Buster Brown in girl's clothes and today's mystery photo

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Set the Wayback machine machine for 1903, Sherman. Let's see what horrendous deviltry Buster Brown is up to today. Richard F Outcalt created the comics page HOGAN'S ALLEY in 1895 for the newspaper WORLD. It may or may not have been the first American comic strip, depending on definition; I'm content to accept it as a very early one and its star, the Yellow Kid, as a very early comics character. (I think the Yellow Kid deserves a close look, soon, as well. His strip was a good example of humor and satire making a strong statement together.) Anywhat, Outcalt moved on to create Buster Brown.





The funniest thing about the strip, to me at least, is the dog. Tige has that cosmic awareness where he can look out at the reader and say, "This oughtta be good!" or "Look out Ma! You'll break the hairbrush!" Buster was so insincere with that "Resolved!" at the end of each page. He was forced to do it and it obviously sank into his conscience as deeply as Bart's blackboard message on THE SIMPSONS.




This young fellow obviously worked for EC Comics, but he also turned out some fine art for Warren, Marvel and DC. He went on to be an editor who helped create many characters and books which are still favorites today.

Comments

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Joe Orlando.

And with Buster Brown--how can you TELL he's in girls' clothes, given his normal look? I swear, mothers at that time were really trying to mess up their kids' minds.

In all seriousness, out of historical interest, does anyone know just where this weird turn of the century trend of little boys all prettied up with golden locks and so forth originated? (And how long it lasted)

[kamino_neko.insanejournal.com]

Damn, you beat me to it.

Definitely Orlando.

And I believe that photo of him is used in one of the text sections of Watchmen, talking about the history of comics in Earth-Watchmen.

One very much like it is used, in any case.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

It is that one--that's how I knew it, in fact.

Which made me think, dang, he's making this too easy, given WATCHMEN is not exactly hard to have seen.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I actually snatched that photo from a 1975 issue of THE AMAZING WORLD OF DC COMICS, and haven't read WATCHMEN since it came out.. so that's just an unfortunate coincidence.

[ulf_boehnke.insanejournal.com]

At least it's awell-timed coincidence.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

I have got to make the clues more obscure. You folks are racing to post the answers before the ether dust settles. Tomorrow I'll post Trina Robbins' high school picture with no clues at all.

Buster Brown suffered a fashion trend very common in the late 1880s to early 20th Century. I think the popularity of the book LITTLE LORD FAUNTLEROY started it, but young boys were dressed as rather androgynous dandies for a generation. It was considered ritzy and upper-class. There was also the widespread feeling in that era that sexuality was nasty and dirty and shameful, and that kids before adolescence did not have any sexual feelings because they were pure and innocent little angels.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

Which no doubt led to at least a bit of gender confusion with many later in life(or may have accidentally led the way for some to realization of their orientation, who knows) and I'll bet you it's exactly this fad that led later to the faulty perception among psychiatrists that homosexuality and cross-dressing were disorders due to this kind of thing, and domineering by, the mother. Because most psychiatric patients back then would have been from well-off backgrounds, and would have had moms part of the generation that did this sort of thing, so the doctors would make a false connection maybe.

My guess had been that a lot of mothers then wanted girls, like in the later-generation lyrics to "I'm a Boy." And this was a way of compromising.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

There's a lot to think about in what you say. I wonder if anyone has researched this androgyny-style fashion for young boys around the turn of the century? (Well, not the turn of THIS century, guess that phrase has to be qualified).

There's a photo of HP Lovecraft in deCamp's biography. Little Howard is about a year or so old, wearing a white dress and with shoulder-length blonde curls. Of course Lovecraft turned out perfectly normal and well-adjusted..

[leikomgwtfbbq.insanejournal.com]

I thought that picture looked familiar! I couldn't quite place it, though.

[bwmedia.wordpress.com (from insanejournal.com)]

I'm just glad it stopped long before I was a kid. :D

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

It was my impression it lasted till about WW1. Which I think was also what killed long hairstyles of most kinds for a while, but particularly on boys and men.

FDR, though, dressed that way is particularly funny. Though you may want to image-zoom here:

[brandiweed.livejournal.com (from insanejournal.com)]

Joe Orlando looks a little like Rowan Atkinson, doesn't he?

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

I was thinking Joe Pesci, 1981.

[morgana006.insanejournal.com]

Wow, those Buster Brown strips are neat.

You can tell that whoever drew it was used to a different sort of art - I'm guessing commercial illustration, probably. But it's experimenting with little cartoon details, like with the facial expressions and eyes. The contrast with the old-style faces is a little off-putting.

[dr_hermes.insanejournal.com]

Yes, this was at the dawn of comics as we know them. The earliest artists had indeed worked mostly for advertising or children's books.

[jlroberson.insanejournal.com]

It's actually one of the very, very first: Richard Outcault, who in HOGAN'S ALLEY (where the Yellow Kid came from) had depicted lower-class kids, whereas here he had moved to upper-class audiences.