Here’s another of those postcards distributed with Hearst Sunday papers in 1906, the ones they might have called the “Little Arsonist” line of juvenile amusements.
I wonder if a single person was surprised to see Der Captain magically appear once the heat was applied? You’d think the cartoonists would think just a little about the point of these cards when creating these designs and come up with something … anything … a little unexpected.
Hello Allan-
Your point is well taken; I have yet to see any of these "arson" cards that even remotely had a surprise in them. The possibilities could be vast if that would have been their aim, but they seemed to aim for the exact opposite idea…if we have a card where Si is kicked through the air, there's no suspense in who the hidden kicker is going to be. If Hans and Fritz are lighting a stick of TNT under a chair, there's one guess as to who'll be lounging in it.
Think I've said it before, I've never seen one of these cards that had not been "revealed." So, devoid of any mystery or not, recipients were anxious to see the image anyway. People were hungry for thrills in 1906.
Who is Si?