Friday, February 10, 2012

Vintage Valentine: Difficult to Describe...

This antique valentine dates from 1903 and retains its original cord, which made it possible to hang it up as a decoration. It was illustrated by R. F. Outcault, the creator of The Yellow Kid comic strip and the Buster Brown advertising character. It's from a series Outcault did featuring these recurring characters of a rather scary bear and a scruffy little dog. Doesn't the bear look rather lascivious? Or hungry? Or both? And what the hell is the dog talking about?! Baffling, weird and kind of creepy!

6 comments:

  1. So it seems Goldilocks may not have wandered into the 3 Bears' home accidentally after all.I knew that story she made up about getting lost in the woods was nonsense. She was looking up the Baby Bear.

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  2. I posted a couple of Outcault valentines three years ago. I didn't realize the bear is a recurring character. See link:
    http://thepapercollector.blogspot.com/2009/02/rf-outcault-valentines.html

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