A quick email exchange with Simon McGarr, the other night (on the topic of audio transcription), quickly turned to matters comic/cartoon related with Simon asking the intriguing (and very valid) question, "What, in the name of all that is illustrated, is Count Curly Wee about?"
Where to begin? For those that don't know (or, more likely, don't care) Count Curly Wee is a two-frame cartoon strip, written in extremely strained verse (see above)1, about the adventures of Curly and his friend Gussie Goose (or something…). The Irish Independent has been running it for aeons to, I imagine, the general bemusement of its readers, but as far as I can work out there has been no new material produced for many, many years.
Since rooting around in the basement of cultural obscurity is part of the remit of this blog, I thought I'd follow Simon's lead and get out the old fústar.org 'mental detector' to see what I could unearth about the history of this particular oddity.
The origin of the strip seems (from what little information I could glean online) to go back to the 1950s:
Curly wee started as a newspaper strip comic in the Liverpool Echo paper, England. It was also printed in the Irish Mail [?] Dublin and the Madras Mail India. Once a year a [sic] annual was produced. This usually contained three full length stories in colour (unlike the newspaper black & white stories). This annual was a hardback with coloured front and rear cover illustrations.
The trail seems to begin and end there, alas, save for a few brief snippets I gathered from various sources.
Over at Best of Both Worlds, for example, P O'Neill informs us that:
…we're pretty sure that the reason that the strip seems so, like, old, is because it is: one of the nice little anachronisms about the Indo is that it just reruns the old strips from a generation ago, since the creator has long since passed on.2
Hmm…well while that seems to explain why the strip feels so quaint, it fails to address the (more interesting) question of why the Indo bothers running it at all, since (as Wikipedia assures us) "No other newspapers appear to be syndicating the Count Curly Wee comics as of 2006″.
A contributor over at forumhub.com, however, offers a possible answer by suggesting that the Indo (which he/she innocently calls 'a quality paper') may own the copyright, and thus the strip could (and this sounds like a threat) "continue to run indefinitely".
So perhaps that's the simplest explanation as to why Curly Wee rolls on and on, ad infinitum, despite what appears to be total public indifference. If the Indo has indeed scooped up the entire, bonkers, back-catalogue it would (I assume) cost nothing to 'syndicate'.
An…em…alternative (and juicier) theory was suggested by me in a mail to Simon:
Since no one, in their right mind, reads the thing3…other than to marvel at how nuts it is, it must have some wealthy and influential patrons that ensure its survival (There's some precedent here as William Randolph Hearst allegedly kept Krazy Kat going in the face of public bewilderment simply because he, personally, loved it. Having said that, Krazy Kat is quite magnificent, while Curly Wee is simply demented).
Anyway, one could, I suppose, suggest a Dan Brown-esque explanation and hazard a guess that the strip constitutes some kind of esoteric code, transmitting orders to operatives (whoever they might be) in 'the field'. It's public, largely ignored, and seen as juvenile, so it's above suspicion.
I think I'm on to something here!
I leave you, dear readers, to decide the truth for yourselves…but if any cryptologists out there fancy running a bit of Curly Wee verse through their code-breaking machines, I'm sure some interesting results would be thrown up.
Time to end now…I may have said too much already…
- Disclaimer: While the image used was, indeed, scanned from yesterday's Indo, it should be noted that I only did so due to a complete absence of Curly Wee images online. I'm merely using it to illustrate the strip's unique flavour…so hopefully nobody from Indo HQ will beat me up over it… [back]
- The image I uploaded seems to be signed/marked 'C libbom' or something similar. No luck Googling that though…[Update: A commenter has confirmed that the artist was a Ronald Clibborn] [back]
- Welll…maybe they do. If you are one such person, please let me know. Update: As we now know (see below) there are many such people! [back]
[…] der over to Fústar and reminisced along with the Count Curly Wee article there […]
March 20th, 2006 at 11:16 amThat strip really is something innit? I heard before from someone that it had connections to India alright but assumed it was syndicated in other newspapers. It’s like the Angelus in a way, an unpleasant and outdated relic but I’ll miss it if it’s ever scrapped. It always reminded me of Rupert the Bear. It’s mad though, there are so many decent strips available for syndication at the moment.
