PASSING PARADE: People on Paper

A forgotten history of comic strips, on film…

By PETER BOSCH

It’s time to hop into the Wayback Machine and take a trip to the past: 1945, to be precise, 80 years ago, when people were inside a movie theater watching shorts before the film they came to see.

One of these was part of a long-running series by John Nesbitt from 1938 to 1949: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer’s Passing Parade, in which Nesbitt wrote and narrated a look at events and people of the past and present. This time, however, the subject of his 11-minute short was famous comic strips of the time and their artists.

Back when even film shorts and cartoons rated a movie poster of their own. Courtesy, Heritage Auctions.

In “People on Paper,” Nesbitt gave us a live look at 13 (!) major newspaper strip artists at their drawing boards. It’s an interesting short, featuring Hal Foster (Prince Valiant), Al Capp (Li’l Abner), Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates), Chester Gould (Dick Tracy), Harold Gray (Little Orphan Annie), Chic Young (Blondie), and others.

Enjoy this look at the popular comic-strip artists of the day!

MORE

— POPEYE AND HIS PAPA: A Birthday Tribute to the Great E.C. SEGAR. Click here.

— TERRY AND THE PIRATES: A 90th ANNIVERSARY Salute to One of Comics’ Greatest Strips. Click here.

13th Dimension contributor-at-large PETER BOSCH’s first book, American TV Comic Books: 1940s-1980s – From the Small Screen to the Printed Pagewas published by TwoMorrows. (You can buy it here.) A sequel, American Movie Comic Books: 1930s-1970s — From the Silver Screen to the Printed Page, is due in 2025. (You can pre-order here.) Peter has written articles and conducted celebrity interviews for various magazines and newspapers. He lives in Hollywood.

Author: Dan Greenfield

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3 Comments

  1. It’s interesting that most of those comic strips are still around 80 years later.
    You can still find Bringing Up Father on Comic Kingdom.

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  2. I think I saw this on Turner Classic Movies. It’s cool to see the old comics artists at work on their creations.

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