Posted By Dan Greenfield on Jun 30, 2025 | 5 comments

MORRISON MONDAYS! celebrates OUTFIT OF THE DAY Day!

By BILL MORRISON

June 30 is OOTD Day, and that stands for “Outfit Of The Day!” So, in honor of this day that encourages us to show off our personal style, I’m thinking about the tradition of paper dolls in comic books and newspaper strips!

Since before I started reading comics (or reading anything!) I’ve had a fascination with paper dolls. I remember looking at my older sister’s paper doll books of famous actresses and seeing all the different outfits with paper tabs that she would carefully cut out and place over the figures. At that age, probably three or four, I didn’t know I’d be an artist one day, but I think the artistic impulse was there because the idea of dressing up a cardboard figure with drawings of clothing interested me in a way that plastic dress-up dolls did not (at least, not until G.I. Joe and Captain Action came along!) It was the drawings that fascinated me.

When I did start reading comics, specifically Archie Comics, I was always delighted to get a paper dolls page in one of the Archie Giant Series editions. I never cut them out and played with them, but I loved looking at the art (especially the ones drawn by Dan DeCarlo!)

I don’t recall seeing paper dolls in Sunday newspaper comics as a kid. I think by the 1960s they must have fallen out of fashion (so to speak) as strips were given less space on the page. At least, the strips that appeared in the paper my parents subscribed to, The Detroit News, didn’t feature them.  But as an adult I discovered to my delight that they were ubiquitous in strips from the ’30s and ’40s, like Brenda Starr, Reporter — whose 85th birthday happens to be today — Dixie Dugan, Terry and the Pirates, Flyin’ Jenny, Tillie the Toiler, Blondie and Dagwood, and many more.

After paper dolls faded from the Sunday funnies pages, they remained a staple of comic books in titles like Millie the Model, Betty and Veronica, Katy Keene — who just turned 80 — Patsy Walker, and My Little Margie. Any comic that featured pretty females, and even some that didn’t, occasionally had paper dolls, if only as a page filler.

Naturally, after I became a comic book artist, my love for paper dolls gave me the desire to create some of my own. The first one I tried my hand with was in Bart Simpson’s Treehouse of Horror #1, in which I drew Bart in his tighty whities, with costumes inspired by characters associated with the three guest writers of the issue, Jeff Smith, Mike Allred, and James Robinson.

Then, I drew a paper dolls page of one of my own characters, Julienne Fryes, in the third issue of my creator-owned book, Roswell, Little Green Man. My wife, Kayre Morrison provided the stylish 1940s fashion designs. In addition to being a fabulous actress and vintage big band singer, Kayre also designs and sews her own vintage fashions, so this job was right up her alley!

I also got to draw an entire book of paper dolls featuring Amy and Leela from Futurama! The book was published by Dark Horse, who had a license to create Futurama merchandise in the early 2000s. This time, the fashion designs were provided by co-producer Mili Smythe, and I handled the renderings of Leela and Amy in their unmentionables, along with their out-of-this-world fashions!

And now, here’s something I think we can really have fun with! In thinking about the topic for this week’s column, I’ve been inspired to create a new paper dolls page especially for 13th Dimension! But I’d like your help, dear reader, in deciding which comics character to feature. Please leave your suggestions in the comments, and Dan and I will decide which popular character gets the haute couture treatment from Mr. Bill of Hollywood!

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