March 20th, 2006 at 4:29 pmIt’s quite Rupert-like all right, with its bipedal, smartly dressed animal characters and its general air of stuffiness. Having said that, it is (if nothing else) marginally more entertaining than the Angelus (you’d have to admit).
The fact that the Indo runs it alongside the contemporary (but lame) Dilbert, only makes it seem more incongruous.
I wonder if they’ve run through all the strips at this stage and are now on another cycle? If so, I doubt anyone has noticed…
Now if you, Bob, were to do an updated Curly Wee then I might actually buy the Indo more than once every 10 years. Might prove a bit alarming for CW purists though…
March 20th, 2006 at 4:45 pmMan, no wonder you won your prize: I’ve been secretly wondering about the cartoon myself - never too much, mind you, only if I really had nothing else to do - but that’s quite a bit of research you put into this piece. Well done!
March 20th, 2006 at 8:53 pmHi Holger,
Thanks for the kind words…but I should point out that I didn’t win! I was merely shortlisted (which was great in itself).
It’s probably healthy not to wonder about these things too much…(I obviously have, as the fella said, too much time on my hands).
Still, it beats watching reality tv!
March 20th, 2006 at 10:15 pmSorry, I was convinced you won a category. You sure deserve it anyway.
I have just posted a link to this article on my new blog: http://wildgeeseandblowins.blogspot.com/.
The blog has no readers yet (something it shares with Curly Wee) and it’s practically the first post on it, so don’t expect any hits from it. LOL
March 21st, 2006 at 9:29 amNever read it, ever.
March 21st, 2006 at 2:03 pmIs that goat wearing a t-shirt with cuff-links? Now there’s something that should attract the attention of the anti-vivisectionists out there.
Holger,
I’ll pop over to your blog and get the comments rolling.
foolhardy,
You’re not missing out on much…or anything at all in fact.
Have you (as a scientist) ever forced an animal to wear clothes, just to see what would happen? I believe that kind of thing is quite common…
March 21st, 2006 at 2:27 pmfústar,
your enquiries regarding my research endeavours are flattering to say the least. Although I suspect my Xperimental (I have developed a revolutionary new breed of science I call X-treme Science) rational may prove too much for your feeble human mind, I will endeavour to pass on to you my blue sky message so that you may educate the ignorant masses (or, as my colleague Dr Popadopolous calls them: “the fools!”) with that version of normalspeak over which you appear to have some command. In recent years I have been busy addressing a number of questions including the intriguing notion that humanity has “excelled” as a direct consequence of the invention of pantaloons. Let’s face the facts, what did we achieve before the arrival of slacks? Jack, that’s what.
So, my approach was to attire a variety of animals in the finest threads that Saville row could offer and monitor their development as they strode towards their true destiny; a society of considerably greater sophistication than our own. My findings, although preliminary, are, let’s be honest, of the mixed bag variety. Fish do not like pants. Nor do monkeys, unless defecating ones self signifies something I have, as yet, to fully comprehend. Snakes are okay but they failed to make the creative bounds I would have expected were they to eventually take over the world (yipes! I think there’s a bag somewhere for that particular cat). This, I believe, can be attributed to a mutation in the gene that encodes arms. So close.
Inspired, I have moved on to working with a variety of lizards - snakes, with arms! I’ll keep you posted.
All in all I’m rather happy with progress and am confident this time that this work won’t go down the same road as my failed attempts to teach bats braille and release the adolescent leopard from the scourge of acne. Then there’s the wristwatch fiasco which I’d rather not get in to right now. Now, get back to your comic books young man. There’s nothing to see here.
March 21st, 2006 at 4:02 pmFurther reading:
An old colleague of mine, Doug White, is featured in this relevant (and true) article from the Onion a couple of years back.
