Cap Stubbs and Tippie Daily - 04/08/1941

I picked up a Heritage Auctions lot consisting of six "Cap Stubbs and Tippie" daily comic strips by Edwina Dumm. This set of episodes delivers the series usual humorous, heartfelt family hijinks. While Cap Stubbs and his perky pup Tippie are always getting into trouble, his mom and grandma are just as busy getting into everyone else's business!

Frances Edwina Dumm (1893 – April 28, 1990) was a writer-artist who drew the comic strip Cap Stubbs and Tippie for nearly five decades; making her one of the earliest female syndicated cartoonists. She used her middle name for the signature on her comic strip, signed simply Edwina. Dumm is also notable as America's first full-time female editorial cartoonist, hired in 1915 by the short-lived Republican newspaper, the Columbus "Monitor", until that paper folded in 1917. She was subsequently hired by the George Matthew Adams Service to create Cap Stubbs and Tippie which ran from from August 21, 1918, to September 3, 1966.

These dailies are dated 5-12, 8-11, 11-24, 1-10, 1-11, and 4-8, but the exact years are not indicated. The Heritage listing information placed these strips from the 1950s-60s, although in hand they seemed a tad older. However, four of the six strips have penciled notes in the margins as to the day of the week - Friday for 1/10, Saturday for 1/11, Tuesday for 4/8 and Monday for 8/11. So, I used this information as my starting point. Looking at years in the 1950s-60s time frame, 1964 works for three of the day/date combinations, but 1958 works for all four. I went to newspapers.com and pulled up papers which had the strips for those dates, and no matches. I then checked 1964 with the same result. I then picked just the 1/10 strip to focus on, and started looking at that date working backwards from 1966 when the strip ended. I found it in 1941. The other three strips with day/date also hit for that year. The remaining two strips with date only I figured must be close, and both were found quickly the following year in 1942 papers. Thirty minutes searching has confirmed all six publication years, and I'll be penciling those dates on the backs of the strips.

Detective work and historical research is another piece of our hobby that I do enjoy!