On Strips: McManus Mystery?

By | Friday, September 09, 2016 1 comment
I came across an ebay listing recently selling a piece of original George McManus art from 1937. McManus, of course, is most famous for his comic strip Bringing Up Father but this strip didn't feature Maggie, Jiggs, or any of the other regular characters from that title I'm aware of. (Admittedly, I'm no McManus expert though.) Bringing Up Father was only one of about three dozen (mostly unsuccessful) strips he created throughout his career, though, so that part isn't terribly surprising.

The seller claims this is from a strip called Remember When and that does fit the theme that's being illustrated...
The problem, though, is that I can't find any record of such a strip existing. The only references I can find are a few other original pieces of art, done in the same style, with mostly the same notation from the same seller. Nothing else I can find on McManus mentions a strip by that name or anything like it, and all of the strips I am aware of don't seem to match this at all, either by date and/or subject matter. I thought perhaps this was actually a 'topper' strip that ran above Bringing Up Father but that doesn't seem to be the case either.

The art is clearly done in McManus' style, and seems to be done using age-appropriate boards, inks, etc. I don't see any obvious signs of forgery, but I also can't seem to find anything about this particular strip. Are there any McManus experts out there who might be able to shed some light on these?
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1 comments:

It's actually a Bringing Up Father daily. McManus hijacked the usual Jiggs & Maggie format for a while in early 1937 to do a run of these. I've got them as scans if you're interested.