SilentComedyMafia.com

Soon after Slapsticon I visited Wonder Book in Frederick MD and picked up a volume I never heard of called Film Flashes: Wit and Wisdom of a Nation). It was published by Judge magazine, which I take to be a kind of American "Punch". I quickly realized that it was a yearbook containing articles and artwork on the film world in 1915-16. Being a humor and satire magazine, "Judge" loved comedy, with Keystone and Mabel Normand particular favorites. And there are color prints throughout the book, most in the manner of James Montgomery Flagg, not surprising since Flagg was on the Judge staff at the time. I'll scan some of the more interesting stuff, but here is an example of two beautiful color prints, the second one mourning Mabel Normand's departure from Keystone:

"Fatty": http://slapsticon.org/Fatty.jpg
"Good-bye Mabel": http://slapsticon.org/GoodbyeMabel.jpg

And for Steve Massa, here's an article on Alice Howell:
http://slapsticon.org/AliceHowell.jpg

Rob
Thanks for the piece on Alice Howell.

Here are a couple of stories and photos about Mabel Normand. Note the reference to her head injury in the caption in the second file:

http://slapsticon.org/MabelLeavesComedy.jpg

http://slapsticon.org/MabelInjury.jpg

Actually, I think the whole thing is online at archive.org. Is this it?
http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924075696165

Thanks Rob. Now I don't have to scan anymore. Although some of the color plates in my edition are different than the color plates in the archive.org volume. Another interesting factor is Linda Arvidson Griffith's recollections of Biograph written a full decade before the publication of her book in 1925. Her serialized memoirs in Judge are quite different than the later version, and it is interesting that in 1916 she is able to convey a sense of nostaligia about events that occured just seven years earlier.

Rob Farr wrote:Thanks Rob. Now I don't have to scan anymore. Although some of the color plates in my edition are different than the color plates in the archive.org volume. Another interesting factor is Linda Arvidson Griffith's recollections of Biograph written a full decade before the publication of her book in 1925. Her serialized memoirs in Judge are quite different than the later version, and it is interesting that in 1916 she is able to convey a sense of nostaligia about events that occured just seven years earlier.

I don;t know why that would be so hard. I've heard you was nostalgic about the first Slapsticon , and that was just seven years earlier.

It's the same way early talkie compilations about silent film made fun of those "old-fashioned movies" that were little more than a decade or so old.

RICHARD M ROBERTS

Even today folks long for the pioneering days of the Internet before everything was commercialized and comodified, waaaay back in 1999.