Willie Westinghouse Edison Smith, the Boy Inventor - 41 Newspaper pages & strips - 1911

Very rare surviving episodes from Sunday Comics sections, featuring Willie Westinghouse Edison Smith, the Boy Inventor by Frank Crane on a half page from 1911 ! 41 half pages

No comics on the back

Fragile pages

Frank Crane was an early 20th-century U.S. newspaper cartoonist and art editor. He is best known for his Sunday gag comics for the New York Herald, most notably 'Willie Westinghouse Edison Smith, the Boy Inventor' (1900-1907, 1908-1914), 'Muggsy' (1901-1915) and 'Val the Ventriloquist' (1906-1908). He also continued Joseph Lemon's 'Professor Bughouse'.

All of Crane's comics ran during the first two decades of the 20th century. His longest-running comic strip was 'Willie Westinghouse Edison Smith, the Boy Inventor' (1900-1907, 1908-1914) which debuted on 17 May 1900. The gag comic revolves around a boy genius, named after the electrical energy pioneers Thomas Alva Edison and George Westinghouse. Each episode Willie invents a crafty new gadget, which he tells about in a letter addressed to his friend Tommy. However, the inventions usually go spectacularly wrong or have unforeseen side effects. 'Willie Westinghouse' was originally a text comic, with the text appearing underneath the images. As balloon comics rose in popularity, Crane eventually added speech balloons. The comic originally ran in The New York Herald, until Crane left the paper on 20 July 1902. From 2 November of that same year on, 'Willie Westinghouse' ran in The Philadelphia North American until 25 August 1907. After a year-long hiatus 'Willie' returned to the paper's pages and ran until its eventual cancellation on 29 November 1914. Allan Holtz of the Stripper's Guide blog discovered that reprints of the series also appeared in the Sunday sections distributed to newspapers by World Color Printing between 4 July 1915 until somewhere in 1918. One book collection was published in 1906 by Frederick Stokes.

The pages are in good condition, although wrinkles, tears, flaking and missing pieces may occur.

Will be shipped with track&trace.

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