MUTT AND JEFF DAILY 8-26-1958

Growing up, the daily and Sunday news papers always had comic strips that I loved to read. Mutt & Jeff weren't hip or trendy, but they were one of those that I always had to read. I have since found some older strips than those in the 70s and 80s and they actually were clever and even funny.

This specific strip was published before I was born but when I saw it on Comic Link, I put in a bid. And amazingly, won. So I'm truly thrilled to get another small piece of my childhood. And after getting it and seeing it firsthand, I was truly admiring the workmanship of Al Smith. Although "of that period", it is fantastic!

For historical purposes, I like to provide some background in case someone isn't aware of the piece. So Wikipedia to the rescue.

"Bud Fisher (who created the characters) appeared to lose all interest in his Mutt and Jeff strip during the 1930s, and after Fisher's assistant Ed Mack died in 1932, the job of creating the strip fell to Al Smith.[6][7] The strip retained Fisher's signature until his death, however, and not until December 7, 1954, was the strip signed by Smith.

In the introduction to Forever Nuts: The Early Years of Mutt & Jeff, comic strip historian Allan Holtz gave the following reason for the strip's longevity and demise:

The strip's waning circulation got a shot in the arm in the 1950s when President Eisenhower sang its praises, and then again in the 1970s when a nostalgia craze swept the nation. It took the 1980s, a decade focused on the here and now, and a final creative change on the strip when even Al Smith had had enough, to finally allow the strip the rest it had deserved for decades."