Saturday, October 24, 2020

OT : Tales from the New York Daily News Sunday Comics (#10) : Happy 100th Anniversary to WINNIE WINKLE by Martin Branner!

 



A happy 100th anniversary to the long-running classic News comic strip, Winnie Winkle, debuting as a daily strip on September 20, 1920 in the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News and ending a 75 year run on July 28, 1996, in that self-same New York Daily News.

 


From my pal, John Wells:

"One hundred years ago, cartoonist Martin Branner introduced 'Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner' in the pages of the Chicago Tribune and the New York Daily News. Developed from a concept of newspaper syndicate head Joseph Patterson, Winnie was a trailblazing early example of the working girl strip. While her less-than-ambitious father sat at home, Winnie supported the family for the likes of safety pin manufacturer Barnaby Bibbs and fashion king Edwin Bonnaz. Under Branner, the series was a comedy, albeit one that was interspersed with melodrama and tragedy. Winnie's husband, Bill Wright, was presumed dead four times during the feature's run, the first instance occurring as the blonde stenographer gave birth to twins. The strip transitioned to dramatic soap opera in the 1950's with a more dramatic art style by Branner assistants like Jack Berrill and Max Van Bibber. Following a series of strokes in the early 1960's, Branner effectively retired with Van Bibber and writer Henry Raduta as the new creative team. Van Bibber in turn, was succeeded by students of the Joe Kubert School and Frank Bolle in the early 1980's while Leonard Starr came aboard to ghost-write the feature in 1985. Now the head of a major fashion company, Winnie had come a long way since she was a stenographer for Mr. Bibbs. Unfortunately, her popularity was a shadow of its former self. Once flagship paper The Chicago Tribune dropped the strip on November 26, 1994, the writing was on the wall. Winnie Winkle ended its run on July 28, 1996 in the New York Sunday News and a relative handful of other papers."


I'm going to limit the history lesson to John's words above and post a long sample of Sunday pages, one per year, through the decades of this iconic feature as it ran in the New York Sunday News comics, depicting the changes through the 3/4 century. The Sunday page debuted on April 2, 1922. The topper Looie Blooie, which became just Looie, came and went over the decades in this paper, finally petering out by the early 1960's, by which time it was done in a black "silhouette" style for approximately the last 5 years. The mid 1930's, mostly 1935, also had "Fashion Cut-Out" and "Style Story" features for a short while. Two "Style Story" examples are below, both from 1935, not placed into the yearly survey I've assembled here.

 



And sadly, by the 1970's and beyond, editors would frequently truncate the Sunday page from 3 tiers to 2 tiers in order to fit 3 strips per page. A practice amounting to highway robbery, in my humble opinion. The practice varied from week to week depending on ads and space.

[*** Warning...Newspaper comic strips of certain earlier decades, specifically the 1910's, 1920's, 1930's, and 1940's, often depicted racial stereotypes in a manner completely unacceptable today. As they were common across all media of the time, pretending they didn't exist, or censoring them, would be an injustice to accurate history. Please keep this context in mind. ***] 

[*** Additional note... The Sunday pages of the early 1940's through the early 1950's primarily featured the character and family of Denny Dimwit, a pin-head shaped dunce whose fractured syntax and coarse misadventures were very popular (even spawning toy dolls). From today's perspective, the character stereotypes of an uneducated, poverty-stricken family comes across somewhat less amusing and a bit awkward than as humorously originally perceived in mid 20th century popular culture. ***]


A Winnie Winkle themed illustrated envelope for a 1944 letter from Martin Branner to his son Bernard during the war.....

 



The 1920's

 

April 2, 1922 (debut Sunday page)


April 1, 1923 (original art)


April 26, 1924



March 1, 1925 (original art)



October 3, 1926




October 16, 1927 



February 26, 1928 (original art)




April 28, 1929




The 1930's:


August 10, 1930



April 5, 1931

 
 
March 13, 1932
 
 

January 1, 1933 (original art)


October 29, 1933


March 11, 1934 



June 23, 1935 (with "Fashion Cut-out")



September 20, 1936 



April 4, 1937


March 27, 1938


July 23, 1939



The 1940's:


January 21, 1940


December 7, 1941


October 18, 1942


March 28, 1943


February 27, 1944


December 23, 1945


November 10, 1946


December 28, 1947


April 4, 1948


October 30, 1949




 The 1950's:


December 3, 1950


February 18, 1951


June 15, 1952


April 5, 1953


June 20, 1954 (last Denny Dimwit Sunday)


November 20, 1955


May 13, 1956


February 17, 1957


March 30, 1958


May 31, 1959





The 1960's:

October 2, 1960


December 17, 1961


October 7, 1962


November 3, 1963


March 22, 1964


January 24, 1965


December 25, 1966


November 12, 1967


September 29, 1968


November 2, 1969



The 1970's:


March 15, 1970


December 26, 1971


July 30, 1972


July 1, 1973


July 28, 1974


November 2, 1975


March 7, 1976


November 13, 1977


December 17, 1978



November 18, 1979


August 31, 1980


December 12, 1981


December 19, 1982


April 17, 1983


August 5, 1984


September 1, 1985


March 9, 1986


August 30, 1987


September 25, 1988

July 23, 1989


November 11, 1990


June 16, 1991


September 6, 1992


November 14, 1993


December 18, 1994 


July 9, 1995


July 28, 1996 (final Sunday page)



SOURCES:

  1. All scans are from the author's personal collection of the New York Sunday News Comics except for 10 scans, including the debut Sunday, which came from the collection of my friend John Wells, whose help was much appreciated. Thanks also to John for guest writing the strip's history at the top of this page. 
  2. Original art scans courtesy of Heritage Auctions.
  3. Photo of Martin Branner and scan of illustrated envelope from my friend  Shaun Clancy, both used with his permission.