Sheet of Brownie Drawings

A dozen little Brownies scattered across a single sheet, each drawn and signed on its own scrap, the way Cox worked before the vignettes were assembled into a printed page. They fish, roll a hoop, study a theatrical poster, ride a bristling goat, and cluster around signs for the World's Columbian Exposition and a cadet academy. Cox gave every Brownie a fixed bit of business, the Dude in his top hat, the policeman, the sailor, so a reader could pick out favorites in a crowd. That legibility turned the characters into merchandise. By the 1890s Brownies sold soap and dolls, and Eastman Kodak borrowed the name outright for its Brownie camera. The elves had become public property, and Cox kept drawing them by the hundred.