Two years ago we launched this occasional feature, “What Came Next –?”, in which we display roughly a week’s worth of strips that came immediately after the last ones printed in some of our Library of American Comics volumes. Having previously looked at What Came Next for Scorchy Smith, King Aroo, Secret Agent X-9, Bob Montana’s 1960s Archie, Polly and Her Pals, and most recently Red Barry, we now offer you a look at the strips that follow the conclusion of our 2014 LOAC Essentials edition of the highly-regarded Bungle Family, from the first week of January 1931.
After closing the books on 1930 and beginning the new year with an unusual two-tiered Thursday offering, the series sees its stars, George and Jo Bungle, confronting the mystery of new tenants in their apartment building. As you’ll see, Mr. and Mrs. Bungle have a distinctive way of making acquaintance while sticking their noses into the business of their new neighbors, the Doodles! As an extra bonus, we’re including a copy of the January 4th, 1931 Sunday page; it appears below the dailies, since the Bungle Sunday page offers vignettes that occur outside the Monday through Saturday continuity. (Click each image for an isolated view.)
Fourteen more years of Bungle hijinks followed, but this tiny slice gives a sense of creator Harry Tuthill’s vision, a vision shared by television comedies such as The Honeymooners, which continued to bring a “lower-middle-class” view of domestic life into American households long after Tuthill retired in 1945,