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/30800
March 21st, 2006 at 4:41 pmHey, hands off Curly Wee! We are avid readers in our house. My grandmother used to read it to my father and he claims he learned to read from it. He still frequently reads it aloud to us and its hilarious in a nostalgic-for-the-time-between-wars-kinda way. I searched in vain for some of the old annuals as a gift to my father but alas I was defeated. Keep reading it. You can get kinda caught up in it.
March 25th, 2006 at 4:21 pmThat’s what scares me Sarah! It gets a bit hypnotically captivating after a while…and then there’s no escape…
March 25th, 2006 at 6:56 pmThe patron idea was current in the 50’s at least. In Roddy Doyle’s “Rory and Ita” his father descibes how the board at the ‘Independent’ scrapped it, only to have it reinstated by the outraged owner. He further descibes a crisis when the plates failed to arive from Liverpool. The Independent hired a plane for an emergency flight and held the presses.
March 26th, 2006 at 12:03 amThanks John.
Interesting stuff. Perhaps my wealthy patron/esoteric code hypothesis is more probable than I first thought.
The truth is out there…
March 27th, 2006 at 12:00 pmThis strip is syndicated through The Press Association since they bought Central Feature. It was commissioned by The Liverpool Echo and developed from a series of strip cartoon stories that had run from around 1930. It ran from Monday 20th September,1937 until 31st December,1969. Maud Budden (she died in 1976) wrote the verse and Roland Clibborn (1881-1969) was the artist retiring in 1967 when another artist Clark took over. The numbers of the strips ran from 1 to 1199,2000-10,274 and from 1 to 748 with the second artist. There were 10 Annuals published 1944-1953. The first two were not in full colour. All annuals including the 1990 reprint of the 1949 are much sought off with interest increasing. Maud’s husband was a Professor of Architecture and her son has distinguished himself in the Operatic World.
April 2nd, 2006 at 8:06 pmThanks a lot for the details Nicholas - you should add them to Wikipedia if you get a chance. How did you find all that out, if you don’t mind me asking?
April 2nd, 2006 at 9:43 pmDear Fustar,
April 3rd, 2006 at 3:40 pmI started collecting the annuals about 4 and a half years ago. Because of an E mail I made people have contacted me and I now copy the Annuals for a friend in India but the books need to go to a conservator. The prices have gone from about £18-£65 to £51-£185.I recommend you watch the cold blooded fighting on E Bay as more people come on board.I have also been to Liverpool Library but Microfilm does get scratches on it. To confuse people there are two different covers to the 1947 and 1948 so there are 12 covers,also some picture book. Note a bookseller is trying to sell the 1945 for about £250 on Bookfinder. Maud’s real christian names were Dora Magdalene. She was born and died in Scotland.Roland Clibborn’s archive (He was born in Philadelphia of British parents) was destroyed by fire according to his grandson. The Birmingham also published the strip throughout it’s run and it was easy to find but The Liverpool Echo required readers to hunt. I doubt if The Press Association have a disc of the archive as The Irish Independent appear to be Photocopying and putting the words in a clean print.
You may not have seen Curly’s father who is an Earl and looks like Winston Chuchill.
I hope all this assists.
Best Wishes,
Nicholas Morrison
Cheers Nicholas. I feel quite bad for having described the strip as ‘demented’ now, knowing that there are dedicated collectors like yourself out there ensuring that this little slice of popular culture isn’t devoured by the ravages of time.
I’m not surprised, given the obvious scarcity, that ebay prices are on the up and up. It’s the survival of the fittest on there to be sure.
April 3rd, 2006 at 4:22 pmcurly wee was a family favourite with us in Madras India. It used to appear in the daily Madras Mail in the 50s. The name of the illustrator if memory serves me right was Maud Clibborn.
April 19th, 2006 at 12:36 pmIt was Maud Budden, Malcolm, according to Nicholas Morrison (see above). The artist was Roland Clibborn…so you were nearly right!
