Tom Heintjes, as some of you may know, is the editor/publisher of the amazing, long-running magazine Hogan’s Alley, which celebrates newspaper comics strips and their creators new and old. Tom Heintjes is also the editor and publisher of the recently published book, The Complete Betty Brown, Ph. G—Her Full Story, 1934-1948.
“Betty who?” you ask. Well, until now Betty Brown was almost completely unknown and yet she has a unique place in the history of comic strips and Tom has done readers a great favor by introducing the world to her.
You see, even if you were old enough to have seen Betty during her original run, the odds are you didn’t, because her strip ran only in a weekly periodical distributed exclusively within the pharmaceutical trade, called Drug Topics. You see, “Ph. G” is a no longer used degree meaning Graduate of Pharmacy. Betty Brown was an independent druggist, a medical professional.
This current volume reprints her entire run in lovely, large-sized strips, two per page. That means that it starts out as a somewhat crudely-drawn strip by Grant Powers entitled Bob Steele, Ph. G. Within a year, though, Zack Mosley, already well-known for his Smilin’ Jack syndicated strip took over and Betty was introduced. It wasn’t long before the new character took over both the strip and Steele’s drugstore.
There are some single strip gags but for the most part, it becomes a continuity strip and the storylines involve more than just pharmacy-related topics. Over the years, Betty has a number of beaus and comes close to the alter with several. She’s conned by gangsters, finds a baby, fights off a cutthroat rival, and ends up opening several stores of her own.
Helping her throughout is her trusty sidekick, Ragtime…and therein lies the book’s biggest problem. Ragtime is a comic relief African-American of the worst sort of visual, non-human stereotype. He’s also portrayed as not particularly smart or educated, not speaking English well, always carrying a pair of loaded dice, and armed with a knife. Such characters were, sadly, fairly common in all forms of entertainment back in the day but are completely unacceptable in our more understanding times. For historical purposes, nothing has been changed, although the character is addressed in the Introduction. If you’re at all interested in historical entertainment, you should be able to understand and appreciate the intent of this heart-of-gold character even if you shake your head when he shows up.
Betty herself is portrayed as a strong businesswoman with a caring heart, quite the change from the way women tended to be in comics back then.
With Mosley on the art, it should be no surprise that his assistant, Boody Rogers, would also assist here. In fact, Rogers—later the cult-favorite artist on strips like Sparky Watts—takes over the strip for its best period. He even introduces a character who looks like a freckled Sparky!
Like most complete comic strip collections, especially story strip ones, The Complete Betty Brown works best if you don’t try to read it straight through. These strips were never meant to be read that way. They were originally published one per week over a period of fourteen years (with time off for Boody’s military service. We’re told Betty joined the WACS, too.) and the strip works best when read in shorter clumps. The art is extremely well-done overall, the characters endearing and well-crafted, and their stories fairly engrossing all the way through, even if you’ve never been a pharmacist. Tom Heintjes has done an exemplary job with this volume and I really hope he might produce other volumes of rare but well-done comic strips in the future.
Booksteve recommends.
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