roughly the diameter of the hammer face:

1180-433: A lout or an inept fighter. Over decades, Joe Palooka appeared in comic books from several comic book publishers. Early comic books offered strip reprints, but eventually the character was seen in original comic book stories. Secondary characters Little Max and Humphrey Pennyworth each had their own Harvey Comics series. Joe Antonacci owns the trademark to and has recreated Joe Palooka. A brand new comic book version of

1298-488: A secondary strip by the same artist as the main strip. No matter whether it appeared above or below a main strip, the extra strip was known as the topper , such as The Squirrel Cage which ran along with Room and Board , both drawn by Gene Ahern . During the 1930s, the original art for a Sunday strip was usually drawn quite large. For example, in 1930, Russ Westover drew his Tillie the Toiler Sunday page at

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1416-493: A similar width to the one most daily panels occupied before the 1940s. In an issue related to size limitations, Sunday comics are often bound to rigid formats that allow their panels to be rearranged in several different ways while remaining readable. Such formats usually include throwaway panels at the beginning, which some newspapers will omit for space. As a result, cartoonists have less incentive to put great efforts into these panels. Garfield and Mutts were known during

1534-506: A single panel with a single gag, as seen occasionally in Mike Peters ' Mother Goose and Grimm . Early daily strips were large, often running the entire width of the newspaper, and were sometimes three or more inches high. Initially, a newspaper page included only a single daily strip, usually either at the top or the bottom of the page. By the 1920s, many newspapers had a comics page on which many strips were collected together. During

1652-574: A size of 17" × 37". In 1937, the cartoonist Dudley Fisher launched the innovative Right Around Home , drawn as a huge single panel filling an entire Sunday page. Full-page strips were eventually replaced by strips half that size. Strips such as The Phantom and Terry and the Pirates began appearing in a format of two strips to a page in full-size newspapers, such as the New Orleans Times Picayune , or with one strip on

1770-496: A tabloid page, as in the Chicago Sun-Times . When Sunday strips began to appear in more than one format, it became necessary for the cartoonist to allow for rearranged, cropped or dropped panels. During World War II , because of paper shortages, the size of Sunday strips began to shrink. After the war, strips continued to get smaller and smaller because of increased paper and printing costs. The last full-page comic strip

1888-554: A two-tier daily strip, Star Hawks , but after a few years, Star Hawks dropped down to a single tier. In Flanders , the two-tier strip is the standard publication style of most daily strips like Spike and Suzy and Nero . They appear Monday through Saturday; until 2003 there were no Sunday papers in Flanders. In the last decades, they have switched from black and white to color. Single panels usually, but not always, are not broken up and lack continuity. The daily Peanuts

2006-405: A very low carbon content, and also included up to 5% of glassy iron silicate slag in the form of numerous very fine stringers. This slag content made the iron very tough, gave it considerable resistance to rusting, and allowed it to be more easily "forge welded," a process in which the blacksmith permanently joins two pieces of iron, or a piece of iron and a piece of steel, by heating them nearly to

2124-436: A white heat and hammering them together. Forge welding is more difficult with modern mild steel, because it welds in a narrower temperature band. The fibrous nature of wrought iron required knowledge and skill to properly form any tool which would be subject to stress. Modern steel is produced using either the blast furnace or arc furnaces. Wrought iron was produced by a labor-intensive process called puddling , so this material

2242-507: A wide range of colors. Printing plates were created with four or more colors—traditionally, the CMYK color model : cyan, magenta, yellow and "K" for black. With a screen of tiny dots on each printing plate, the dots allowed an image to be printed in a halftone that appears to the eye in different gradations. The semi-opaque property of ink allows halftone dots of different colors to create an optical effect of full-color imagery. The decade of

2360-430: Is smelted into usable metal, a certain amount of carbon is usually alloyed with the iron. (Charcoal is almost pure carbon.) The amount of carbon significantly affects the properties of the metal. If the carbon content is over 2%, the metal is called cast iron , because it has a relatively low melting point and is easily cast. It is quite brittle, however, and cannot be forged so therefore not used for blacksmithing. If

2478-471: Is Joe Palooka Mountain, named in the early 1980s by then-Mayor of Wilkes-Barre Thomas McLaughlin. A granite monument with the likeness of Joe Palooka is located at the base of the mountain at the intersection of PA 309 and PA 437 between Wilkes-Barre and the town of Mountain Top. In September 1948, a limestone Joe Palooka statue (in a flowing cape) was erected on a hill overlooking Indiana State Road 37 . In 1984,

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2596-459: Is a heroic blacksmith in Germanic mythology. The Poetic Edda states that he forged beautiful gold rings set with wonderful gems. He was captured by king Níðuðr , who cruelly hamstrung him and imprisoned him on an island. Völundr eventually had his revenge by killing Níðuðr's sons and fashioning goblets from their skulls, jewels from their eyes and a brooch from their teeth. He then raped

2714-508: Is a strip, and the daily Dennis the Menace is a single panel. J. R. Williams ' long-run Out Our Way continued as a daily panel even after it expanded into a Sunday strip, Out Our Way with the Willets . Jimmy Hatlo 's They'll Do It Every Time was often displayed in a two-panel format with the first panel showing some deceptive, pretentious, unwitting or scheming human behavior and

2832-472: Is an alloy of copper and zinc . Each material responds differently under the hammer and must be separately studied by the blacksmith. Steel with less than 0.6% carbon content cannot be hardened enough by simple heat-treatment to make useful hardened-steel tools. Hence, in what follows, wrought-iron, low-carbon-steel, and other soft unhardenable iron varieties are referred to indiscriminately as just iron . In Hindu mythology, Tvastar also known as Vishvakarma