April 19th, 2006 at 2:49 pmHello. I am living in New Zealand and i have one of the Curly Wee and Gussie Goose annuals. It’s black and whie print and contains the stories of the thief of the horse academy, The great bike race, Curly Wee v Mr Fox, The missing mouse and Curly wee and the dragon. The book seems in good nick. I didn’t know it was such a rare type of annual.
April 20th, 2006 at 6:08 amHi Tracee. I have been collecting Curly Wee annuals for a year or so for my wife who has loved the characters since she was a little girl. If your annual is for sale I would love to buy it from you. Could you describe the cover illustration for me please? Best wishes Martin
April 26th, 2006 at 3:55 pmYou can email me at victorianstud@yahoo.com and I can send you photos of it.
April 28th, 2006 at 1:46 amDear Tracee
April 29th, 2006 at 9:55 amMy email to you bounced (user doesnt have a yahoo.com account). My email is msmith(AT)iee.org where the (AT) is just @ of course.
I live in Madras, India. The Madras Mail used to carry comic strips of Curly Wee. I think the Curly Wee comic strips are a great read for children. I have a few Curly Wee annuals. For details visit
http://nappinnai.blogspot.com/2006/05/curly-wee.html
May 7th, 2006 at 8:59 amNostalgia trip for me, since as a child, I looked forward to every day’s issue of the Madras Mail to read the strip. These were not entirely children’s stories and you learned a lot more about the real world than you could from a Roy Rogers or Buck Jones comic
May 7th, 2006 at 12:04 pmHi Mr/Ms Krishnamurthy,
May 7th, 2006 at 12:20 pmAlexander was kind enough to pass on info about your post on this blog.. Could you please email me at yogakbat yahoo.com [Pl substitute the letters ‘at’ with the ampersand character on your keyboard] ? Have fond memories going back to the early fifties, eagerly waiting for the strip every day except weekends in the M. Mail..which we didn’t buy but our dear neighbour Mr. Iyengar shared with us. Owe my early vocabulary to it & the stories inspired this lad as it did countless kids of teh day. Would love to see/read them, if possible.
Omigod … as a child in the States 50 years ago, I was sent a couple of Curly Wee annuals. They were lavishly illustrated, at least in memory, and terribly twee: “of all the rivers I have seen / slow, rushing, great and small / the river in Count Curly’s land / is loveliest of all” comes to mind. It was a lot like Rupert the Bear: the plot lines hinged on organizing picnics, finding lost items, intercepting runaway rowboats. But Curly was a peer of the land. The strips were nicely drawn, and my parents seemed to celebrate the stuffy little verses as something charmingly British and innately superior to such plebeian American offerings as Mutt & Jeff, or Nancy & Sluggo or even Steve Canyon and his ward, Poteet. I assumed they were ephemera rooted in that period. So what a surprise to learn that Curly lingers on in the dreary form depicted above, with a blithering goat.
May 22nd, 2006 at 1:25 am[…] Fustar delves into important matters such as the explanation for the perplexing mystery of Count Curly Wee in the Irish Indo. If all the Irish blogs were compiled into a daily paper, its news agen […]
May 27th, 2006 at 11:01 am[…] tury Curly General A recent post by the indispensible Fustar led to a mass outpouring of reminiscence, affection and, truth be told, mostly incomprehens […]
May 29th, 2006 at 4:19 pmTo Karen who posted a note on May 22, 06.
May 31st, 2006 at 5:17 pmAny chance you still have the issues?
