University Missourian., 1908-11-18
BOSTON NEWSPAPER
D|SCARDS COMICS
Sunday Supplement Has Had
Its Day, Says Herald
Editorial.
NEW YORK DISCUSSES MOVE
World Editor Believes the
Pictures May Be a Force
for Real Good.

Sunday comic supplement. And men
in the offices OF New York newspapers,
where the colored picture section, full
of Katzenjammer Kids, Tiny Tads, the
Newlyweds, etc, has come to be looked
upon as indispensable equally with the
editorial page and the sporting columns,
are discussing the move with interest.
In announcing it's stand, the Boston
Herald says:
To-day the Herald abandons the
comic supplement. That accompani-
ment of Sunday newspaperdom has had
its day. We discard it as we would
throw aside any mechanism that had
reached the end of it's usefulness, or
any feature that had ceased to fulfill
the purpose of attraction.
Comic supplements have ceased to be
comic. They have become as vulgar in
design as they are tawdry in color.
There is no longer any semblance of art
in them, and if there are any ideals
they are low and descending lower"
Albert Payson Terhune, acting art ed
itor of the World, who has had years
of experience in newspaper magazine
work, holds decidedly to the opinion
that comic supplement is worth. re-
tanning Mr. Terhune thinks that the
supplement, properly handled, is a tre-
mendous force for real good.
Primarily for Children.
I'm the days of the old Egyptians"
said Mr.. Terhune, men inscribed Gu
rious, quaint hieroglyphics on obelisks
and pyramids, to recount the stories
of their deeds. They were very primi-
tive, these hieroglyphics, because the
men who wrote them were primitive.
Primitive men could only appreciate
and think of primitive things. Now,
the Sunday comic supplement is pri-
marily for the most primitive people on
earth-the children. 1t is designed for
Youngsters who have not had time to
acquire much of an education, yet, and
for older children who have had their
educational opportunities crippled,
through one cause or another.
Nobody contends that the colored
comic supplement is artistic. 1t isn't.
1t isn't for you and it isn't for me. 1t
is for the people who don't care for
fine shades of humor, because they can't
appreciate them. The man who finds
Mark Twain, for instance, too subtle
for his understanding, has no difficulty
in laughing at the right moment when
he reads of the adventures of Little
Memo.
Necessarily Glaring and Gaudy.
"It is true that the comic supplement
is glaring and gaudy, that its colors
blaze out at one, but the people who
read it, who really get the most pleas
ure out of it, are the sort who would
not find it interesting otherwise. You
hear it said that the comics often teach
lessons of immortality or disobedience.
| do not think so. 1 doubt if you will
find anything in the supplements, espe-
cially any feature which is a success,
that is more harmful than the opening
words of Mark Twain's autobiography.
Il don't remember the actual words,
but Twain begins by saying that Will
liam Dean HOwells had called on him,
recently, and that he (Twain) had told
him he was thinking of writing his
Good scheme; go
ahead replied Howells. And Twain re-
sumes: Pm glad Howells said that,
because if he hadn't 1 should have had
to throw him out of the window. My
mind was all made up before spoke
isn't it conceivable that the idea of
throwing a seventy year old man out of
a window could do as much harm to a
weak minded person as any possibly vi
cious comic seriess Mind you, I am not
that in either case the weak
minded person would be influenced for
the worse. 1 am simply stating that
think Mark Twain's broad burlesque
is as open to Hypothetical criticism as,
for example, the Foxy Grandpa series.
The Lesson of "Foxy Grandpa"
another thing critics of the comic
do not take into account
IS that all the series that are success
jul, that have long runs of popular
'avor, are strongly moral. The Foxy
Grandpa series, which has been much
really taught trenchant
moral lesson. Reduced to bald Ian
yuage, it told of two bad boys who tried
% play tricks on nice old man. They
we're always putting up jokes on him,
to make him look ridiculous.