Hi y’all,
Just wanted to sticky this to let y’all know that this community exists and I am the moderator (also of !madmax@midwest.social). I don’t want to be the only one posting so I hope y’all post your favourite True strips in here as well. Also some simple rules:
- This place is only for the posting of Everett True comics by Condo,
- Please try posting the most high quality image of a comic excerpt,
- If you can, post the publication date of the comic strip, otherwise type either nothing or (date unknown).
Okay Everett lovers let’s get this twentieth century party started
Y’all fw the banner and icon
Found a nice digitized collection from 1907:
Where to see more comics:
- library of congress (older interface)
- library of congress (newer interface)
- collection - july 15 1905 to sept 14 1909, 494 comics
- collection, 1907, 94 pages
- some scans by a blogger (scroll down)
- twitter feed (through xcancel)
- bluesky feed - I think this is the same person doing the twiter feed
- apparently The Wisconsin Historical Archives has “4 oversize folders” of “Pen and ink drawings, 1948-1949, 1953-1954, by cartoonist A.D. (Armundo Dreisbach) Condo, featuring the character Everett True.” (but… I imagine you have to actually go to Wisconsin and convince them to let you see them…) It’s possible this came from August Derleth, who tracked down Condo in his retirement, according to The Capital Times of Madison, Wisconsin on Nov 28, 1948 Page 4 - see image below. A Capital Times article on Wed, Jan 17, 1951 Page 12 says that Derleth planned to publish a collection of old and new comics.
- you might be able to see a couple of the newer ones on the ComicsAuctionSite
- according to a blogspot post, ““Everett True” continued as a pale version of its former self well into the sixties under the title “Uncle Ev,” featuring Everett True.”
- apparently Tony Isabella and Gary Dunn made several additional strips for The Comics Buyer’s Guide, Movie Collector’s World, Amazing Heroes, and The Comics Journal; Isabella plans to collect them and publish them eventually (source, source, source).
TRUE LORE. These comics weren’t worth posting individually, but I thought they had some interesting info on Everett True.
- Everett True has a nephew called “J. Basil True”, who is pictured in the Daily East Oregonian on Sept 27 1919.
- there’s a comic from The Day Book of September 27 1915 that doesn’t seem to show Everett at all… unless Everett is the baby! This is one of Everett’s earliest Outbursts.
- Everett True was skinny when he got married, according to The Seattle Star of Oct 1, 1916.
- Evertt True has a cousin from Kokomo, according to The Daily East Oregonian of October 7, 1919.
…
QUESTION: in what city does Everett True live? ANSWER: I’m not sure if there’s a canonical answer, but FWIW the cartoonist Condo lived in Ohio (Toledo, Cleveland, and Findlay) from 1882 to some time after 1910 (source) (source) and according to an interview with the New Orleans States on 10/2/1917, Condo based Everett True on annoyances he saw around him:
Something after this fashion, Condo does his work: He walks around the block until he finds a human pest and he sicks Everett one that particular pest—on paper of course. For example:
“An acquaintance told me people pestered him into buying a Liberty bond,” recounted Condo. “So he bought the smallest one he could get—$50. He’s rich. It made me so mad I wanted to kick him.”
Condo didn’t dare to do that so he had Everett administer the punishment.
And that’s the way Everett True first broke into print. Condo came to the office one morning after a neighbor’s rasping phonograph had annoyed him unusually the evening before—kept him awake, in fact, long after he had retired.
Why wasn’t there someone to put a machine like that out of business, or to teach the owner of the machine a practical lesson, thought Condo. And before the day was over Everett was born—and the never-ending procession of pests has kept him busy ever since.
