''The Outbursts of Everett True'' (originally titled ''A Chapter from the Career of Everett True'') was an American two-panel
newspaper comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st c ...
created by
A.D. Condo and J. W. Raper that ran from July 22, 1905 to January 13, 1927,
when Condo had to abandon it due to health reasons.
Two contemporary collections appeared in 1907 and 1921, and it was the
Newspaper Enterprise Association
The Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) is an editorial column and comic strip newspaper syndication service based in the United States and established in 1902. The oldest syndicate still in operation, the NEA was originally a secondary news ...
's "most popular feature". Subsequently, aside from occasional appearances in ''
Alley Oop
''Alley Oop'' is a syndicated comic strip created December 5, 1932, by American cartoonist V. T. Hamlin, who wrote and drew the strip through four decades for Newspaper Enterprise Association. Hamlin introduced a cast of colorful characters an ...
'' in 1969 the strip was largely forgotten until 1983 when one of the collections was reprinted that year, and comic book writer
Tony Isabella
Tony Isabella (born December 22, 1951) is an American comic book writer, editor, actor, artist and critic, known as the creator and writer of Marvel Comics' Black Goliath; DC Comics' first major African-American superhero, Black Lightning; and as ...
and various artists employed the character in a new strip for the ''
Comics Buyer's Guide
''Comics Buyer's Guide'' (''CBG''; ), established in 1971, was the longest-running English-language periodical reporting on the American comic book industry. It awarded its annual Comics Buyer's Guide Fan Awards from 1983 to circa 2010. The public ...
'' and ''
The Comics Journal
''The Comics Journal'', often abbreviated ''TCJ'', is an American magazine of news and criticism pertaining to comic books, comic strips and graphic novels. Known for its lengthy interviews with comic creators, pointed editorials and scathing re ...
''. In this modernization, Everett True directed his outbursts at comic book artists, writers, publishers and distributors. In 2015, a new collection was published under the title ''Outbursts of Everett True'' with an introduction by Trevor Blake.
Characters and story
The original strip revolved around an ill-tempered man in late middle-age who was typically dressed in a suit and bowler hat of antiquated and comical appearance for the time. Without his hat he was completely bald. In the early cartoons he was moderately stout, but in the later ones he became increasingly portly. He often smoked a short cigar.
The first panel of each strip generally had someone inconveniencing or annoying True, an innocent bystander or an animal. In the second panel he would then make an ill-tempered outburst. In early cartoons this was usually an uninhibited rant which expressed what other people wanted to say, but were too polite to. Sometimes it was accompanied by comments from bystanders in speech-bubbles ("that's the way I like to hear a man talk"; "I wish I could hand out one like that"). Later cartoons were more slapstick in character. True would exact his revenge by either berating or (if confronting a man) pummelling the offender. The only character who occasionally turned the tables on True was his wife, who appeared occasionally to berate or beat him for some unacceptable behavior.
Adaptations
The American Bioscope Company made a series of silent short movies featuring Everett True, the first of which, ''Everett True Breaks Into the Movies'', was released in 1916, starring
Robert Bolder
Robert Bolder (20 July 1859 – 10 December 1937) was an English film actor of the silent film, silent era. He appeared in more than 120 films between 1912 and 1936. He was born in London and died in Los Angeles, California. In the early par ...
as Everett and Paula Reinbold as Mrs. True.
References
External links
Barnacle Press: ''Outbursts of Everett True''at
Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...
Archivedfrom the original on September 7, 2015.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Outbursts of Everett True, The
1905 comics debuts
1927 comics endings
American comics characters
American comic strips
Gag-a-day comics