Today's Classic Comic: O.U. Absentminded, by John Randolph Bray
Created | Updated Last Week
Today's Classic Comic: O.U. Absentminded, by John Randolph Bray
From the Washington, DC, Evening Star, 20 February 1910. See, there are worse jokes than in the h2g2 Post.
The cartoonist for 'Mr OU Absentminded' was John Randolph Bray (1879-1978), who attended the Detroit School of Art and was later a farmer in upstate New York.
Comics historian Alan Holtz doesn't think much of 'Mr OU Absentminded.' He says the absentminded (ADHD?) jokes had been done to death. He says, 'The dismal Mr. O.U. Absentmind lasted a long time in one of the secondary McClure sections, proving that the syndicate really didn't care much what they used to take up space. Readers were blissfully relieved of it after November 26 1911. . . '
Still, you and I can mine these awful attempts at humour for what they really are: evidence of how material culture shapes everyday experience.
The Lost Collar Button
 |
