People sometimes ask why these old comics are still relatable, and part of the answer is: selection bias! Namely, those of us who post them tend to select those that we find relatable. To highlight that, here are all the Everett True comics on the Library of Congress site that came out on October 26 (of various years). These are not cleaned up or even cropped from their newspaper:
- Everett True doesn’t give up his seat! 1905. Inconsistent with how he acts in future years
- Everett True complains to Mrs True 1906. A candidate for selection
- Everett True berates an employee 1908. Not very good behavior.
- Everett True discusses tariffs. 1910. Kind of relevant to current US politics. But the joke isn’t that great.
- Everett True objects to a preacher’s language. 1910. Probably more relevant back in the day.
- Everett True pushes past a guy. 1914. Kind of funny, but not really all that exciting
- Everett True wants to get waited on. 1914. Maybe kind of relateable… not really though.
- Everett True objects to a card game. 1914. I don’t really get it, but I don’t play cards…
- Everett True doesn’t do chores. 1916. Only slightly relateable
- Everett True objects to a dating couple. 1916. wtf?
- Everett True beats up a drunk who doesn’t buy a Liberty Loan. 1917. Kind of dated.
- Everett True beats up another guy who didn’t buy a Liberty Bond. 1917. Also kind of dated. Note that the quality of this image is very poor.
- Everett True beats up a guy who wakes him up. 1918. Dated, kind of…
- Everett True objects to tipping. 1918. Very relevant, though they seemed to tip differently back then. A candidate for selection.
- Everett True freaks out on the phone. 1921. I don’t really get this one, I think he was listening to “hold music”?
- Everett True gets called to bail out a friend who was speeding. 1921. A candidate for selection.
- Everett True can’t get a word in. 1921. A candidate for selection.
- Everett True irritates Mrs True. 1921. Would be a candidate for selection but I’m not crazy about Mrs True referring to his “brutality” - it sounds like he’s abusive (which he isn’t shown to be).
- Everett True has gout. 1922. Wat is gout? I thought only Kings of England got it. Seems dated.
- Everett True hates jazz. 1922. seems weird. I think jazz back then was like rock n roll was later on?
SO TO SUMMARIZE, out of 20 candidates, only 4 of these are candidates for selection. I’d probably pick the one related to the dangers of speeding, because it might appeal to the [email protected] crowd (of which I am one!) Or maybe the one about tipping, since the image is a lot cleaner. But many of the other ones are dated, some don’t make sense, and some even present Everett in a very unflattering light.
Another thing to think about is that this may not be a complete selection of the comics that could be available. Some might only be in newspapers that are not in the Library of Congress’ archives. Some might not have been selected for publication by the editors of the papers that are (because I think a batch of comics would be sent to the newspapers periodically, and the editors would then fit one in whenever they had room). And some, like that one example from 1917, might be in such poor condition that it couldn’t be cleaned up enough. I think this is a type of survivorship bias, but I’m not sure. Anyway, I hope that was interesting! And if it wasn’t, then… OUTBURST.jpg.
EDIT: I should have ended this by saying: as you can see, there are plenty of comics that aren’t chosen, but maybe you see some that you think are worthwhile! If so please feel free to post it! Just take a screencap and crop, look for more comics here:
- library of congress (older interface)
- library of congress (newer interface)
- collection - july 15 1905 to sept 14 1909, 494 comics
- collection, 1907, 94 pages
The phone one: the 🎶🎵 isn’t really music, just the singsong voice of the operator saying, “Line’s busy!” for the 4th time. He’s been trying and trying to get his call through, so it damn sure is busy! Remember there was no voicemail or Call Waiting, and it cost money for each call.
The card game is Bridge, which is called that because the players on opposite sides of the table are a team, who have to work together to win but can’t actually look at the other one’s cards. I’m no expert, but his partner set him up to lose badly with impossible bids.
Gout is associated with obesity and age, who’d imagine it could affect a slim youth like Everett True?
I didn’t read the article associated, but I did like the office cat on the gout page.
Office Cat! Makes me happy every time I see it. I’m pretty sure it was a syndicated column of thoughts and observations by “Junius” whose real name might have been “Edgar Allan Moss.” I haven’t tracked down much more info, though.
Oh, that makes sense, about the phone operator. The thing is, when I’m looking at these comics I’m not spending too much time on the first pass. (Plus, I’m usually watching a movie at the same time.) Well, sometimes a detail will catch me and then I’ll spend the next half-hour going down a rabbithole. Anyway, when I’ve narrowed it down to 4-5 I’ll look at each of them a lot closer.
Anyone can get gout! It’s a swelling of the joints caused by eating a lot of organ meat and such. I first learned about it from an episode of King of the Hill lol
Wah! Sounds painful! That’s it, I’m cutting down my meat intake for sure.
The cards one is pretty good. You guys need to learn how to play 500
I am surprised you found most of these unrelatable.
Don’t forget his opposition to women’s suffrage
Oh Everett
The dating one was about a guy whose last wife had died. Everett was accusing him of being a real taskmaster and working his last wife to death, so warning the new lady off of a bad situation.
I’d say it was a candidate.
Yeah, on closer look it’s pretty interesting… hey, you should post it! Just do a screencap and crop, no problem!
Even after accounting for selection bias, it’s remarkable how many of these still fit today. Go look at any other 1920s comic and try to find as many relevant bits as Mr. True offers. They were tapping into universal truths.
ADDENDUM: Oops I missed a couple, all from 1915:
- Everett True objects to the manager - OK, probably wouldn’t be selected
- Everett True doesn’t like a gossip - not bad. Might be a selection candidate, though probably woudln’t make the final cut
- Everett True objects to the manager - duplicate of the above, (i.e. same comic but in a different newspaper)
- Everett True doesn’t like a gossip - duplicate
- Everett True doesn’t like a gossip - another duplicate
