RUDOLPH DIRKS, HANS, FRITZ, AND FATHER TIME

 Happy New Year...
and

Old Years Too!

ARS LONGA, VITA BREVIS ~~

Art is long; life is short.

2025 has been a momentous year -- a cliche that doubtless is true for most of us. Most years are in most ways. But for readers of Yesterday's Papers we remember with sadness and gratitude the passing this web magazine's founder and guiding light, John Adcock. I became the successor and I desire to continue in his footsteps. One way I have not succeeded is by letting time other projects sabotage that work. In past months I have gotten married; moved and sustained a moving-truck accident that devastated my collection; and ghost-wrote an important political that was published a few weeks ago. Yes... a momentous year.

But stick with us (AND submit your own research, treasures, and questions!) I will be more diligent in the future; and as Yesterday's Papers and the revived NEMO Magazine will have a synergistic relationship. In the meantime...

In1950, Rudolph Dirks celebrated the fact that Hans and Fritz were 53 years old. He shows Father Time looking in the ledger of 1897, the year that Dirks created the Katzenjammer Kids; and draws a gag about the comics' cliché (with few exceptions) that characters do not age. This page is relatively ancient itself -- 75 years since its own appearance, more than half the lives of Hans and Fritz. Time flies when...

Father Time and I and Yesterday's Papers wish a Happy New Year to all our friends! Dod gast it!

Cartoonists Ring In New Years!!!

 NEW YEARS 

CELEBRATED 

IN THE OLD YEARS!

by Rick Marschall

Cartoonists almost congenitally embrace holidays. Comic artists are inspired by happy events, and in turn inspire their readers. Serious artists and illustrators create commemorations. In general, a job of cartoonists is to celebrate things worthy of celebration.

There is the additional allure of holidays to cartoonists. On those days the artists do not have to scratch their heads quite so much to come up with ideas!

In any (or all) events, here are some New Years themes from Old Years. I have chosen from my collection images that -- by coincidence -- not only raise the glass to the New Year, but appeared in roughly "round number" years ago (unless you are reading this as an archive post...!)

(Above) Winsor McCay, as "Silas," drew this fanciful exception to my rule here. At the end of 1907 he drew this strip of Father Time replacing the old 1907 with a baby 1908. Where did Old Man 1907 reside? In a grandfather's clock, of course! This appeared in the New York Telegram.

We will proceed chronologically. One hundred fifty years ago, the Father of American Editorial Cartooning, Thomas Nast, introduced the New Year in his short-lived magazine Nast's Almanac.

Ten years later in Puck Magazine this greeting appeared. The drawing by Friedrich Graetz, an Austrian cartoonist who worked in the US for three years, is an original in my collection.

The prolific Dwig (Clare Victor Dwiggins) created dozens of strips from the Turn of the Century into the 1950s; and many hundreds of comic postcards in the century's first decade. This was sent in 1910. 

Almost a hundred years ago, in 1920, someone received this charming New Year card drawn by the amazing cartoonist Rose O'Neill (happy-spoiler alert: A major treatment of her life and work is in the works for the imminent arrival of NEMO Magazine!)

Also from my collection (on the wall, as you can see, of the Gibson Room in my house) from one century ago -- Charles Dana Gibson drew Life's cupid (mascot of his magazine, Life) toasting the baby cupid with the sash labeled "1925." This appeared as a cover of Life, and was then inscribed to Gibson's niece. 

The lone New Years cartoon sans smiles is also from the mid-1920s, by John Held Jr. Hoping that your own celebrations do not result in headaches -- nor, in fact, may any other activities in the upcoming Twelvemonth, we wish you a...

HAPPY 

NEW 

YEAR!