2950-433: Is important for indicating the temperature and workability of the metal. As iron heats to higher temperatures, it first glows red, then orange, yellow, and finally white. The ideal heat for most forging is the bright yellow-orange color that indicates forging heat . Because they must be able to see the glowing color of the metal, some blacksmiths work in dim, low-light conditions, but most work in well-lit conditions. The key

3068-488: Is lengthened or "drawn out." As an example of drawing, a smith making a chisel might flatten a square bar of steel, lengthening the metal, reducing its depth but keeping its width consistent. Drawing does not have to be uniform. A taper can result as in making a wedge or a woodworking chisel blade. If tapered in two dimensions, a point results. Drawing can be accomplished with a variety of tools and methods. Two typical methods using only hammer and anvil would be hammering on

3186-439: Is likely to have them crack and break apart. This is a problem for some blade-making steels, which must be worked carefully to avoid developing hidden cracks that would cause failure in the future. Though rarely hand-worked, titanium is notably hot short. Even such common smithing processes as decoratively twisting a bar are impossible with it. Upsetting is the process of making metal thicker in one dimension through shortening in

3304-430: Is now a difficult-to-find specialty product. Modern blacksmiths generally substitute mild steel for making objects traditionally of wrought iron. Sometimes they use electrolytic-process pure iron. Many blacksmiths also incorporate materials such as bronze , copper , or brass in artistic products. Aluminum and titanium may also be forged by the blacksmith's process. Bronze is an alloy of copper and tin , while brass

3422-400: Is sufficiently corrosion-resistant that artifacts of bronze may last thousands of years relatively unscathed. Accordingly, museums frequently preserve more examples of Bronze Age metal-work than examples of artifacts from the much younger Iron Age . Buried iron artifacts may completely rust away in less than 100 years. Examples of ancient iron work still extant are very much the exception to

3540-509: Is the blacksmith of the devas . The earliest references of Tvastar can be found in the Rigveda . Hephaestus (Latin: Vulcan ) was the blacksmith of the gods in Greek and Roman mythology . A supremely skilled artisan whose forge was a volcano, he constructed most of the weapons of the gods, as well as beautiful assistants for his smithy and a metal fishing-net of astonishing intricacy. He

3658-510: Is to have consistent lighting, but not too bright. Direct sunlight obscures the colors. The techniques of smithing can be roughly divided into forging (sometimes called "sculpting"), welding, heat-treating, and finishing. Forging —the process smiths use to shape metal by hammering—differs from machining in that forging does not remove material. Instead, the smith hammers the iron into shape. Even punching and cutting operations (except when trimming waste) by smiths usually re-arrange metal around

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3776-626: The Lansing State Journal in two sheets, printed much larger than the final version and ready to be cut apart and fitted into the local comics page." Comic strip historian Allan Holtz described how strips were provided as mats (the plastic or cardboard trays in which molten metal is poured to make plates) or even plates ready to be put directly on the printing press. He also notes that with electronic means of distribution becoming more prevalent printed sheets "are definitely on their way out." NEA Syndicate experimented briefly with

3894-657: The Flossy Frills series on The American Weekly Sunday newspaper supplement . In the UK and the rest of Europe, comic strips are also serialized in comic book magazines , with a strip's story sometimes continuing over three pages. Storytelling using a sequence of pictures has existed through history. One medieval European example in textile form is the Bayeux Tapestry . Printed examples emerged in 19th-century Germany and in mid 18th-century England, where some of

4012-549: The Internet . Many are exclusively published online, but the majority of traditional newspaper comic strips have some Internet presence. King Features Syndicate and other syndicates often provide archives of recent strips on their websites. Some, such as Scott Adams , creator of Dilbert , include an email address in each strip. Most comic strip characters do not age throughout the strip's life, but in some strips, like Lynn Johnston 's award-winning For Better or For Worse ,

4130-473: The McNaught Syndicate after Fisher, while employed as a McNaught salesman, sold it to over 20 newspapers. It debuted April 19, 1930, and by 1948, it was ranked as one of the five most popular newspaper comic strips. After Fisher committed suicide in 1955, his assistant Moe Leff drew the strip for four years. Leff had been ghosting on the strip's art since the late 1930s; his first credited strip

4248-595: The Proto-Germanic *smiþaz meaning "skilled worker". Blacksmiths work by heating pieces of wrought iron or steel until the metal becomes soft enough for shaping with hand tools, such as a hammer, an anvil and a chisel . Heating generally takes place in a forge fueled by propane, natural gas, coal, charcoal, coke , or oil. Some modern blacksmiths may also employ an oxyacetylene or similar blowtorch for more localized heating. Induction heating methods are gaining popularity among modern blacksmiths. Color

4366-546: The editorial or op-ed page rather than the comics page because of their regular political commentary. For example, the August 12, 1974 Doonesbury strip was awarded a 1975 Pulitzer Prize for its depiction of the Watergate scandal . Dilbert is sometimes found in the business section of a newspaper instead of the comics page because of the strip's commentary about office politics , and Tank McNamara often appears on

4484-935: The miniatures written on scrolls coming out of their mouths—which makes them to some extent ancestors of the modern cartoon strips. In China, with its traditions of block printing and of the incorporation of text with image, experiments with what became lianhuanhua date back to 1884. The origin of the modern English language comic strip can be traced to the efflorescence of caricature in late 18th century London. English caricaturists such as Richard Newton and George Woodward developed sophisticated caricature styles using strips of expressive comic figures with captions that could be read left to right to cumulative effect, as well as business models for advertising and selling cheap comic illustration on regular subscription. Other leading British caricaturists produced strips as well; for example James Gillray in Democracy;-or-a Sketch of

