So later on, he chose settled on Mickey Dugan as being the name for the Kid.

Here's another potential story for you. Paul Cornell apparently originally planned to feature an "evil" cameo by real-world politician and leader of the Conservatives (Britain's largest opposition party) David Cameron in his "Vampire State" crossover in Captain Britain and MI13.

The story is that, in contrast with the heroic depiction of the current British Prime Minister (and Cameron's rival) Gordon Brown which was shown in early issues of the series, Cameron would be shown as a craven opportunist, making a deal with Dracula to help him rule a vampire-dominated Britain.

Obviously such a partisan story was nixed somewhere along the line, and Cameron's role in the story was apparently replaced by Doctor Doom, which probably worked to the series benefit in terms of sales, as it allowed it to tie in with "Dark Reign".

There is at least some truth to this story as Cornell commented on the plotline to Wizard a few months back. Rich Johnston had previously reported the rumour in one of his columns. Cornell seems pretty forthcoming with fans' inquiries - for instance he a query on his website about an apparant David Tennant/ Doctor Who cameo in a recent MI13 issue in less than a day (it was just the artist messing around), so e-mailing him about the story might be worth a try. It would be interesting to find out who killed the cameo and whether any British political operatives got involved.

Sorry, Brian, but that's not what he's saying at all. I don't interpret Seitz's quote as trying out a new kind of ink, but a different color, which is not the same thing. Saalburg requested the same yellow ink that the paper was already using. Then, like until recently, cartoons were colored by hand using watercolor dyes and those color guides were given to the men at the presses to interpret. William J. Kelly was complaining about the wishy-washy tones that the color department (Saalburg) was giving him because Kelly knew the limitations of the physical press, and that it was hard to reproduce those tones. Then, like now, they would have to mix the different primary colors (or water them down) to produce the HUES that the color department was asking for. He was requesting solid colors because it was easier for the presses to reproduce them. In a fit of "I'll show him," (my words, not Saalburg's), Saalburg simply chose the brightest solid color available in order to solve the problem. It wasn't a question of trying out a new kind of yellow ink: it had nothing to do with the chemical composition of the ink whatsoever. It was a question of the color department understanding that the printing technology wasn't capable of reproducing subtle shades of existing colors and picking one solid color that the presses could handle. That color just happened to be yellow. If Saalburg was in another mood, it could have just as easily been blue.

As far as the evolution of the character itself goes, I repeat that Outcault did not consciously set out to create a character called either Mickey Dugan or the Yellow Kid. He drew a series of unrelated cartoons connected only by theme (poverty), and on occasion, when the mood hit him, he drew a bald kid(s) instead of some other visual shorthand. The fact that he used the name Dugan in one of them doesn't mean much: it was just a name that popped into his head. When he used it again, it just popped into his head again, much like the name "Hogan's Alley" did because it came from a popular song. There's a cartoon ("Fistic Carnival of the Cherry Hill Athletic Club") where Mickey Dugan's name is listed on a poster on a fence along with Chames Fallon, Patsey Quinn, Rosey Googleheimer and others. There is no Yellow Kid depicted in the cartoon; Outcault just needed names to fill out the poster and used whatever came to mind. Months later, when he needed to identify the character in a caption, he just recycled the name "Mickey Dugan." Until he did, the name had no more permanence than Patsey Quinn. (In fact, imagine if he had randomly chosen "Patsey Quinn" instead of "Mickey Dugan." It could have just as easily have happened!)

It's one thing to track the evolution of the creation of a character, but it's another thing to work in reverse and say that's what the creator had in mind all along. I repeat that when he threw a bald kid into a strip, he was just drawing a bald kid, and not necessarily the same bald kid. The dirty handprint on the shirt was just another visual shorthand that he saw in real life and reproduced in his artwork. I doubt if he kept a running account in his own mind of his previous cartoons and saw them all as being connected, at least not until he started putting the term "Hogan's Alley" into consecutive captions. Until that point, they were one-offs and disposable, so to say that he kept bringing the same character back and back again is viewing the past through the lens of the present. There was no such thing as continuity back then, and he was just working from cartoon to cartoon. When the facial features evolved to the point that they were both distinctive and repeated, then an argument can be made that he was consciously drawing the same character over and over again, but until that moment, my argument is that it was a different kid every time out, and nobody, especially the artist himself, was keeping score.