“The Adventures of Count Curly Wee & Gussie Goose” was a feature in the Liverpool Echo for many years. It was the work of Maude Budden, who was, I think, the wife of a distinguished Liverpool architect. The name was taken from a hill in the Minnigaff range in the Southern Uplands of Scotland in Galloway, close to the town of Newton Stewart, Curly Wee being a corruption of the Gaelic “Cor le gaoith” (Hill in the wind)
June 14th, 2006 at 5:17 pmVic you are right about Maud Budden’s husband. He was Lionel Bailey Budden and he designed many Liverpool buildings and war memorials. How sure are you about the derivation of the name Curly Wee? I had assumed that it was derived from the five little pigs nursery rhyme:
This little pig went to market,
June 16th, 2006 at 12:28 pmThis little pig stayed at home,
This little pig had roast beef,
This little pig had none,
And this little pig cried, Wee-wee-wee,
I can’t find my way home. Where the accepted sound of a pig is “Wee” combined with the fact that cartoon pigs are usually depicted with curly tails. This seems slightly more likely than the Scottish use of Wee meaning small. However Maud was born in Edinburgh although she lived most of her life in Liverpool, so there is a Scottish connection. To my knowledge there were 4 Curly Wee picture books (uncoloured and softback), 10 annuals (hardback and coloured) and one recent (1990) softback coloured reprint. I have 10 of these 15, so I’m still collecting.
Hello martin,sorry i havent got back sooner my computer crashed and have just got it back up and ruuning,yes iam going to be selling the curly wee and gussie goose book,iam thinking of sticking it on trade me auctions in nz but if anyone interested you can email me at KancaraDDBNZ@kol.co.nz ,i will email you photos today martin chhers Tracee New Zealand
July 8th, 2006 at 8:54 pmI have been searching for curly wee comics for days.
July 20th, 2006 at 3:07 pmHi , I have the Irish 1945 annual which I believe is the 2nd one . It is signed and dated by Roland Clibborn in ink .Does anyone know if he illustrated any other comic strips or became well known as an artist ?
August 20th, 2006 at 12:49 pmMany thanks and well done on this site ! , Dave.
I have just looked on ebay where there are 5 Curly Wee annuals up with a day left , WOW at the prices already !!!!!
August 20th, 2006 at 10:13 pmSomething reminded me of this strip recently, which is why I looked this up.
September 6th, 2006 at 8:18 amHow bizarre that it is still around. I’m pushing 70 years and I remember having it read to me every day by my Mum. I was about three at the time.
May I correct an error I made above the strip with the second artist ran to 720 not 748,I must apologise.The second illustrator made Curly tall and thin so I expect jokes about his shape disappeared.Roland Clibborn did illustrate at least six books for the still publishing company Schofield and Simms,I cannot recall the titles it was “Sally……”.I have started to collect the CW series from microfilm but it will be a long process.When Roland died it was mentioned that the series had caused jigsaws to be made of it and even toys but I have never seen one come up.
September 9th, 2006 at 4:51 pmJust thought I’d chip in with comment number 40 (!) to express my bemusement at how an innocent exchange with Simon McGarr seems to have led (wholly inadvertently) to something of a Curly Wee revival. Bob Byrne has created his own askew version of the strip, and the comments section of this here post seems to have become something of a meeting place for lovers of CW minutiae.
I’m still at a loss to understand the appeal of CW, but I’ve greatly enjoyed my small part in heightening its presence online!
September 11th, 2006 at 2:04 pmI have also been a devotee of Count Curly Wee and had all the albums as a child. My particular favourite story was when the pigs were all shipwrecked and floated in an open boat for days. The remark of Curly Wee when a lady pig said that she was sweating - “For horses sweat and men perspire, but ladies only glow,” is one I still quote years later. Would love to obtain that particuar episode. Does anyone have it for sale?
September 22nd, 2006 at 9:03 pmDear Barbara,
November 10th, 2006 at 8:00 pmI am sorry I cannot find the reference in the annuals but Curly is yet again on a deser island in the newpaper at present so maybe this time.It is only recently I have realised how well they are written.
The Annuals are continuing to climb in price.
All mention is of Curly Wee but what about Gussie Goose ?
