Obscurity of the Day: Flapper Filosofy

Once panels like Girligags and Flapper Fanny had proven that the combination of pretty girl drawings and sassy gags was gold with newspaper readers, every syndicate had to have one. King Features got into the race with Flapper Filosofy by Faith Burrows, which debuted on January 28 1929. Ms. Burrows was already producing another panel for King, titled variously Ritzy Rosie and Ritzy Rosalie, which looked like a flapper gag panel, but was actually concerned with beauty and fashion advice*.

1929 was way too late to find many open newspaper spots for a flapper panel, as most papers already had one that they liked. Though Burrows’ take on the genre was perfectly fine, with nice drawings and decent gags, her panel languished in obscurity, never attracting a large number of subscribers. King Features has generally been a syndicate where a new feature is given every possible chance, though, and the panel was produced until February 15 1936, quite a long run considering the small client list.

* there’s some possibility that Ritzy Rosie and Flapper Filosofy might have been melded into a single feature circa 1930-31, as late in the run of the former it changes over to gags. I haven’t found a decent run of the two features in that era, though, to compare side by side and answer the question.

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