For my money, every "appearance" of the Yellow Kid before "Golf - The Great Society Sport As Played In Hogan's Alley," should be viewed as a prototype. From that point onward, the kid had the same facial features, the same yellow shirt, and the same dirty handprint. Whether Outcault kept reusing the character because it was his idea or because (as has been reported) people kept asking for the paper with "that yellow fella in it" is something we'll never know. If it *was* due to reader demand, that only further debunks the idea that Outcault was consciously plotting a trajectory with his character. If the former is true, then he would have been reacting, not planning ahead.

As for the whole "yellow was better for writing on it," while that's certainly true, if you note above, the Yellow Kid's early yellow appearances had no writing on them. I will allow, though, that the term "better ink" is a bit of a nebulous term here, in the sense that I am using it to mean basically any improvement in the colored ink, whether it be brighter, less smudgy, etc.

On "The Yellow Kid’s famous yellow shirt came from an experiment in yellow ink" issue he felt it was false as an improved yellow ink had been tested in the July 28, 1895 paper in particular a cartoon about a Farmer Oatcakes with a yellow background.

Blackbeard figured that yellow was a good choice because it made reading the text on the Kid's shirt easier than another color would.

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As for "The Yellow Kid led to the term “Yellow Journalism.”" he said the first use of the term "Yellow Journalism" was by Ervin Wardman* of the New York Post in a September 2, 1856, editorial about Hearst's papers covering a Hearst sponsored national bicycle marathon. The bicyclists were dressed all in yellow (Yellow Fellows).

* The similarity of the name to the Elvin Hardman you list makes me wonder about a possible typo in the book.

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As for the people commenting on The Yellow Kid not being the first comics character I believe they are confused. IIRC the Kid is famous because he appeared in the first COMIC STRIP (sequential panels in which the balloon dialogue & art are necessary to understanding of the comic) which first appeared October 25, 1896.

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As for the various bald kids in the cartoons, that's because shaving a kid's head was the easiest way to deal with head lice at the time. Eeeeeew!

Meant to add that it’s pretty amazing that Saalburg not only created the Ting Ling Kids, but is the reason why the Yellow Kid is yellow. That’s like having the same guy create both Superman and Batman.

Yeah, that definitely IS quite impressive!

That’s because it’s not Mickey Dugan. It’s just a bald kid.

A lot of historians make the mistake of looking at history in reverse (and I’m not singling you out here, Brian. You’ve just done what everyone else has done before you). They start with a confirmed appearance of the Yellow Kid and work backwards from that. They have concluded that the first time Outcault drew a bald kid, it was Mickey Dugan. Well, just because later appearances of a bald kid were identified as Mickey Dugan, that doesn’t make ALL appearances of a bald kid retroactively Mickey Dugan, especially the ones that don’t even look like him. What about the times when there were MORE than one bald kid in the same cartoon? Were they all Mickey Dugan? How would that even be possible?

I think that there is a recurring bald kid that eventually becomes "The Yellow Kid." You can typically tell by his nightshirt. And since Outcault called him "Mickey Dugan" when he named him, it's most likely that he's referring to the bald kid who appeared in one of the early strips with his parents, also named Dugan. So I think Outcault did have the future Yellow Kid in mind as a distinctive character, just not as a character who was any more special than the other characters (except perhaps he was more fun to draw!).

That said, sure, it's a good point to note for the record that there were plenty of bald kids who were NOT meant to be Dugan, such as the very first Hogan's Alley strip.

And thanks for the full Seitz quote! I edited that into the piece!

In fact, this is the first time (I think), that I've ever read the term "new journalism" in reference to anything but this movement. Can you confirm some sources on this information involving the earlier use/coining of the phrase? Also, I think it would benefit your readers greatly if you at least briefly point out the difference between the "new journalism" that you mention and the "New Journalism" that I am discussing. I'm concerned that people may end up using your information about Yellow Journalism and incorrectly connecting to the works of Mailer, Capote, et. al. Thanks, and thanks so much for a great article!

That's because it's not Mickey Dugan. It's just a bald kid.