4602-536: The newspaper war (1887 onwards) between Pulitzer and Hearst . The Little Bears (1893–96) was the first American comic strip with recurring characters, while the first color comic supplement was published by the Chicago Inter-Ocean sometime in the latter half of 1892, followed by the New York Journal ' s first color Sunday comic pages in 1897. On January 31, 1912, Hearst introduced

4720-441: The 1920s the medium became wildly popular. While radio, and later, television surpassed newspapers as a means of entertainment, most comic strip characters were widely recognizable until the 1980s, and the "funny pages" were often arranged in a way they appeared at the front of Sunday editions. In 1931, George Gallup's first poll had the comic section as the most important part of the newspaper, with additional surveys pointing out that

4838-458: The 1930s, the original art for a daily strip could be drawn as large as 25 inches wide by six inches high. Over decades, the size of daily strips became smaller and smaller, until by 2000, four standard daily strips could fit in an area once occupied by a single daily strip. As strips have become smaller, the number of panels have been reduced. Proof sheets were the means by which syndicates provided newspapers with black-and-white line art for

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4956-1055: The 1960s saw the rise of underground newspapers , which often carried comic strips, such as Fritz the Cat and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers . Zippy the Pinhead initially appeared in underground publications in the 1970s before being syndicated. Bloom County and Doonesbury began as strips in college newspapers under different titles, and later moved to national syndication. Underground comic strips covered subjects that are usually taboo in newspaper strips, such as sex and drugs. Many underground artists, notably Vaughn Bode , Dan O'Neill , Gilbert Shelton , and Art Spiegelman went on to draw comic strips for magazines such as Playboy , National Lampoon , and Pete Millar's CARtoons . Jay Lynch graduated from undergrounds to alternative weekly newspapers to Mad and children's books. Webcomics , also known as online comics and internet comics , are comics that are available to read on

5074-413: The 1970s had been waning as an entertainment form. From 1903 to 1905 Gustave Verbeek , wrote his comic series "The UpsideDowns of Old Man Muffaroo and Little Lady Lovekins". These comics were made in such a way that one could read the 6 panel comic, flip the book and keep reading. He made 64 such comics in total. The longest-running American comic strips are: Most newspaper comic strips are syndicated;

5192-474: The 1997 Switcheroonie was a one-time publicity stunt, an artist taking over a feature from its originator is an old tradition in newspaper cartooning (as it is in the comic book industry). In fact, the practice has made possible the longevity of the genre's more popular strips. Examples include Little Orphan Annie (drawn and plotted by Harold Gray from 1924 to 1944 and thereafter by a succession of artists including Leonard Starr and Andrew Pepoy ), and Terry and

5310-481: The British magazine Judy by writer and fledgling artist Charles H. Ross in 1867, Ally Sloper is one of the earliest comic strip characters and he is regarded as the first recurring character in comics. The highly popular character was spun off into his own comic, Ally Sloper's Half Holiday , in 1884. While in the early 20th century comic strips were a frequent target for detractors of "yellow journalism", by

5428-804: The Life of Buonaparte . His contemporary Thomas Rowlandson used strips as early as 1784 for example in The Loves of the Fox and the Badger . Rowlandson may also be credited with inventing the first internationally recognized comic strip character: Doctor Syntax whose picaresque journeys through England were told through a series of comic etchings, accompanied by verse. Original published in parts between 1809 and 1811 in Rudolf Ackermann 's Poetical Magazine , in book form The Tour of Doctor Syntax in search of

5546-859: The NCS, enthusiastically promote the medium, which since the 1970s (and particularly the 1990s) has been considered to be in decline due to numerous factors such as changing tastes in humor and entertainment, the waning relevance of newspapers in general and the loss of most foreign markets outside English-speaking countries. One particularly humorous example of such promotional efforts is the Great Comic Strip Switcheroonie , held in 1997 on April Fool's Day, an event in which dozens of prominent artists took over each other's strips. Garfield ' s Jim Davis, for example, switched with Blondie ' s Stan Drake, while Scott Adams ( Dilbert ) traded strips with Bil Keane ( The Family Circus ). While

5664-402: The Pirates . In the 1940s, soap-opera -continuity strips such as Judge Parker and Mary Worth gained popularity. Because "comic" strips are not always funny, cartoonist Will Eisner has suggested that sequential art would be a better genre -neutral name. Comic strips have appeared inside American magazines such as Liberty and Boys' Life , but also on the front covers, such as

5782-490: The Pirates , started by Milton Caniff in 1934 and picked up by George Wunder . A business-driven variation has sometimes led to the same feature continuing under a different name. In one case, in the early 1940s, Don Flowers ' Modest Maidens was so admired by William Randolph Hearst that he lured Flowers away from the Associated Press and to King Features Syndicate by doubling the cartoonist's salary, and renamed

5900-490: The United States, a daily strip appears in newspapers on weekdays, Monday through Saturday, as contrasted with a Sunday strip, which typically only appears on Sundays. Daily strips usually are printed in black and white, and Sunday strips are usually in color. However, a few newspapers have published daily strips in color, and some newspapers have published Sunday strips in black and white. Making his first appearance in

