R.F. Outcault's the Yellow Kid: A Centennial Celebration of the Kid Who Started the Comics by Richard Felton Outcault

A bald, grinning street urchin in an oversized yellow nightshirt, Outcault's Yellow Kid sparked the "first definitive comic strip in history." With extensive text on the antecedents of the Kid (aka Mickey Dugan), historical information and discussion of the artist's evolution, this volume, collecting all of Outcault's Yellow Kid panels and strips, is a must for aficionados of the comics and of turn-of-the-century Americana. Blackbeard, director of the San Francisco Academy of Comic Art, has provided 15 chapters of commentary with details ranging from the origin of the Yellow Kid's baldness (slum-dwelling children often had their heads shaved to combat lice) to the history of the Hearst versus Pulitzer "newspaper wars." Although the Kid was not the inspiration for the phrase "yellow journalism," the character did cause a flood of mass merchandise-dolls, candy, even cigars. The book includes photos (by Jacob Riis and others) of real children who lived in tenements like those inhabited by the Kid and his pals. Since Outcault's characters often commented on conditions and events of the day, much of Blackbeard's background is useful, although the more casual reader may be overwhelmed. His enthusiasm for Outcault (who later created Buster Brown) often gives way to excessive detail and passive prose, not necessary to enjoying the whimsy of the cartoonist's "accidental" and wonderful invention. Color plates plus b&w illustrations.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Reader Reviews
I have had a long fascination for Richard F.Outcault's seriously strange creation "Mickey Dugan",alias the "Yellow Kid",but only with the publication of this book did I finally see the entire original run of Outcault's cartoons from the New York newspapers.Cited as the first real "comic strip" character,the Kid's initial appearances were in full page color drawings-huge single panels featuring Mickey and his urchin set,denizens of the New York tenements,always engaged in some kind of lively(sometimes illegal)activity-a parody of political meetings,sports,the theater,the doings of freemasons etc.Later Outcault also drew the Kid in the now familiar "strip cartoon" format.The Yellow Kid originally appeared in the sunday comic supplement to Joseph Pulitzer's "New York World" in panels titled "Hogan's Alley".The character soon became a major player in the circulation war between Pulitzer and his brash rival (fresh from California),W.R.Hearst,owner/editor of the "New York Journal",who nabbed Outcault from the "World" just as the Kid was becoming a seriously major craze in 1896(the "World" continued the character by another artist,George Luks).The "Journal" drawings were themselves accompanied by a text story expanding on the cartoon,but often only marginally related to it,and usually rather flatly written-not by Outcault,but most frequently by Edward W.Townsend,creator of the popular tales about Bowery boy man-servant "Chimmie Fadden". This book under review,was issued originally in 1995,to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Kid's first appearance.It is an invaluable collection,reproducing-for the first time since the 1890s-not only all of Oucault's Kid pages and strips from the "World" and the "Journal",but also a wide selection of his appearances in other parts of the papers in black and white drawings with texts accompanying them(the Kid's diary,adventures abroad,his involvement in the 1898 war with Spain etc).Bill Blackbeard provides an exhaustive detailed commentary on the background to the character,examining his various newspaper appearances and providing a lot of information about the Yellow Kid as an 1890s "celebrity",an advertizing bonanza(Mickey sold everything-he even had his own brand of cigarettes!),stage star,and general all round popular culture phenomenon.The Kid's huge popularity becomes more remarkable when one considers that he only survived as a newspaper cartoon character for about 3 years!My only gripes about Blackbeard's commentaries are that he can sometimes be a little sniffily "pc" in looking back on a very different era,and I would have liked to know more about Outcault the man(but is much known anyway?)-that aside they are excellent,and the book includes a superb bibliography too.The material reproduced so well here is fascinating,especially to anyone who loves the 1890s.In the teeming,chaotic full page cartoons,we dive back into a distant,violent anarchic world-that of the tenement Irish in New York during the "mauve" decade-a place Jacob Riis chronicled in photographs,but here the grimness of that existence is given its own wild,disreputable,but undeniably appealing humor-the slums leering out at us and saying(in their own unique way)-"Say!Life is real-and ain't we somethin'!". The quality of Outcault's drawing is very high,especially in the "classic" period of 1896/7.Comments from the characters appear everywhere,surrealistically placed on hoardings,on walls and fences and most famously on Mickey Dugan's ochre nightshirt-mostly written in the archaic "hully gee-dis is de main guy" slanguage of 1890's New York icons like Chuck Connors,Steve Brodie and Chimmie Fadden-but Outcault's words transcend their origins-he is a master of clever phrasing when creating the nose thumbing patois of the Yellow Kid's Hogan's Alley and McFadden's Flats. When he started out,Mickey really was a baby,just a toddler,lurking in some part of the picture-one among many in a recurring cast of tenement dwellers.But gradually he turned into the star,and in the process transformed into a bald,jug eared adolescent,strangely still wearing a baby's nightshirt-grinning knowingly out at the world-the wiseguy who was not only lord in his own slum,at one with its anarchic values and sensibilities,but a sharpee who could transpose them into whichever arena he and his accompanying tenement crowd moved-even when mixing with all manner of foreigners while touring the globe(in the series from 1897 "Round the World with the Yellow Kid"). Richard Outcault soon turned to other comic creations-perhaps the Kid and his pals were basically too disreputable and nihilistic for a man coming to want greater "respectability".Even the Kid's adventures in the "Journal" became tamer,the humor gradually abandoning that savage edge found in cartoons like the violent 1896 "World" panel "What they did to the dog-catcher in Hogan's Alley"-the Kid and his pals became cuter,less dangerous.Outcault's later strip character,the thoroughly middle class "Buster Brown" even eclipsed Mickey Dugan in popularity,and the cartoon lasted far longer than the one about the kid in the yellow nightshirt.Buster's world,his mischief accompanied by little homilies to set everything right,was a far cry from the madcap slum tenements Mickey Dugan and his cohorts sprang from-though the Kid himself did wander inexplicably into "Buster Brown" a few times(reproduced here)-a half remembered phantom from the seemy side of "Boss" Croker's New York.

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