More Tuthillia (about the Bungle Family, Archie Bunker and Seinfeld)

What do Harry J. Tuthill, Winsor McCay, Frank King, Carl Barks have in common? 

Their heritage was thrown at the sharks. 

After many decennia working nonstop on their masterpieces. The originals piled up in attics or sheds. Huge heavy heaps of thousands of cartboard drawings that once were so popular in the papers ended up in the dark. There are wild stories about the Barks family moving to another house and didn't care to take the 7000 original Duck pages with them. Winsor McCay son used his father's originals in the late thirties to boost his own Nemo-strip (cut and paste). Frank King's Gasoline Alley originals at least were kept together by his granddaughter and were recovered by Chris Ware and Jeet Heer. Harry Tuthill's originals are drifting from his state Missouri through ebay and nobody seems to care. Nobody even wants them, although it is a masterpiece, the critics all agree. Reading it, Archie Bunker comes to mind, but Seinfeld too. It is the comic about ordinary people and their trivial preoccupations. It is the comic strip about nothing (just like Seinfeld was about nothing). So respect to Harry J. Tuthill and his Bungle family!

Next up on this blog the pancakes saga (about George Bungle and his friend Doodle)