6018-561: The World ), some have verbal thoughts but are not understood by humans, ( Garfield , Snoopy in Peanuts ), and some can converse with humans ( Bloom County , Calvin and Hobbes , Mutts , Citizen Dog , Buckles , Get Fuzzy , Pearls Before Swine , and Pooch Cafe ). Other strips are centered entirely on animals, as in Pogo and Donald Duck . Gary Larson 's The Far Side

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6136-685: The adventures of Winnie Winkle , Moon Mullins and Dondi , and waited each fall to see how Lucy would manage to trick Charlie Brown into trying to kick that football. (After I left for college, my father would clip out that strip each year and send it to me just to make sure I didn't miss it.)" The two conventional formats for newspaper comics are strips and single gag panels. The strips are usually displayed horizontally, wider than they are tall. Single panels are square, circular or taller than they are wide. Strips usually, but not always, are broken up into several smaller panels with continuity from panel to panel. A horizontal strip can also be used for

6254-475: The anvil horn, and hammering on the anvil face using the cross peen of a hammer. Another method for drawing is to use a tool called a fuller , or the peen of the hammer, to hasten the drawing out of a thick piece of metal. (The technique is called fullering from the tool.) Fullering consists of hammering a series of indentations with corresponding ridges, perpendicular to the long section of the piece being drawn. The resulting effect looks somewhat like waves along

6372-418: The appearance of the piece. An experienced smith selects the finish based on the metal and on the intended use of the item. Finishes include (among others): paint, varnish, bluing , browning , oil, and wax. A blacksmith's striker is an assistant (frequently an apprentice ) whose job is to swing a large sledgehammer in heavy forging operations, as directed by the blacksmith. In practice, the blacksmith holds

6490-460: The blacksmith had a general knowledge of how to make and repair many things, from the most complex of weapons and armor to simple things like nails or lengths of chain. The "black" in "blacksmith" refers to the black firescale , a layer of oxides that forms on the surface of the metal during heating. The origin of smith is the Old English word smið meaning "blacksmith", originating from

6608-418: The carbon content is between 0.25% and 2%, the resulting metal is tool steel , which can be heat treated as discussed above. When the carbon content is below 0.25%, the metal is either " wrought iron (wrought iron is not smelted and cannot come from this process) " or "mild steel." The terms are never interchangeable. In preindustrial times, the material of choice for blacksmiths was wrought iron. This iron had

6726-447: The center of the weld connects first and the connection spreads outward under the hammer blows, pushing out the flux (if used) and foreign material. The dressed metal goes back in the fire, is brought near to welding heat, removed from the fire, and brushed. Flux is sometimes applied, which prevents oxygen from reaching and burning the metal during forging, and it is returned to the fire. The smith now watches carefully to avoid overheating

6844-407: The character created by Antonacci and his creative team was published by IDW Publishing in 2012. Palooka is reborn as a mixed martial arts (MMA) fighter. Antonacci's team has also created a sister series of MMA-themed comic books entitled Legion of Combat . On radio, Joe Palooka was broadcast on CBS from April 12 to August 18, 1932. With Teddy Bergman in the title role, the 15-minute series

6962-623: The characters age as the years pass. The first strip to feature aging characters was Gasoline Alley . The history of comic strips also includes series that are not humorous, but tell an ongoing dramatic story. Examples include The Phantom , Prince Valiant , Dick Tracy , Mary Worth , Modesty Blaise , Little Orphan Annie , Flash Gordon , and Tarzan . Sometimes these are spin-offs from comic books , for example Superman , Batman , and The Amazing Spider-Man . A number of strips have featured animals as main characters. Some are non-verbal ( Marmaduke , The Angriest Dog in

7080-466: The characters. Hearst promptly hired Harold Knerr to draw his own version of the strip. Dirks renamed his version Hans and Fritz (later, The Captain and the Kids ). Thus, two versions distributed by rival syndicates graced the comics pages for decades. Dirks' version, eventually distributed by United Feature Syndicate , ran until 1979. In the United States, the great popularity of comics sprang from

7198-594: The comic strips were the second most popular feature after the picture page. During the 1930s, many comic sections had between 12 and 16 pages, although in some cases, these had up to 24 pages. The popularity and accessibility of strips meant they were often clipped and saved; authors including John Updike and Ray Bradbury have written about their childhood collections of clipped strips. Often posted on bulletin boards , clipped strips had an ancillary form of distribution when they were faxed, photocopied or mailed. The Baltimore Sun ' s Linda White recalled, "I followed

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7316-626: The comment from Joe Palooka , it came out 'tisk tisk', the way he assumed it was pronounced." In the 1977 film Smokey and the Bandit , after having been drawn into a fight and taking a beating, character Cledus "Snowman" Snow ( Jerry Reed ) tells his friend Bo "Bandit" Darville ( Burt Reynolds ) over the CB radio , "Look, you ain't gonna believe this, but I just did my imitation of Joe Palooka." (made for Warner Brothers ) All directed by Lloyd French and starring Robert Norton and Shemp Howard (except

7434-596: The copper used by the Mediterranean World came from the island of Cyprus . Most of the tin came from the Cornwall region of the island of Great Britain , transported by sea-borne Phoenician and Greek traders. Copper and bronze cannot be hardened by heat-treatment, they can only be hardened by cold working . To accomplish this, a piece of bronze is lightly hammered for a long period of time. The localized stress-cycling causes work hardening by changing

