At first, I paid little attention to "Our Boarding House." On week days it was just a single panel, although it was a full sized strip in the Sunday edition. It had too many words, and folks just seemed to be standing around and talking. But as I entered my teens I began to read the strip daily. Maybe it was the fez that he wore around the house that caught my eye. I became fascinated by the interaction of Major Amos B. Hoople, his boarders and friends. They all seemed so human, in an exaggerated way.
Our Boarding House was syndicated as a daily cartoon in hundreds of newspapers from 1921 until 1981. During the 1920's and 1930's, boarding houses were an institution in our society. The boarding house was the home away from home where men lived to save money until they got married and moved into a home of their own. Women in the same situation usually "took rooms" with a family. Boarding houses were often a second source of income for a family struggling to support the household.
Our Boarding House told the story of wizened homeowner Martha Hoople and her quirky stable of boarders. It appeared for four months in 1921 before the Major ambled obnoxiously back into estranged wife Martha's life after a ten-year absence.
Major Hoople's disagreeably daft personality was quickly embraced by readers. Aside from his affinity for cigars and the weathered fez donning his balding head, Hoople was best known for stretching the strip's text bubbles to the bursting point with his long-winded speeches, littered with colorful non-words like "harumf," fap," and "egad," about the astounding ten years he spent away from his wife. He considered himself an expert on every subject, and was always on the lookout for a new get-rich-quick scheme.
I searched the web for Major Hoople images, but I had only modest success. This cartoon seems fairly representative of the style.
I did find, however, a Canadian company that sells a book of Our Boarding House cartoons. The company is Lee Valley Tools. Here is a link:[http://www.leevalley.com/wood/page.aspx?c=1&p=52679&cat=1,46096,46100&ap=1]
I ordered a copy, and look forward to experiencing once more the remarkably colorful speeches of the good Major. My wife just told me that I am starting to look like him--fap!
3 comments:
You don't look THAT much like Amos B. Hoople. Not yet.
When I was about 10 years old, I became addicted to Our Boarding House. The snappy, realistic dialog from the boarders themselves amazed me with its tart accuracy.
Hoople himself was hilariously pompous. I remember a strip from the late 60s in which Hoople comes home from a baseball game gloating about how he caught a ball in the stands barehanded. But the boarders had been watching the game on television, where it was announced that the play of the day was when a fat old man stole a ball from a child -- and there was Hoople on TV, grabbing the boy's ball. So Hoople's blarney about the ball was dead on arrival when he got home to gloat about himself.
Notary sojac!!
Phap! I read Our Boarding House every Sunday. Loved it. But someone is really holding tight to the copyright. How can I acquire a good set of his episodes. Now that I have reached his approximate age ( if not his girth), and have Martha to put up with, I have a real need to read the Hoople episodes, get rich quick, and handle Martha. Egad.....HELP! Richard
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