I was born too late to enjoy Fontaine Fix's
Toonerville Folks in its heyday, but discovered the strip about thirty years ago in an anthology that I still pull out to re-read every few years. This strip, for me, epitomizes an era of small town rural America that is long past. Every character in the town of Toonerville was something of an archetype, with such unique characteristics that their personalities were deftly limned in just a few broad strokes that immediately placed them into the social milieu of the community. In some respects, later manifestations of rural America like
Petticoat Junction and
Green Acres drew on the same inspiration as Fox, but whereas in those sitcoms the characters were often simplistic stereotypes, its hard to miss the essential humanity of Fox's creations. Here's one of them, the Powerful Katrinka:
But of course, the star of the show was the Skipper, who ran the trolley that bound the little town together (though one wonders if it was all that necessary, as the place seems pretty concentrated). By turns crotchety or bend-over-backward helpful, the Skipper is one of the great comic strip characters:
Check out the beauty of the drawing on these panels-- Fox certainly knew how to convey a lot with very little detail, and it doesn't take many strips before you feel very at home in Toonerville.
The kids who populate Toonerville are every bit as critical to defining the town's character as the adults, and I'm halfway convinced that they provided a lot of the inspiration for Bill Watterson's creation of Calvin in
Calvin & Hobbes:
The copious references to contemporary baseball players provides another strong reason for why I like this strip so much:
I wonder which of today's strips we'll be able to look back on in 60 or 70 years and recognize as the best artifact of the current scene? Is there a modern-day counterpart to Fontaine Fox? Now that I think about it, Tom Batiuk's creations
Funky Winkerbean and
Crankshaft may be the closest. If you have other candidates, let me know in comments.
I was born too late to enjoy Fontaine Fix's Toonerville Folks in its heyday, but discovered the strip about thirty years ago in an anthology that I still pull out to re-read every few years. This strip, for me, epitomizes an era of small town rural America that is long past. Every character in the town of Toonerville was something of an archetype, with such unique characteristics that their personalities were deftly limned in just a few broad strokes that immediately placed them into the social milieu of the community. In some respects, later manifestations of rural America like Petticoat Junction and Green Acres drew on the same inspiration as Fox, but whereas in those sitcoms the characters were often simplistic stereotypes, its hard to miss the essential humanity of Fox's creations. Here's one of them, the Powerful Katrinka:
But of course, the star of the show was the Skipper, who ran the trolley that bound the little town together (though one wonders if it was all that necessary, as the place seems pretty concentrated). By turns crotchety or bend-over-backward helpful, the Skipper is one of the great comic strip characters:
Check out the beauty of the drawing on these panels-- Fox certainly knew how to convey a lot with very little detail, and it doesn't take many strips before you feel very at home in Toonerville.
The kids who populate Toonerville are every bit as critical to defining the town's character as the adults, and I'm halfway convinced that they provided a lot of the inspiration for Bill Watterson's creation of Calvin in Calvin & Hobbes:
The copious references to contemporary baseball players provides another strong reason for why I like this strip so much:
I wonder which of today's strips we'll be able to look back on in 60 or 70 years and recognize as the best artifact of the current scene? Is there a modern-day counterpart to Fontaine Fox? Now that I think about it, Tom Batiuk's creations Funky Winkerbean and Crankshaft may be the closest. If you have other candidates, let me know in comments.
1 comment:
John, this is great. Back in 1930 when we moved to my grandparents house,I was around 4 years old. Every morning I would get up early and go down to the kitchen where Grampa was making a pot of coffee. He got the Titusville Herald from the front porch and brought in the milk from the front steps. He would pour his acid black coffee and sit down at the table with me on his lap and, giving me sips of his coffee, he would read to me from the paper. "The Great Game Of Politics" didn't interest me but I loved it when he got to the last page and read me the adventures of the Toonerville Trolley. That comic strip was a daily gift for many years. Thanks for the memory.
Mom
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