7552-608: The course of the run. One of the early toppers was Fisher's Looney Legends , which ran from January 10, 1932 to August 27, 1933. During this run, the strip had many alternate titles, including Fisher's Dopey Dramas , Fisher's Foolish Fables , Fisher's Historical Hysteria , Fisher's Neolithic Narratives , Fisher's Nursery Rhymes and Fisher's Poet's Corner . This was replaced by three longer features: Fisher's History of Boxing (Sept 3, 1933 – June 20, 1937), Joe Palooka's Boxing Course (June 27, 1937 – May 1, 1938) and Joe Palooka's Album (May 8, 1938 – Nov 14, 1943). From 1943–1946,

7670-404: The ends of the stock down into the bend, 'upsetting' it at the point of the bend. They would then dress the bend by drawing the sides of the bend to keep the correct thickness. The hammering would continue—upsetting and then drawing—until the curve had been properly shaped. In the primary operation was the bend, but the drawing and upsetting are done to refine the shape. Welding is the joining of

7788-525: The feature Glamor Girls to avoid legal action by the AP. The latter continued to publish Modest Maidens , drawn by Jay Allen in Flowers' style. As newspapers have declined , the changes have affected comic strips. Jeff Reece, lifestyle editor of The Florida Times-Union , wrote, "Comics are sort of the ' third rail ' of the newspaper." In the early decades of the 20th century, all Sunday comics received

7906-402: The fifties and sixties led to Sunday strips being published on smaller and more diverse formats. As newspapers have reduced the page count of Sunday comic sections since the late 1990s (by the 2010s, most sections have only four pages, with the back page not always being destined for comics) has also led to further downsizes. Daily strips have suffered as well. Before the mid-1910s, there was not

8024-468: The first satirical or humorous sequential narrative drawings were produced. William Hogarth 's 18th-century English caricature include both narrative sequences, such as A Rake's Progress , and single panels. The Biblia pauperum ("Paupers' Bible"), a tradition of picture Bibles beginning in the Late Middle Ages , sometimes depicted Biblical events with words spoken by the figures in

8142-400: The first comic-strip copyright ownership suits in the history of the medium. When Dirks left William Randolph Hearst for the promise of a better salary under Joseph Pulitzer , it was an unusual move, since cartoonists regularly deserted Pulitzer for Hearst. In a highly unusual court decision, Hearst retained the rights to the name "Katzenjammer Kids", while creator Dirks retained the rights to

8260-484: The god of blacksmiths, warriors, hunters and others who work with iron is one of the pantheon of Orisha traditionally worshipped by the Yoruba people of Nigeria . Gold , silver , and copper all occur in nature in their native states , as reasonably pure metals – humans probably worked these metals first. These metals are all quite malleable , and humans' initial development of hammering techniques

8378-583: The hammer over the horn or edge of the anvil or by inserting a bending fork into the hardy hole (the square hole in the top of the anvil), placing the work piece between the tines of the fork, and bending the material to the desired angle. Bends can be dressed and tightened, or widened, by hammering them over the appropriately shaped part of the anvil. Some metals are "hot short", meaning they lose their tensile strength when heated. They become like Plasticine : although they may still be manipulated by squeezing, an attempt to stretch them, even by bending or twisting,

8496-450: The handle hole would be punched and drifted (widened by inserting or passing a larger tool through it), the head would be cut (punched, but with a wedge), the peen would be drawn to a wedge, and the face would be dressed by upsetting. As with making a chisel, since it is lengthened by drawing it would also tend to spread in width. A smith would therefore frequently turn the chisel-to-be on its side and hammer it back down—upsetting it—to check

8614-580: The hero known to the Ossetians as Kurdalægon and the Circassians as Tlepsh is a blacksmith and skilled craftsman whose exploits exhibit shamanic features, sometimes bearing comparison to those of the Scandinavian deity Odin . One of his greatest feats is acting as a type of male midwife to the hero Xamyc , who has been made the carrier of the embryo of his son Batraz by his dying wife

8732-571: The history of London. The Reuben , named for cartoonist Rube Goldberg , is the most prestigious award for U.S. comic strip artists. Reuben awards are presented annually by the National Cartoonists Society (NCS). In 1995, the United States Postal Service issued a series of commemorative stamps, Comic Strip Classics , marking the comic-strip centennial. Today's strip artists, with the help of

8850-403: The hole, rather than drilling it out as swarf . Forging uses seven basic operations or techniques: These operations generally require at least a hammer and anvil , but smiths also use other tools and techniques to accommodate odd-sized or repetitive jobs. Drawing lengthens the metal by reducing one or both of the other two dimensions. As the depth is reduced, or the width narrowed, the piece

8968-453: The honour of your presence at the marriage of Ann Howe to Mr. Joe Palooka on the afternoon of June 24th in your favorite newspaper." Fisher received formal acceptances from Chief Justice Fred M. Vinson , General Omar Bradley and Attorney General Tom C. Clark . At the time, the strip was carried in 665 American newspapers and 125 foreign papers. Of uncertain origin, the word palooka was found in print as early as 1923 and widely used to mean

9086-419: The hot iron at the anvil (with tongs) in one hand, and indicates where to strike the iron by tapping it with a small hammer in the other hand. The striker then delivers a heavy blow to the indicated spot with a sledgehammer. During the 20th century and into the 21st century, this role has become increasingly unnecessary and automated through the use of trip hammers or reciprocating power hammers. When iron ore

9204-571: The king's daughter, after drugging her with strong beer, and escaped, laughing, on wings of his own making, boasting that he had fathered a child upon her. Seppo Ilmarinen , the Eternal Hammerer, blacksmith and inventor in the Kalevala , is an archetypal artificer from Finnish mythology. Tubal-Cain is mentioned in the book of Genesis of the Torah as the original smith. Ogun ,

