Here is the only postcard I’ve come across by Horace B. “Harry” Martin, the creator of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch Weatherbird and quite a few other early strips. The card is uncredited and undated.
I must share the message on the back from a young correspondent to a ‘friend’:
Willie T —
Ans soon.
Halloo Pete you are so fat you can harly walk you can walk with your big punch. You will fall down punch your eye out.
The mean-spiritedness is beautifully offset by the admonishment to ‘Answer soon’!
A bit more clever wordplay would be if he used "Paunch" instead of "Punch", but it's too late to do anything about it now.
Was this card put out by the Post-Dispatch, or Martin himself? I'm wondering because obviously this would primarily have only regional recognition.
There is no information on the card as to the maker. But Martin's bird characters were familiar beyond St. Louis as he also did work for Hearst and a little for Pulitzer, so he had some national exposure. — Allan