A lot of historians make the mistake of looking at history in reverse (and I'm not singling you out here, Brian. You've just done what everyone else has done before you). They start with a confirmed appearance of the Yellow Kid and work backwards from that. They have concluded that the first time Outcault drew a bald kid, it was Mickey Dugan. Well, just because later appearances of a bald kid were identified as Mickey Dugan, that doesn't make ALL appearances of a bald kid retroactively Mickey Dugan, especially the ones that don't even look like him. What about the times when there were MORE than one bald kid in the same cartoon? Were they all Mickey Dugan? How would that even be possible?

The first time Outcault drew a bald kid, he was just drawing a bald kid. He also drew girls with pigtails. He also drew boys with hats. He was just drawing the different types of kids that he saw on the streets himself. Every time he drew a girl with pigtails, it wasn't the same girl. Every time he drew a bald kid, it wasn't the same bald kid. There was more than one bald kid in New York at the time, as shaving their heads due to lice was commonplace. It's a mistake to assume that every bald kid he ever drew was the same character, and a lot of people make it. Outcault wasn't thinking that far ahead.

As far as why the shirt was colored yellow, Don Seitz told the story himself in "Training for the Newspaper Trade" (http://www.archive.org/stream/trainingfornewsp00seitrich/trainingfornewsp00seitrich_djvu.txt) in 1916. He said,

"The " yellow " phase developed when William J. Kelly, the pressman, whose knowledge of color printing had been obtained printing specimen books for George Mather's Sons, the ink Makers, complained that he could get no results from the wishy-washy tints turned out by the art department and begged for some solid colors. About this time R. F. Outcault, a clever youth from Sandusky, Ohio, who had recently invaded New York, turned in to the Sunday editor, then Arthur Brisbane, several black and white drawings, depicting child-life in a tenement district called " Hogan's Alley." I carried Kelly's kick to C. W. Saalburg, the colorist who was painting the key plate of the "Alley," and being of quick understanding said: " All right, I'll make that kid's dress solid yellow!" ,Suiting the action to the word he dipped his brush in yellow pigment and " washed " the " kid." For once Kelly was right. The " solid color " stood out above all the colors in the comic. The " yellow kid " arrived. The success of the series led to the capture of Mr. Outcault by the rival Journal newly revived by William R. Hearst, and to a fortune for the artist. The rivalry resulting, for the World's " kid " was long continued by George B. Luks, since a notable American painter, and stamped " yellow " on an enterprise that is now common to all news-papers."

So there you have it, right from the horse's mouth, that horse being Don Seitz, the inventor of the Sunday "comic" (as in comical, not necessarily illustrated) supplement. C.W. Saalburg, incidentially, was another comics pioneer, having invented the Ting Ling Kids years before in Chicago, a feature which is credited by many as containing the first reoccurring comic/cartoon characters in newspapers, preceeding the Yellow Kid by years. The Yellow Kid's reputation as being the first was cemented (inaccurately) by Coulton Waugh when he wrote The Comics in 1947, and it has been repeated and accepted as the truth ever since, even though it isn't.

There's the word you were looking for.

-Dave

And good news about the new edition! I got the first edition when it came out! Be sure to drop me a line when the book is nearing release - we can do a bit on the blog about it!

Another week - another excellent Urban Legends column. In a weird fit of synchronicyt, I just returned from the book store with my freshly purchased copy of Was Superman a Spy? I wanted to double check some points as I'm going over edits for the Spectacular Second Edition (that's what it is officially called) of THE PHYSICS OF SUPERHEROES. Available November 2009 (who says this isn't the Marvel Age of Shameless Plugs?)

And then I swing by to see what this week's column is about, and I see that I'm being debunked! At least the timing is great, as I can easily fix this for the second edition. In my defense, I had consulted a series of books on the history of comic books, and the Yellow Kid/Yellow Journalism connection was in one of them. I was unaware of Campbell's book and clearly did not consult it.

My goal in the Introduction was to provide some background history of the genre, leading up to speculations as to why the Silver Age comics seemed to have so many correct uses of physics principles. I'm not a Historian, so I'm not surprised that I goofed here or there. I'm grateful to have the chance to correct it in the next edition.

And have you ever addressed the Urban Legend about Captain America's shield being an alloy of Vibranium and Adamantium? This one I got right - and I confirmed it with Mark Waid and Kurt Busiek.

Cheers,

Your Friendly Neighborhood Physics Professor,

Jim

Why is that a little bit of healthy self-promotion I see from our normally humble blog host?

Ha!

Self-promotion is linking to Legends Revealed and the book's Amazon listing every week!