9322-631: The last two with Beverly Phalon and Johnny Burkes ). Comic strip Most strips are written and drawn by a comics artist, known as a cartoonist . As the word "comic" implies, strips are frequently humorous. Examples of these gag-a-day strips are Blondie , Bringing Up Father , Marmaduke , and Pearls Before Swine . In the late 1920s, comic strips expanded from their mirthful origins to feature adventure stories , as seen in Popeye , Captain Easy , Buck Rogers , Tarzan , and Terry and

9440-401: The late 1960s, it became a mouthpiece for Capp's repudiation of the counterculture. Pogo used animals to particularly devastating effect, caricaturing many prominent politicians of the day as animal denizens of Pogo's Okeefenokee Swamp. In a fearless move, Pogo's creator Walt Kelly took on Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s, caricaturing him as a bobcat named Simple J. Malarkey, a megalomaniac who

9558-403: The late 19th century. The Yellow Kid is usually credited as one of the first newspaper strips . However, the art form combining words and pictures developed gradually and there are many examples which led up to the comic strip. The Glasgow Looking Glass was the first mass-produced publication to tell stories using illustrations and is regarded as the world's first comic strip. It satirised

9676-505: The members with his drawings and the force of his personality. The comic strip was safe for satire. During the early 20th century, comic strips were widely associated with publisher William Randolph Hearst , whose papers had the largest circulation of strips in the United States. Hearst was notorious for his practice of yellow journalism , and he was frowned on by readers of The New York Times and other newspapers which featured few or no comic strips. Hearst's critics often assumed that all

9794-532: The metal glows an intense yellow or white. At this temperature the steel is near molten. Any foreign material in the weld, such as the oxides or "scale" that typically form in the fire, can weaken it and cause it to fail. Thus the mating surfaces to be joined must be kept clean. To this end a smith makes sure the fire is a reducing fire: a fire where, at the heart, there is a great deal of heat and very little oxygen. The smith also carefully shapes mating faces so that as they come together foreign material squeezes out as

9912-460: The metal in the fire so he can see it without letting surrounding air contact the surface. (Note that smiths don't always use flux, especially in the UK.) Now the smith moves with rapid purpose, quickly taking the metal from the fire to the anvil and bringing the mating faces together. A few light hammer taps bring the mating faces into complete contact and squeeze out the flux—and finally, the smith returns

10030-412: The metal is joined. To clean the faces, protect them from oxidation, and provide a medium to carry foreign material out of the weld, the smith sometimes uses flux—typically powdered borax, silica sand, or both. The smith first cleans parts to be joined with a wire brush, then puts them in the fire to heat. With a mix of drawing and upsetting the smith shapes the faces so that when finally brought together,

10148-455: The metal. There is some challenge to this because, to see the color of the metal, the smith must remove it from the fire—exposing it to air, which can rapidly oxidize it. So the smith might probe into the fire with a bit of steel wire, prodding lightly at the mating faces. When the end of the wire sticks on to the metal, it is at the right temperature (a small weld forms where the wire touches the mating face, so it sticks). The smith commonly places

10266-576: The mid-to-late 80s and 1990s respectively for their throwaways on their Sunday strips, however both strips now run "generic" title panels. Blacksmith A blacksmith is a metalsmith who creates objects primarily from wrought iron or steel , but sometimes from other metals , by forging the metal , using tools to hammer, bend, and cut (cf. tinsmith ). Blacksmiths produce objects such as gates, grilles, railings, light fixtures, furniture, sculpture, tools, agricultural implements, decorative and religious items, cooking utensils, and weapons. There

10384-462: The nation's first full daily comic page in his New York Evening Journal . The history of this newspaper rivalry and the rapid appearance of comic strips in most major American newspapers is discussed by Ian Gordon . Numerous events in newspaper comic strips have reverberated throughout society at large, though few of these events occurred in recent years, owing mainly to the declining use of continuous storylines on newspaper comic strips, which since

10502-684: The nine-foot high, ten-ton statue and its base were moved and rededicated to the Town Hall in Oolitic, Indiana . In The Story of a Shipwrecked Sailor , sailor Luis Alejandro Velasco refers to a "Joe Palooka" tavern at a port in Mobile, AL, United States, where he and his shipmates, while on leave, went to drink whisky and threw a fight from time to time. In Sometimes a Great Notion , Ken Kesey skewers one of his characters with this paragraph: "' Tsk, tsk ,' said Brother Walker. And, as he had learned

10620-622: The norm. Concurrent with the advent of alphabetic characters in the Iron Age , humans became aware of the metal iron . However, in earlier ages, iron's qualities, in contrast to those of bronze, were not generally understood. Iron artifacts , composed of meteoric iron , have the chemical composition containing up to 40% nickel . As this source of this iron is extremely rare and fortuitous, little development of smithing skills peculiar to iron can be assumed to have occurred. That we still possess any such artifacts of meteoric iron may be ascribed to

10738-408: The other. One form is to heat the end of a rod and then hammer on it as one would drive a nail: the rod gets shorter, and the hot part widens. An alternative to hammering on the hot end is to place the hot end on the anvil and hammer on the cold end. Punching may be done to create a decorative pattern, or to make a hole. For example, in preparation for making a hammerhead, a smith would punch a hole in

