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BOOK REVIEW! THE KATZENJAMMER KIDS by Rudolph Dirks (Dover Publications, 1974)

A few years back I reviewed yet another KATZENJAMMER KIDS collection which I ought to dig out for a re-read, and lo and behold I find this particular effort inna pile which I am not quite sure I shared my opines re. it with you. So lucky you get to read MORE of my etapoint opines regarding this long-lived (still going on in reruns) comic that even as a turdler seemed so antiquated and of another perhaps more interesting than the era I was flourishing in time.

Actually this is a reprint of a 1908 collection of then-two-year-old strips which was around the time the whole KATZENJAMMER idea and ethos was already in firm form, with somewhat of a continuing storyline and Rudolph Dirks having developed the familiar style that would be recognized for many a year. Much different than the KATZENJAMMERS of the late 1890's which ya can read on-line with some easy googlin', everything seems just about right as far as these early comics go which just might be ONE indication as to why the kids and the rest of those classic early comics are still remembered fondly while NOBODY I know can recall TANK MCNAMARA or even BLOOM COUNTY (CATHY???) for that matter. Maybe they just have extremely short memory spans, or better yet maybe I am lucky enough not to know anyone who would have read those strips inna first place?

The strips in this collection start in the middle of a storyline where Hans und Fritz, Mama, der Captain und Inspector (along with the crew of Germans and a Chinese cook who bears a whole lotta resemblance to Chinese cooks in comics for many a year!) are stuck in a ship frozen in the Arctic region. Strangely enough Hans und Fritz actually stymie a number of rescues just for the pleasure of pulling a fast one on der Captain. Kinda like GILLIGAN'S ISLAND only the ultimate rescue screw ups are done on purpose! One strangitie in these early strips is that the brothers (who are surprisingly not twins as was previously speculated considering the episode where Fritz is celebrating his birthday on his lonesome) often stab each other in the back for their own personal gain, something that I haven't seen much of if any in the later 'uns. Does add a spec of grit to the proceedings tho and Machiavellian me actually likes this sort of chicanery if only for the GRIT it adds.

Halfway through the book everyone's back home in Ameriga even tho no rescue has been portrayed or mentioned for that matter (this being long before both of the KATZENJAMMER strips took on an African sort of air with the characters settled on "Cannibal Island" or "Squeegee Island", both filled with male Negros and female Polynesians just like a JUNGLE JIM moom pitcher!). However the sagas retain the same sorta rhyme/reason as the earlier ones. A few interesting characters who disappeared almost immediately turn up, such as a delivery boy named Sandy who kinda reminds me of a teenage Sluggo only meaner as well as a poor-sighted school teacher who thankfully wasn't as irritating as Miss Twiddle would be later on.

I gotta say that these examples are perhaps the strip at its best (even tho the Knerr years turned up some pretty violent doozies---after that, feh!) complete with more bad boy action that almost equals DENNIS THE MENACE at his worst. Unlike Dennis the Kids always seem to get a brutal whipping in the last panel but as it was with you and me did all that rear end pain really do 'em any good?

And yeah, I KNOW that a few of you more liberated readers will believe that my love of these 110+-year-old comics shows the deep, inner bigoted and backwards being that I have been portraying myself as for quite some time already, turning off more than a few precious petunias afraid of having their values and amorality judged in such a way that I do. All I gotta say to that is...sheesh, you guys are RIGHT for once!