Bungle Family - 1933, May 28

This must be one of the most unusual pieces of comic art. Unusual insofar as the panel borders of the strip (featuring George Bungle worrying over a jigsaw puzzle) and the word balloons are in the shape of puzzle pieces!

The first months of 1933 represented the peak of a craze for jigsaw puzzles in the U.S. Contemporary accounts claim that the American public was doing 10 million new puzzles each week. Naturally the puzzle theme showed up in movies, song sheets, magazine covers, cartoons and comic strips.

This piece was found, together with other originals, in a barn in St. Louis that was being torn down in c. 1990. Since Tuthill lived and worked there we can suppose that they were forgotten on that property.