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Ledger Syndicate
The Public Ledger Syndicate (known simply as the Ledger Syndicate) was a syndication company operated by the Philadelphia Public Ledger that was in business from 1915 to circa 1950 (outlasting the newspaper itself, which ceased publishing in 1942). The Ledger Syndicate distributed comic strips, panels, and columns to the United States and the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia.[citation needed] The syndicate also distributed material from the Curtis Publishing Company's (the Public Ledger's corporate parent) other publications, including The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, and The Country Gentleman.
From 1933 to 1941, the Ledger Syndicate was a key contributor to the burgeoning comic book industry, with many of the company's strips published in both the seminal Funnies on Parade, and what popular culture historians consider the first true American comic book, Famous Funnies.
For whatever reason, the Ledger Syndicate favored comic strips with alliterative titles, including Babe Bunting, Daffy Demonstrations, Deb Days, Dizzy Dramas, Hairbreadth Harry, Modish Mitzi, and Somebody's Stenog.
The Public Ledger Syndicate was founded in 1915 by Public Ledger publisher Cyrus H. K. Curtis, The first big comic strip success was A. E. Hayward's Somebody's Stenog, launched in late 1918.
The Syndicate was particularly active in the 1920s, when it launched a number of comic strips, including such long-running titles as Connie, Dizzy Dramas, Dumb-Bells, Hairbreadth Harry, and Modish Mitzi.
In 1933, just as the concept of "comic books" was getting off the ground, Eastern Color Printing began producing small comic broadsides for the Ledger Syndicate, printing Sunday color comics from 7 in × 9 in (180 mm × 230 mm) plates. Eastern Color sales manager Harry I. Wildenberg and his coworkers realized that two such plates would fit on a tabloid-sized page; later that year, Wildenberg created the first modern-format comic book when idly folding a newspaper into halves and then into quarters, finding that a convenient book size. Shortly thereafter, Eastern Color published Funnies on Parade, which reprinted in color several comic strips licensed from the Ledger Syndicate, the McNaught Syndicate, Associated Newspapers, and the Bell Syndicate, including the Ledger Syndicate strips Hairbreadth Harry, Nipper, High-Gear Homer, and Somebody's Stenog. Eastern Color neither sold this periodical nor made it available on newsstands, but rather sent it out free as a promotional item to consumers who mailed in coupons clipped from Procter & Gamble soap and toiletries products. The company printed 10,000 copies, and it was a great success.
Following that success, the Ledger Syndicate became a regular source of material for Eastern Color's ongoing anthology series Famous Funnies. The Ledger Syndicate provided strips for Famous Funnies issues #1–87, from 1934 to 1941, including A. E. Hayward's Somebody's Stenog and The Back-Seat Driver; Frank Godwin's Connie, The Wet Blanket, Babe Bunting, Roy Powers, Vignettes of Life, and War on Crime; F. O. Alexander's Hairbreadth Harry and High-Gear Homer; Clare Victor Dwiggins' Footprints on the Sands of Time; Joe Bowers' Dizzy Dramas; Gar (Schmitt)'s Dumb-Bells; and Walt Munson & Kemp Starrett's Such is Life.
Not so happily, the Ledger Syndicate was one of a number of syndicates in 1936–1937 which rejected Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster's proposed Superman comic strip.
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Ledger Syndicate
The Public Ledger Syndicate (known simply as the Ledger Syndicate) was a syndication company operated by the Philadelphia Public Ledger that was in business from 1915 to circa 1950 (outlasting the newspaper itself, which ceased publishing in 1942). The Ledger Syndicate distributed comic strips, panels, and columns to the United States and the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Sweden, New Zealand, and Australia.[citation needed] The syndicate also distributed material from the Curtis Publishing Company's (the Public Ledger's corporate parent) other publications, including The Saturday Evening Post, Ladies' Home Journal, and The Country Gentleman.
From 1933 to 1941, the Ledger Syndicate was a key contributor to the burgeoning comic book industry, with many of the company's strips published in both the seminal Funnies on Parade, and what popular culture historians consider the first true American comic book, Famous Funnies.
For whatever reason, the Ledger Syndicate favored comic strips with alliterative titles, including Babe Bunting, Daffy Demonstrations, Deb Days, Dizzy Dramas, Hairbreadth Harry, Modish Mitzi, and Somebody's Stenog.
The Public Ledger Syndicate was founded in 1915 by Public Ledger publisher Cyrus H. K. Curtis, The first big comic strip success was A. E. Hayward's Somebody's Stenog, launched in late 1918.
The Syndicate was particularly active in the 1920s, when it launched a number of comic strips, including such long-running titles as Connie, Dizzy Dramas, Dumb-Bells, Hairbreadth Harry, and Modish Mitzi.
In 1933, just as the concept of "comic books" was getting off the ground, Eastern Color Printing began producing small comic broadsides for the Ledger Syndicate, printing Sunday color comics from 7 in × 9 in (180 mm × 230 mm) plates. Eastern Color sales manager Harry I. Wildenberg and his coworkers realized that two such plates would fit on a tabloid-sized page; later that year, Wildenberg created the first modern-format comic book when idly folding a newspaper into halves and then into quarters, finding that a convenient book size. Shortly thereafter, Eastern Color published Funnies on Parade, which reprinted in color several comic strips licensed from the Ledger Syndicate, the McNaught Syndicate, Associated Newspapers, and the Bell Syndicate, including the Ledger Syndicate strips Hairbreadth Harry, Nipper, High-Gear Homer, and Somebody's Stenog. Eastern Color neither sold this periodical nor made it available on newsstands, but rather sent it out free as a promotional item to consumers who mailed in coupons clipped from Procter & Gamble soap and toiletries products. The company printed 10,000 copies, and it was a great success.
Following that success, the Ledger Syndicate became a regular source of material for Eastern Color's ongoing anthology series Famous Funnies. The Ledger Syndicate provided strips for Famous Funnies issues #1–87, from 1934 to 1941, including A. E. Hayward's Somebody's Stenog and The Back-Seat Driver; Frank Godwin's Connie, The Wet Blanket, Babe Bunting, Roy Powers, Vignettes of Life, and War on Crime; F. O. Alexander's Hairbreadth Harry and High-Gear Homer; Clare Victor Dwiggins' Footprints on the Sands of Time; Joe Bowers' Dizzy Dramas; Gar (Schmitt)'s Dumb-Bells; and Walt Munson & Kemp Starrett's Such is Life.
Not so happily, the Ledger Syndicate was one of a number of syndicates in 1936–1937 which rejected Jerry Siegel & Joe Shuster's proposed Superman comic strip.