Moon Mullins
Moon Mullins is an American comic strip which had a run as both a daily and Sunday feature from June 19, 1923 to June 2, 1991. Syndicated by the Chicago Tribune/New York News Syndicate, the strip depicts the lives of diverse lowbrow characters who reside at the Schmaltz boarding house. The central character, Moon, is a would-be prizefighter—perpetually strapped for cash but with a roguish appetite for vice and high living. Moon took a room in the boarding house at 1323 Wump Street in 1924 and never left, staying on for 67 years. The strip was created by cartoonist Frank Willard.
Origins and history
Frank Henry Willard was born on September 21, 1893, in Anna, Illinois, the son of a physician, who early on determined to become a cartoonist. After attending the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago in 1913, he was a staff artist with the Chicago Herald, where he drew the Sunday kids' page Tom, Dick and Harry and another strip, Mrs. Pippin's Husband. He next wrote and drew The Outta Luck Club for King Features Syndicate.In The Comics, Coulton Waugh described Willard's art style as "gritty-looking." In 2003, the Scoop newsletter documented the 1923 events that led to the creation of the strip:
Willard was in tune with the working class characters he created, as noted by David Westbrook in From Hogan's Alley to Coconino County: Four Narratives of the Early Comic Strip:
Characters and story
- Moon Mullins: With his big eyes, plaid pants, perpetual cigar and yellow derby hat, Moon is an amiable roughneck. He haunts saloons, racetracks and pool halls, mangles the English language with Jazz Age slang, and gets into endless scrapes looking for an easy buck or a hot dame. Moon himself is a low-rent but likeable sort of riff-raff, involved in get-rich schemes and bootleg whiskey, crap games and staying out all night with disreputable friends. None of the roughhousing was fatal or even particularly threatening, however. Indeed, the gentleness of the situational humor behind all the characters' rough edges kept the strip on an even keel. The name "Moonshine" referenced Mullins as a drinker and gambler during Prohibition.
- Kayo: Moon's street urchin kid brother, who sleeps in an open dresser drawer. Kayo is usually clad in suspenders, polka dot pants and a black derby. Pint-sized Kayo is wise beyond his years and even a bit of a cynic. His plain-speaking, matter-of-fact bluntness is a frequent source of comedy.
- Emmy Plushbottom: the nosy, lanky, spinsterish landlady who likes to put on airs. She finally married on October 6, 1933 and became Lady Plushbottom. She says "My stars" and "For pity sakes" a lot, but her trademark line—always delivered after a putdown—is "I'll smack your sassy face!"
- Willie: Introduced in 1927, Moon's long lost, no-account uncle wears a checkered suit and is perpetually unshaven. Willie, who would disappear for months at a time, prefers the hobo life—despite being married and half-domesticated. His only occupation seems to be the avoidance of physical labor and confrontations with his formidable wife, Mamie.
- Mamie: Miss Schmaltz's burly, no-nonsense washwoman and cook. Her rolled-up sleeves reveal a conspicuous star tattoo. She's the only featured character of the working class cast who actually works. Mamie is usually tolerant of her errant husband, but she can be dangerous when riled—much to Willie's dismay.
- Lord Plushbottom: Willard introduced him because Patterson thought tossing a well-bred Englishman into that shabby crowd had great comic possibilities. Plushbottom initially appeared as a man of wealth, whom Emmy pursued for 10 years before their marriage. Afterward he moved in, in apparently reduced circumstances, but never discarded his evening clothes, spats and top hat for everyday wear.
- Egypt: Emmy's beautiful flapper niece with the bobbed Louise Brooks coiffure, and Moon's sometime girlfriend.
- Mushmouth: Moon's pal and much-maligned step-and-fetch-it.
- Kitty Higgins: the star of Willard's "topper" strip about a precocious little girl and her maid, Pauline. Kitty eventually joined the Moon Mullins cast as Kayo's girlfriend.
- Professor Byrrd: an erudite, tweed-suited academic
- Myna Byrrd: the Professor's lovely brunette daughter
- Miss Swivel: a sexy blonde stenographer, frequently pursued by Moon
- Mr. Doodle: an eccentric, temperamental artist
- Joke: a cab driver
The Sunday page's topper strip, Kitty Higgins, ran from December 14, 1930 to 1973.
Later years
Ferdinand "Ferd" Johnson began as Willard's assistant a few months after the strip began in 1923. Starting with the lettering, then the backgrounds, Johnson gradually progressed to the point where he was handling the entire operation; but it was only after Willard's death that he began signing it. When Willard died suddenly on January 11, 1958, the Tribune Syndicate hired Johnson to helm the strip. Willard's first credited strip ran on March 3, 1958.Ferd Johnson was born December 18, 1905, in Spring Creek, Pennsylvania. Johnson became interested in cartooning after winning the Erie Dispatch-Herald cartoon contest at the age of 12. After finishing high school in 1923 he attended the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts, but left school after only three months to take an assistant's job at the Chicago Tribune with Willard. While assisting on Moon Mullins, Johnson remained active with other Tribune projects. He created several comic strip features for the Syndicate—Texas Slim and Lovey-Dovey —did sports illustration work, and produced advertising cartoons. In 1940, he revived Texas Slim in Texas Slim and Dirty Dalton, which ran for 18 years.
By the time he took Moon Mullins, it had evolved from long story continuities to a gag-a-day strip. In 1978, Ferd's son, Tom Johnson, signed on as his assistant. Ferd Johnson stayed with the strip until it came to an end upon his retirement in 1991.
Decline and end
Moon Mullins appeared in 350 papers at its height but declined to 50. Johnson said, “They just kept dropping off because it's so damn old. The new ones come out and the editors want to make room for them, so the old ones get dumped. And Moon sure qualifies that way." In April 1991, the Chicago Tribune dropped the strip, and the Tribune Media Syndicate told Johnson that it was the end. The last strip ran on Sunday, 2 June 1991.Licensing and promotion
Comic books and reprints
The strip was reprinted in a long-running series of Cupples & Leon books, Big Little Books and comic books for Dell Comics and later, the American Comics Group. Dover Publications reprinted a collection of the daily strips in 1976, consisting of the third and fifth Cupples & Leon books. Representative samples of Moon Mullins daily continuity were featured in Great Comics Syndicated by the Daily News-Chicago Tribune, and The Smithsonian Collection of Newspaper Comics. The latter volume also reproduces several full-color Sunday pages. Comic strip historian Bill Blackbeard edited a series of strip reprints for SPEC Productions.Merchandise and advertising
Moon Mullins merchandising began when agent Toni Mendez arranged a licensing deal for Kayo suspenders. The wave of products that followed included such items as a series of Kellogg's Pep Cereal pins, a Milton Bradley board game, salt and pepper shakers, perfume bottles, Christmas lights, bisque toothbrush holders, a set of German nodder figures, carnival chalkware statues, a wind-up toy handcar, oilcloth and celluloid Kayo dolls, coloring books and a series of jigsaw puzzles.Kayo Chocolate Drink was the name of a bottled chocolate soft drink. Created in 1929 by Aaron Pashkow of Chicago, it was manufactured for several decades, and featured Kayo Mullins on its colorful label. It survives as a powdered hot chocolate mix made by Superior Coffee and Tea for the foodservice market.