November 14th, 2006 at 3:07 amI started reading this strip in the Echo as a boy in Liverpool in the 50s. I just thought of it the other day and decided to “Google” and found you
Brian (Sacramento California)
I am at the moment trying to collate the entire series which will take years,and have noticed that Gussie barely appears after awhile Ginger Dick becomes a heroic character and features in the very last strip having been rescued by Curly.However Gussie does not completetely disappear and makes occasional “Walk On” appearances.E.G., escorting youngsters around strip 9958 and asleep by the sea shore in strip 4314.asleep on a
November 21st, 2006 at 7:17 pmsea shore.His lack of featuring is odd because so many of the other supporting characters continue playing their part.
I think Nicholas Morrison should start his own blog where people could follow his collating adventures in the Land of Curly Wee.
I, for one, would be an avid subscriber.
November 29th, 2006 at 12:18 pmMe too. I remain unsure of Curly Wee’s quality but am a big fan of pop culture archiving and admire anyone who preserves what might otherwise be lost (due to indifference). Go for it Nicholas.
November 29th, 2006 at 2:41 pmI grew up in Ireland in the 1960’s and loved the Curly Wee comic strip. For me the appeal is its old fashioned twee whimsy. My mother who is her 80’s still reads it and I expect that it is for the older generation that the Irish Independent continues run it, indeed any attempt to discontinue it could be contrued as ageism! On the other hand the world of Curly Wee is extremely class ridden. Curly Wee is a Count and his father an Earl (the peerage law of Fur and Feather Land being presumably different from that of the UK!). I also remember an aristocratic rabbit Sir Richard Bun, who is upgraded to Baron Bun whose wealth derived from being the ‘chairman of a thriving lettuce board’! Upper class mice are educated at a public school called Chartermouse! Foxes and rats constitute a criminal underclass who seem incapable of doing good. I think there is material here for a barmy academic thesis!
February 7th, 2007 at 2:06 pmIthaca,
If the astonishing number of responses to this post are anything to go by, there’s room for academic theses and coffee table books by the bucket-load.
Foxes, rats, and weasels always get a hard time of it in moralistic children’s literature. It’s not just that they commit nasty acts, they’re simply (as you note) nasty to the core. The whole thing stinks of eugenics, phrenology and the like: “Witness the low sloping brow of the criminal weasel, gentlemen. Observe his cruel, slitty eyes.”
February 7th, 2007 at 2:21 pmYou are absolutely right Fustar - think of ‘The Wind in the Willows’ in which a group of otters (the underclass of that world) occupy Toad Hall!
Of all the stories of my childhood ‘Winnie the Pooh’ and ‘The House at Pooh Corner’ remain my favourites. They are simply full of the sort of whimsy that I find enjoyable, and if there is a moral it is that xenophobia is bad and counter-productive - remember what happened when the animals tried to get rid of Kanga and Tigger!
February 7th, 2007 at 11:07 pmOtters? I don’t remember that…
I love otters! In fact, they’re probably my favourite of all the earth’s critters. I actually sponsored one (for a time) somewhere up off the Isle of Skye.
Never got to meet him though, so it’s possible he did have dangerous, criminal inclinations.
February 8th, 2007 at 12:00 amGussie Goose is the principal character in the new story in The Irish Independent starting at 5833.
March 21st, 2007 at 8:50 pmSpread the word! That should boost sales of the Indo!
March 21st, 2007 at 10:45 pmThe other day I was enjoying a coffee in one of my favourite haunts when I heard mentioned I name from my childhood. You guessed it - Curly Wee.
Back in the 60s I possessed an annual that had been passed down by some cousin or other and I used to read it from cover to cover over and over. I don’t really recall any of the stories now save for a brief memory of Curly Wee consulting with an alchemist - a goat I think he was and there were retorts with bubbling liquid inside them and other strange paraphernalia in the alchemist’s lab.
Nostaligia sent me looking for this long forgotten yet beloved book to no avail. Does my brief flashback ring any bells? I think it might have been a later edition since I remember CW as thin rather than rotund and he may have been riding a flying horse on the cover but I’m not sure. I think he wore red trousers too.
Any clue?
