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Here Comes the Rockefellerphant
In a previous post I noted a rare instance of contemporary reference in Gustave Verbeek’s Terrors of the Tiny Tads. Here is another from the strip for 19 May 1907, a few weeks after the appearance of the “Cowboisterous Kangaroosevelt Bear:”
Here comes the Rockefellerphant, so wealthy and so bold,
His stomach like a money bag, all full of shining gold.He eats the Cinnamoney tree that grows upon the plains.
The Tiny Tads they see him, and they envy him his gains.They tempt him with Subpoeanuts, but he turns away with fright,
And after following him for miles, they lose him in the night.
Click on the image for the full strip which — as is often the case with the Terrors of the Tiny Tads — ends with the Tads feasting on one of the “jumbled beasts” that live in their land.
Meanwhile, in his indispensable Stripper’s Guide blog, Allan Holtz has a post on the 1909 rerun of a series Verbeek had published in Judge in 1900-03, not 1901-02 as Holtz states. Three examples of the original pages can be seen on the Ohio State University’s Treasury of Fine Art:
- 22 December 1900 (The Dog And The Glove And The Bug)
- 28 June 1902 (A Striped-Bass Strategem)
- 19 December 1903 (Cupid Learns Something From A New York Girl)
(Make sure you read them in Full Screen XXL mode.)
Verbeek had been producing such wordless strips for several years since — according to Andy Konkykru — a very similar one, “The Hunter’s Strategy,” appeared in Harper’s Round Table’s Annual for 1897.
