It’s that time of year once again, when we take a breather from obscure comic strips and focus on … more obscure comic strips.

Starting tomorrow we will begin a complete reprinting of the 1937 King Features Christmas strip, Santa Claus and Company. The strip was penned by Royal King Cole, who did a number of these holiday short-run strips. Cole always had a knack for bringing the surreal and bizarre to these strips, and Santa Claus and Company is certainly no slouch in the department of being kookie. I think Mr. Cole might just have been an early adopter of that stuff they just legalized in Colorado and Washington state.

I was lucky enough to score a complete run of this strip on syndicate proofs, from which these images are made. I hope you enjoy the strip!