The Library of American Comics. Essentials #5

Plot

Art Spiegelman called The Bungle Family "the most underrated comic strip in our history." Bill Blackbeard wrote, "There has been nothing like it in comic strips since." Hogan's Alley magazine proclaimed, "The Bungle Family was about as wholly an adult comic strip as the field has ever known." Yet until now only sporadic examples of Harry J. Tuthill's masterpiece have been available to modern readers. This complete collection of 1930 dailies remedies that situation.

Almost three decades before The Honeymooners, The Bungle Family revolved around a squabbling couple, George and Josephine Bungle, apartment dwellers who are constantly at odds with not only each other, but with their neighbors, landlords, relatives, and just about anyone who crosses their paths, constantly conniving and scheming for financial or social advantage. Unlike Ralph and Trixie Kramden, the Bungles are also trying to marry their daughter Peggy to a rich prospect (including the recurring con man, J. Oakdale Hartford, who figures prominently in this volume).

Perhaps no other comic strip better defines LOAC Essentials's mission to reprint the daily newspaper strips that are essential to comics history in yearly volumes. Like previous Essentials offerings, The Bungle Family will give readers an immersive experience, similar to the one newspapers readers had may decades ago—reading the comics one day at a time.