As you may have seen, last time in this space we began a series showing examples of how the newspaper comics pages marked the winter holiday season during the latter 20th Century. We began by rewinding the clock eighty years and featuring strips from December 25, 1944 (when World War II was still dominating the headlines); now we jump forward a decade to feature dailies from 1954 (after the Korean Conflict had come to an end). Below, we’ve included some series we also featured in the previous posting — Gasoline Alley, Li’l Abner, Joe Palooka — so you can compare and contrast their celebratory wishes, separated by ten years of stories and world events. We also mixed in a couple new strips, Rex Morgan, M.D. and Dick Tracy, to offer up a bit of variety, and kept Milton Caniff featured, even though in the intervening years he had forsaken Terry and the Pirates for Steve Canyon — the series had changed over time, but the tenor of the Cartoonist in Chief’s message remains consistent.
What do holiday strips from sixty years ago look like? Join us back in this space by December 13th, when we unveil our selections from 1964 …