LL
April 4th, 2007 at 6:23 pmThe annual published late 1952 had Curly on horseback on the front.The 1953(the last) annual had a story “Curly and The Ugly Kid”.In this there are plenty of goats and one where they go to a Village Shop.The young kid has been orphaned and they find his grandfather.He grows up to be a handsome goat.
April 4th, 2007 at 7:09 pmOn another matter does anyone remember “A Shilling Arithmetic”,I bought a copy recently and the memories came flooding back.I miss the word shilling.
I’m pretty sure that the weasels occupy Toad Hall. With perhaps some stoats. But no otters.
April 4th, 2007 at 7:29 pmI think you are right about the stoats and weasels Copernicus. It is so long since I read ‘The Wind in the Willows’ that for some reason I remembered otters…
April 4th, 2007 at 10:44 pmThanks Nicholas. Your information gives me something to try and track down. :0)
April 6th, 2007 at 7:43 amThe reading of Curly wee, first by my father,to us children, and later by ourselves as we learnt to read, used to be one of the rituals and higlights every morning of my childhood.Sadly, it disappeared along with the Madras Mail. I used to always tell my children about the quaint comic strip,but sadly,could never lay my hands on a copy in all my foraging in old book shops in Chennai. It was this desire that led me to google and I am amazed that there are others like me. If anyone in Chennai knows where I can find copies of the comic I will be eternally grateful to them.(cpnunes@yahoo.com .
April 12th, 2007 at 10:13 amDear Lynne and Clifford,
April 13th, 2007 at 7:49 amThe Annual that involves Goats has on the front Curly and Friends with a giant beach ball.
There were at least five picture books.I have not seen the original but they seem to have been published around 1942 to about 1946.
There were ten annuals but 1948 had a different cover for the foreign editions showing different newspaper titles and destinations.1947 came in two sizes one having a third story.I am away at the momemt but The Irish Independent will be on 5863 approx today with a Gussie story.
The first strips coming out in 1937 were bigger and it gave Clibborn a chance to do more description.The author seems to have written five weeks at a time as certainly by 1953 the stories tend to last 5,10,15,20 weeks or so.
Her only child died on 28th February without issue.
Fustar - I am sure that you will be delighted that there are now a total of 60 responses to your Count Curly Wee posting. I think this calls for a celebration of some kind - rashers and sausages for breakfast tommorow, bacon and cabbage for lunch and crubeens for supper…
April 13th, 2007 at 2:39 pmOh, and roast goose in honour of Gussie. This reply number 61!
April 13th, 2007 at 2:41 pmThat all sounds a bit rich for me, Ithaca. Can I not just have a packet of bacon fries and watch some porky pig cartoons instead?
I do enjoy the way this thread has taken on a life totally independent of me (and the tone of the original post).
Any news on a CW online archive, Nicholas? At the moment I seem to be cornering the market for CW traffic. There’s plenty of room for competition.
April 14th, 2007 at 9:40 amWhen I was driving from Dar Es Salaam to Walvis Bay in 1975, I found Curly (Sorry-Count Curly!) in the Bulawayo Chronicle. I recognised him from my childhood in Liverpool. (The Bulawayo Chronicle Archive is now kept in Canada for some reason.)
April 16th, 2007 at 1:38 pmLater I also ran into him in the Johannewsburg Daily Star and a daily paper in Cairo, as well as Madras. He was also seen in Australia, in a Melbourne paper I think. Any other sightings?
Sorry about misspellings-most un-aspergic of me-Hooray!
April 16th, 2007 at 1:41 pmDavid, All is fixed for you.
April 16th, 2007 at 3:38 pmDear Ithaca,
April 19th, 2007 at 4:26 pmI had not thought of putting it on the web.At the moment I am continuing to work on it.I have arun of just over 400 from 5450,with two other long entire stories(around 3900 and 4500) and am working away at the very first strips.I have the ten annuals(the 1947 is the shorter one) and picture books when appropriate also to work with.This is going to be a very long job.
