The American Weekly was
published by the Hearst
Corporation (from November 1896 up to the 1963) for
inclusion as a
supplement to their Sunday newspapers. It was the
Parade magazine
of its day, and it was also a precursor of the
National Enquirer. It was billed as having a
circulation of over 50,000,000 readers and was filled with
scantily
clad showgirls and tales of murder and suspense. It
was large
- about 21"x15" - and printed on fragile newsprint,
so few copies have survived the ensuing decades. While
much of
each 12-24-page issue is taken up with sensationalistic
photos and text (and even some acknowledged fiction), the
illustrations are generally good quality, especially the
covers.
Starting in mid December
1922, King Features Inc. syndicated Bonzo's image for this
supplement. Under the title "A Dog's Life", they were
used as the
front page of the supplement & started out by
replicating the same
images as had appeared in The Sketch magazine. By
early 1926 these had been replaced with the short story
style strips that had first appeared in Tit-Bits magazine in
the UK. By 1932, after
around 115 front covers were published featuring Bonzo, "A
Dog's Life"
series finished. Here are a few examples of the series: |
17th December 1922 - "Why the Dickens did you cut me off" |
27th October 1923 - "Bonzo shows the Bonzolines how to do it" |
19th July 1925 - "Bonzo gives a little surprise party" |
16th August 1925 - "Bonzo catches a crab" |
24th October 1926 - "Bonzo gets the reward" |
14th November 1926 - "Bonzo and the busy bee" |
6th July 1930 - Untitled |
10th July 1932 - Untitled |
14th August 1932 - Untitled |
You can
see
many more images from this publication in The
George E. Studdy Archive area of this site. |