Taliaferro / Karp - making a great in-joke in 1942

Myklebust,Are are.myklebust at f1101.aetat.no
Fri Jul 11 08:45:24 CEST 2003


Hi!

In the "Donald Duck" Sunday page from March 1, 1942 I discovered some time
ago there was a great in-joke made by Al Taliaferro and/or Bob Karp.

The gag in the page goes like this;
Donald is having his dog Bolivar stealing bones from the dogs owned by his
neighbours during the night. His plan is the sell all this bones the next
morning (it's wartime you know). But next morning all the angry dogs are
standing outside Donald's house eager to get their bones back.

So what's the in-joke?

If you watch closely the mailboxes to the persons living in the
neighbourhood you will find the following names:

Young (= Chic Young, "Blondie")
Knerr (= Harold H. Knerr, "The Katzenjammer Kids")
McManus (= George McManus, "Bringing Up Father")
Winner (= Doc Winner, filled in on different KFS comics in the Hearst
press.)

All these guys was great comic strip artists which had their strips
distributed by King Features Syndicate (KFS). Perhaps this was some kind
of homage to them from Taliaferro/ Karp?

So in the final panel in this Sunday page - all the angry dogs waiting for
Donald outside his house - are dogs from those comic strips! At least you
can see Blondie and Dagwood's dog!

Unfortunately I don't have any copy or scan of this Sunday page!
So if someone could help - at least with a scan of the last panel - that
would be great!

Best,
Are Myklebust


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