The UPC (United Publishers Corporation) News Service was a minor syndicate that seemed to specialize mostly in business and economics features, but for reasons unknown they liked to keep a contingent of just one comic strip on their roster. The earliest one of these that I’m aware of is Soosie the Shopper, a delicious trifle about a pretty girl who is clothes-shopping mad, and her poor Daddikins who has to foot the bill.
The strip has no pretensions to greatness, but the superbly madcap art of Charles Forbell (perhaps best remembered for his exquisite Sunday series Naughty Pete) succeeds in overcoming the hackneyed gags by some fellow named Floherty.
Sadly, the series was short-lived. I’d like to think it was because Charles Forbell had better things to do — but if he did I don’t know where he did them. He next pops onto my radar in 1929 with an even more obscure comic strip, Cuddles.
Susie the Shopper ran in a very small client list of papers, the longest run of which I’ve encountered runs from April 6 to October 17 1925.
I'd take this strip over 75% of the strips that are currently running in my papers.
Hello, Allan—-The collaborator on this strip is John J. Floherty, Jr. (1907-1977). He did cartoons for Life, Judge, New Yorker and others, and graduated to covers and serious illustration. He usually signed his work "Floherty Jr."—–Cole Johnson.
But that would make him just seventeen or eighteen at the time of this strip. Is there evidence he's the Floherty we're looking for?
–Allan
Hello, Allan–Perhaps I just made a leap of faith here, but I just assumed that Floherty is your man here as I usually find him in the company of people like Farr.—Cole J.