10856-685: The picturesque ran to 9 editions between 1812 and 1819, spun off two sequels, a prequel, numerous pirate imitations and copies including French, German, Danish and translations. His image was available on pottery, textiles wallpaper and other merchandise. The Caricature Magazine or Hudibrastic Mirror , an influential English comic series published in London between 1807 and 1819 by Thomas Tegg included some satirical stories in comic strip format such as The Adventures of Johnny Newcome . The first newspaper comic strips appeared in North America in

10974-615: The political and social life of Scotland in the 1820s. It was conceived and illustrated by William Heath. Swiss author and caricature artist Rodolphe Töpffer (Geneva, 1799–1846) is considered the father of the modern comic strips. His illustrated stories such as Histoire de Mr. Vieux Bois (1827), first published in the US in 1842 as The Adventures of Obadiah Oldbuck or Histoire de Monsieur Jabot (1831), inspired subsequent generations of German and American comic artists. In 1865, German painter, author, and caricaturist Wilhelm Busch created

11092-404: The public domain, the film can be seen online. Palooka was followed by a series of nine two-reel Vitaphone shorts (1936–37) starring Robert Norton as Joe and Shemp Howard as Knobby. He returned to feature-length films in 1946, when Monogram Pictures launched a series of 11 low-budget films starring Joe Kirkwood, Jr. as Joe, Leon Errol as Knobby and Elyse Knox as Ann Howe. The first in

11210-439: The reproduction of strips (which they arranged to have colored in the case of Sunday strips). Michigan State University Comic Art Collection librarian Randy Scott describes these as "large sheets of paper on which newspaper comics have traditionally been distributed to subscribing newspapers. Typically each sheet will have either six daily strips of a given title or one Sunday strip. Thus, a week of Beetle Bailey would arrive at

11328-442: The same or similar kind of metal. A modern blacksmith has a range of options and tools to accomplish this. The basic types of welding commonly employed in a modern workshop include traditional forge welding as well as modern methods, including oxyacetylene and arc welding . In forge welding, the pieces to join are heated to what is generally referred to as welding heat . For mild steel most smiths judge this temperature by color:

11446-413: The second panel revealing the truth of the situation. Sunday newspapers traditionally included a special color section. Early Sunday strips (known colloquially as "the funny papers", shortened to "the funnies"), such as Thimble Theatre and Little Orphan Annie , filled an entire newspaper page, a format known to collectors as full page . Sunday pages during the 1930s and into the 1940s often carried

11564-465: The series was Joe Palooka, Champ (1946); the series ended 1951, with Joe Palooka in Triple Cross . The Joe Palooka Story , popularly known simply as Joe Palooka , was a 1954 syndicated television series starring Kirkwood and featuring former boxing champion Maxie Rosenbloom as Humphrey Pennyworth. South of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania on the way to the town of Mountain Top, Pennsylvania

11682-454: The size and shape of the metal's crystals . The hardened bronze can then be ground to sharpen it to make edged tools. Clocksmiths as recently as the 19th century used work hardening techniques to harden the teeth of brass gears and ratchets . Tapping on just the teeth produced harder teeth, with superior wear-resistance. By contrast, the rest of the gear was left in a softer and tougher state, more capable of resisting cracking. Bronze

11800-504: The sports page because of its subject matter. Lynn Johnston 's For Better or For Worse created an uproar when Lawrence, one of the strip's supporting characters, came out of the closet. The world's longest comic strip is 88.9-metre (292 ft) long and on display at Trafalgar Square as part of the London Comedy Festival. The London Cartoon Strip was created by 15 of Britain's best known cartoonists and depicts

11918-407: The spread and keep the metal at the correct width. Or, if a smith needed to put a 90-degree bend in a bar and wanted a sharp corner on the outside of the bend, they would begin by hammering an unsupported end to make the curved bend. Then, to "fatten up" the outside radius of the bend, one or both arms of the bend would need to be pushed back to fill the outer radius of the curve. So they would hammer

12036-468: The strip Max and Moritz , about two trouble-making boys, which had a direct influence on the American comic strip. Max and Moritz was a series of seven severely moralistic tales in the vein of German children's stories such as Struwwelpeter ("Shockheaded Peter"). In the story's final act, the boys, after perpetrating some mischief, are tossed into a sack of grain, run through a mill, and consumed by

12154-451: The strips in his papers were fronts for his own political and social views. Hearst did occasionally work with or pitch ideas to cartoonists, most notably his continued support of George Herriman 's Krazy Kat . An inspiration for Bill Watterson and other cartoonists, Krazy Kat gained a considerable following among intellectuals during the 1920s and 1930s. Some comic strips, such as Doonesbury and Mallard Fillmore , may be printed on

12272-437: The top of the piece. Then the smith turns the hammer over to use the flat face to hammer the tops of the ridges down level with the bottoms of the indentations. This forces the metal to grow in length (and width if left unchecked) much faster than just hammering with the flat face of the hammer. Heating iron to a "forging heat" allows bending as if it were a soft, ductile metal, like copper or silver. Bending can be done with

12390-681: The topper strip rotated between a variety of different features. The most often used titles during this period were War Time Anecdotes aka Fisher's Wartime Whoppers (Nov 21, 1943 – Sept 9, 1945), Miss Jones aka The Estimable Miss Jones (March 12, 1944 – Nov 11, 1945), After It's Over (April 8 – Oct 7, 1945), Sidewalks of Manhattan (Nov 18, 1945 – Feb 24, 1966), Charlie the Cook (Oct 15, 1944 – Sept 23, 1945), and Lady De Van (March 3 – July 7, 1946). Other titles used during this period include The Atom Age , Captain Tommy , Could Be , Guy Who Married