Best Wishes,Nicholas
I thought it might help for people to know in which year each annual was published by title or cover.
April 21st, 2007 at 4:38 pm1944)Curly Wee and Gussie Goose
1945)Curly Wee and Company
From 1946 to 1953{these were in colour) all were titled Curly Wee but had different covers}).
1946)Curly Wee on the quayside with a rabbit sitting on a Capstan.
1947)(Shorter)Curly Wee with Michael Mouse on a stage.
1947)(Longer{One further story})Curly Wee shaking hands with Mr.Fox with a large column between them.
1948)(Home Edition)Curly Wee with Mrs.Hen on a Liner.
1948(Foreign{Same stories})Curly Wee on the Gangway to a liner.
1949)(This is the colourised version of three stories from the 1944 Annual{Reprinted in stiff board cover 1990 with different cover art as Curly Wee & Gussie Goose})Curly Wee and Gussie Goose logo.
1950)Portrait of Curly Wee.
1951)Curly Wee with friends on a toboggan.
1952)Curly Wee on horseback in the wild west.
1953)Curly Wee with friends celebrating chrismas and a large beach ball.
I grew up in Co. Monaghan, Ireland. My father used to read the Independent newspaper for our old Parish Priest who was practically blind,that was in the 50,s.The old priest(cannon) would always have my father read “curlywee and Gussygoose” every day he did the readings. My father would ask him where would you like me to start to-day, the answer was always “curlywee & gussy goose”. The old priest was a very learned man and us children were very much amused by this.I’m surprised to know the strip is still running in the “Irish Independent”
May 20th, 2007 at 2:35 amDear Lynne Lancaster,
May 27th, 2007 at 11:26 amThe 1953 Curly Wee Annual came upon E Bay today.
Best Wishes,
Nicholas Morrison
I have parts of a couple of the annuals and was brought up on them being the baby of the family born in 1955. I have loved verse ever since they were read to me and like others little snippits come out in reminisences. The verses were funny and the style contributed to this sense of not being taken seriously but they were not strained and I think looking back that they had something for the adults in the subtlety. I believe that they were based around current events and for that reason alone should be preserved which is why I typed into Google and found this. I would love to get hold of the colour versions and have them to read to my new grandaughter. There should be a Curley Wee website for devotees with downloads. My favorite recollections are Count Curly diving to an Elizabethan shipwreck to search for his ancestors lost traesure, His climb to the top of Mount Neverest (wasn’t that of its time) and the wagon train to “Them thar hills”. Holiday Island in one of the stories was supposed to be Hilbre Island off Wirral. Its upsetting to read that the original artwork was lost in a fire. I hope some way can be found of making the stories accessible once again.
June 8th, 2007 at 12:39 pmI just wish to correct an error I made,the gap in numbers was 900 being 1100-1999 and Roland Clibborn years were 1879-1969 being 90 and three quarters years old.Apologies for this.
June 16th, 2007 at 12:48 pmNicholas
I remember curly wee. We had a copy of it that my grandfather must’ve got up in North Africa during the war. I have the dust jacket, but alas, not the book. I would give anything to get hold of a copy.
August 14th, 2007 at 6:17 pmCurly Wee ran for years on page 3 of the Johannesburg Star, at least through the early 60’s. I followed it slavishly as a kid, along with the weather, and the time of sunrise and sunset, with no obvious ill effect. I can’t remember why.
September 26th, 2007 at 3:43 amTo whomever it was that left a message here in the last couple of days RE: Curly Wee - I apologise. I accidentally deleted your comment rather than approving it. Please pop it in again.
May 13th, 2008 at 1:09 amI must apologise for a description error re the 1947(Longer) Annual.It is Ginger Dick shaking hands with Curly on the cover.My thanks to Martin Smith for the correction.
June 19th, 2008 at 4:09 pmThe Annuals are probably becoming less expensive on E Bay the seven on Abebooks seen stuck by the prices raised last year.