Tuesday, January 11, 2011

Buster Brown & Tige

In 1902 successful Sunday Cartoonist Richard Outcault, who developed the comic strip character The Yellow Kid, came up with a new character - his name was Buster, a little rich kid with a pompadour haircut and a (talking) dog named Tige. Bottom line is that Tige is believed to be the first talking animal in the comic strips, and it largely went unnoticed.  Buster had no last name - until 1904. That year at the St. Louis Exposition, Outcault sold the licensing rights to Buster to the Brown Shoe Company.

In June of 2009 I published a post of a piece of letterhead from the Brown Shoe Company upon which I had placed an image of a piece of sheet music for which Richard Outcault had drawn his version of the song title: the Buster One Step That was a letterhead.

This billhead is dated August 22, 1907. The Brown Shoe Company was not yet incorporating Buster into their marketing, but Outcault was making Buster more human, better to appeal to people as just another kid. The Company virtually adopted Buster and gave him a last name. They then sent kids out across the country with bulldogs, dressed just like Buster and Tige appear here. They made guest appearances at Brown Company shoe stores all over the U.S.

10 comments:

  1. I remember Buster Brown ... as a child those were the shoes I wore, too.

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  2. Buster and Tige are adorable! I don't think I ever had any Buster Brown shoes - were they for girls also? What a great piece of art, Dave! Carol

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  3. Their Buster Brown Shoes store in Greenville, Ohio was the only place I was ever able to stand on a machine and see the skeletal bones of my feet through the x-ray machine setting in their store. Fascinating. But it was later outlawed because the X-rays were harmful to people. I also listened, every Saturday morning to a radio show, Buster Brown and his dog Tige

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  4. I just love what you do, Dave! What a way to learn some history. I am so tempted to do the same over here. I don't know why, but this post in particular makes me want to find some old paper and find out all about it and then draw on it!!

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  5. Great composition as always Dave. The Buster Brown characters are truely part of the elite in the history of most recognizable logos. Thanks for sharing this fine artwork!

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  6. Howdy Dave
    Great post today and it also brought back some happy childhood memories . My grandmother worked at the local small town drug store and often to keep me busy she would loan me out to the Peoples Store to help clan up their store room .
    It was filled with old Buster Brown adv. ,shoe boxes etc... Thank you for this nice reminder and the wonderful history you shared with us today .
    Have a great weekend.
    Until next time
    Happy Trails

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  7. this is exquisite - the pointing hand at the bottom is beautifully integrated into the composition - perfect!

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  8. I should imagine these hairdo's were all the rage for little tykes back in 1902. From such inauspicious beginnings do big things come! As always Dave, loving the combination of art and a history lesson free to boot! LOL!

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  9. I am glad you went to the Flickr site of mine and saw the whole collection of envelopes. Thanks for the comments.

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