12508-492: The water-sprite Lady Isp, who spits it between his shoulder blades, where it forms a womb-like cyst. Kurdalaegon prepares a type of tower or scaffold above a quenching bath for Xamyc, and, when the time is right, lances the cyst to liberate the infant hero Batraz as a newborn babe of white-hot steel , whom Kurdalægon then quenches like a newly forged sword. The Anglo-Saxon Wayland Smith , known in Old Norse as Völundr ,

12626-505: The way for some of these strips, as its human characters were manifest in diverse forms—as animals, vegetables, and minerals. The comics have long held a distorted mirror to contemporary society, and almost from the beginning have been used for political or social commentary. This ranged from the conservative slant of Harold Gray's Little Orphan Annie to the unabashed liberalism of Garry Trudeau's Doonesbury . Al Capp's Li'l Abner espoused liberal opinions for most of its run, but by

12744-417: The work to the fire. The weld begins with the taps, but often the joint is weak and incomplete, so the smith reheats the joint to welding temperature and works the weld with light blows to "set" the weld and finally to dress it to the shape. Depending on the intended use of the piece, a blacksmith may finish it in a number of ways: A range of treatments and finishes can inhibit oxidation and enhance or change

12862-453: Was September 17, 1956. Lank Leonard recommended Tony DiPreta , who stepped in starting September 7, 1959, to illustrate scripts by Morris Weiss (early 1960s to early 1970s) and Ed Moore (mid 1970s on). DiPreta stayed with the strip for 25 years until it ended its run November 24, 1984, when it had dropped to only 182 newspapers. DiPreta then moved on to draw Rex Morgan, M.D. The Joe Palooka Sunday page had many different toppers over

12980-438: Was a historical distinction between the heavy work of the blacksmith and the more delicate operations of a whitesmith , who usually worked in gold , silver , pewter , or the finishing steps of fine steel. The place where a blacksmith works is variously called a smithy , a forge , or a blacksmith's shop . While there are many professions who work with metal, such as farriers , wheelwrights , and armorers , in former times

13098-525: Was bent on taking over the characters' birdwatching club and rooting out all undesirables. Kelly also defended the medium against possible government regulation in the McCarthy era . At a time when comic books were coming under fire for supposed sexual, violent, and subversive content, Kelly feared the same would happen to comic strips. Going before the Congressional subcommittee, he proceeded to charm

13216-544: Was heard on Tuesdays and Thursdays, sponsored by Heinz Rice Flakes. Elmira Roessler, Elsie Hitz and Mary Jane Higby played Ann Howe. Knobby Walsh was portrayed by Frank Readick and Hal Lansing. Others in the cast: Karl Swenson and Norman Gottschalk. The announcer was Harry von Zell . Joe Palooka made his film debut in Palooka (1934) with Stuart Erwin in the title role, Jimmy Durante as Knobby, Lupe Vélez as Nina Madero, and Marjorie Rambeau as Mayme Palooka. Now in

13334-420: Was pumped up by a supporting cast led by girlfriend Ann Howe, boxing manager Knobby Walsh, his mute orphan sidekick Little Max, Smokey, his black valet and later sparring partner, and lovable giant Humphrey Pennyworth, a smiling blacksmith who wielded a 100-pound (45 kg) maul . Like Ozark Ike McBatt in baseball, Joe Palooka was intended to exemplify the sports hero in an age when uprightness of character

13452-402: Was supposed to matter most. The character was part of an effort among top newspaper cartoonists to sell World War II -era Series E bonds to the public as a wartime financing initiative. The strip garnered much publicity when cheese heiress Ann Howe and Joe were married on June 24, 1949. The engraved invitations for the event, sent to a select list of celebrities, read: "Mr. Ham Fisher requests

13570-722: Was the Prince Valiant strip for 11 April 1971. Comic strips have also been published in Sunday newspaper magazines. Russell Patterson and Carolyn Wells' New Adventures of Flossy Frills was a continuing strip series seen on Sunday magazine covers. Beginning January 26, 1941, it ran on the front covers of Hearst's American Weekly newspaper magazine supplement, continuing until March 30 of that year. Between 1939 and 1943, four different stories featuring Flossy appeared on American Weekly covers. Sunday comics sections employed offset color printing with multiple print runs imitating

13688-635: Was the god of metalworking, fire, and craftsmen. In Celtic mythology , the role of Smith is held by eponymous (their names do mean 'smith') characters : Goibhniu (Irish myths of the Tuatha Dé Danann cycle) or Gofannon (Welsh myths/ the Mabinogion ). Brigid or Brigit, an Irish goddess , is sometimes described as the patroness of blacksmiths. In the Nart mythology of the Caucasus

13806-637: Was undoubtedly applied to these metals. During the Chalcolithic era and the Bronze Age , humans in the Mideast learned how to smelt , melt , cast , rivet , and (to a limited extent) forge copper and bronze. Bronze is an alloy of copper and approximately 10% to 20% Tin . Bronze is superior to just copper, by being harder, being more resistant to corrosion, and by having a lower melting point (thereby requiring less fuel to melt and cast). Much of

13924-561: Was unusual, as there were no central characters. Instead The Far Side used a wide variety of characters including humans, monsters, aliens , chickens, cows, worms , amoebas , and more. John McPherson's Close to Home also uses this theme, though the characters are mostly restricted to humans and real-life situations. Wiley Miller not only mixes human, animal, and fantasy characters, but also does several different comic strip continuities under one umbrella title, Non Sequitur . Bob Thaves 's Frank & Ernest began in 1972 and paved

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