VINTAGE CELEBRITY COMIC BOOKS: CHARLIE CHAPLIN'S FUNNY STUNTS #380

Charlie Chaplin was an English comedian, filmmaker, and musician who starred in over eighty films throughout his illustrious career, starting with 'Making a Living' in 1914 and ending with 'A Countess from Hong Kong' in 1967. Charlie was also one of the first global film stars to appear in his own series of comics.





In 1916, he left the Essanay Film Manufacturing Company and joined the Mutual Film Corporation for a record-breaking yearly salary of $670,000. But before and after his departure, Essanay used their ownership rights to cash in on Charlie's popular on-screen persona, the Little Tramp, by cross-licensing his image for print media. What now follows are three complete comic strips from this era.

Published in 1917 by M. A. Donohue & Co., 'Charlie Chaplin's Funny Stunts' #380 was an oversized, sixteen-page Platinum Age comic book consisting of reprints from the syndicated newspaper comic strip, 'Charlie Chaplin's Comic Capers', which was originally printed in the Chicago Herald and other American newspapers between 1915 and 1917. The series was initially devised by Stuart Carothers and distributed by the Keeley-Handy Syndicate.

The three comic strips on display were written and illustrated by the American cartoonist, E. C. Segar, and they've been modified to improve clarity and fit the website's dimensions. Not only were the contrast and hue slightly altered, but the layouts were each reformatted from two horizontal 3x2 panel grids to one vertical 2x6 panel grid. To see these comic strips in their original form, please feel free to click here to visit the digital archive at the Margaret Herrick Library.