This is almost entirely the discovery of @threadedsafetypin and @inkyvendingmachine – I don’t own Crack-Up Comics so my main contribution was that I was chatting with both of them at the time. Someone else may have pointed this out already, but I HAVENT RUN ACROSS IT YET and I like organising thoughts so, in case it hasn’t been posted anywhere and means??? something??? HERE IT IS
ThreadedSafetyPin was organising the Crack-Up Comics into a timeline and noticed that they’re not in order, which seemed like a bit of an odd choice, but when she went back to put them in order she discovered there are two comics that are scheduled for the same day: How Not To, and On Cloud 9, both scheduled for Jan 10th, 1933.
We both immediately looked at the timeline to see if something’s going on there, because IF ITS A NEWSPAPER STRIP IM P SURE YOU DONT JUST PRINT TWO IN ONE DAY, THATS NOT HOW THAT WORKS, and Thread realised that there’s a pretty significant chronological oddity here:
On Cloud 9 is a strip featuring Alice Angel………. a character who didn’t appear in the cartoon until Sent From Above in September of 1933, eight months later. It’s conceivable that she could’ve existed in the comics before then, but the newspaper article announcing Susie as the VA for Alice also mentions “As the first female character for Joey Drew Studios, Alice Angel certainly has a lot to live up to. We asked Joey what kind of gal Alice Angel will be” – which, I guess could be just, ignorance of the strip, but it sure doesn’t sound like a character that’s already been appearing in the comics for a few months.
Around this point Boo (InkyVendingMachine) came online and I started excitedly telling him about this weird thing Thread had found and he cracked (ha) his own copy open to discover another weird note: the art for How Not To (the other Jan 10th strip) seems either sloppy or rushed, because pencil lines have been left in.
I’ve forgotten to erase a pencil line or two in my time as a cartoonist, but like, this feels potentially pretty deliberate to me on a meta level – Boris’ whole arm was removed in the final inks, but is still easily visible in the pencils.
He also discovered that the dates more or less go in order up until October 8th, and then RESTART with On Cloud 9 (the doubled strip) and move in order with only Alice Angel comics.
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None of us are sure what to do with this! In a series where Time Loops are part of the plot, it seems SIGNIFICANT, but I’m not sure what it signifies. For the double Jan 10th strip, I had the thought that it could signify delays on the cartoons – a lot of times newspaper strips are scheduled way in advance, so if Alice’s debut was intended to happen sooner but then got delayed in production, then they may have had to rush out a non-Alice strip at the last minute to replace this one. But that doesn’t explain the weird way they’re arranged, as if 1933 just starts over again but with Alice this time, or the fact that this isn’t the only pre-September strip with Alice Angel in it.
Thought I’d throw it out there, though, in case any of you can make something of it!!
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