Mopsy #8
☆ Be the first to review + Add to your collection — Join freeMopsy #8 (December 1949) sits at the mid-point of one of the most culturally singular comic book runs of the Golden Age — a humor-romance title conceived, written, and drawn entirely by a woman at a time when female cartoonists were a genuine rarity in the industry. Gladys Parker refused to let St. John fill the book with reformatted newspaper reprints, instead supplying original stories and her signature 'Mopsy's Modes' paper-doll fashion features, making each issue a hybrid of comic storytelling and wearable-art design that had no real peer on the newsstand. The series as a whole stands as one of the clearest early examples of a female creator exercising editorial control over her own comic-book property, and #8 represents that creative standard in full mid-run stride. For historians of women in comics, the entire St. John run — #8 included — documents what the medium could look like when the 'good girl art' genre was shaped by the woman being depicted rather than by a male artist's projection.
Mopsy #8 (1949) delivers a delightfully deadpan moment of comic frustration when Mopsy, caught in a library’s hush, accidentally drops a book on her foot—only to be trapped by the very signs urging silence. Written and illustrated entirely by Gladys Parker, this slice-of-life gem showcases her sharp eye for absurdity, with the cover by Parker capturing the moment with her signature wit.
In "null," Mopsy finds herself in a quiet library, only to accidentally drop a book on her foot—prompting a comically loud reaction she stifles with discipline, then escapes outside to let loose. A perfectly timed gag built on silence and sudden release, this short 1949 gem captures Mopsy’s signature blend of mischief and mild mayhem.
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Gladys Parker launched the Mopsy newspaper strip in 1939, modeling the tousle-haired, fashion-forward protagonist directly on herself — a connection reportedly sparked when cartoonist Rube Goldberg remarked that Parker's hair looked like a mop. By the late 1940s the strip appeared in roughly 300 newspapers, and St. John Publications capitalized on that reach by launching a dedicated comic book title, the first issue arriving in early 1948 (some sources date it to early 1949 — see flagged). Parker, trained at the Traphagen School of Fashion and already running her own clothing line, insisted on generating fresh material for the comic rather than simply recycling strip panels, stretching stories to multi-page length and folding her fashion illustration work into the recurring 'Mopsy's Modes' cut-out pages. Issue #8, dated December 1949, also carried a reprint of the 'Sally' humor feature that had first appeared in St. John's Kitty #1, illustrating the publisher's practice of cross-pollinating its humor titles.
Trivia · 8 facts
- Cover-dated December 1949, published by St. John Publications; eighth issue in the 19-issue run (approximately February 1948–September 1953).
- Entirely the work of creator Gladys Parker (1908–1966), one of the very few female cartoonists producing a comic book in the Golden Age — a fact noted across multiple contemporary and retrospective sources.
- Contents follow the series' standard format: several short Mopsy humor-adventure vignettes by Parker, at least one 'Mopsy's Modes' paper-doll fashion feature, and a prose short story ('Two Hamburgers with') printed on the inside covers.
- Includes a reprint of the 'Sally' humor story (characters: Sally, Sue, Gerald Kliegeyes, Bud) that originally appeared in Kitty (St. John, 1948 series) #1 — the same story was later reprinted again in Lucy (St. John, 1953 series) #1 with the feature and character name changed.
- Parker insisted on supplying original comic-book content rather than allowing St. John to reformat existing newspaper strip material, a contractual posture that was unusual for licensed strip adaptations of the era.
- The 'Mopsy's Modes' paper-doll pages, present throughout the run, displayed Parker's actual clothing designs; readers were presented with a Mopsy figure in undergarments surrounded by cut-out Parker fashions — a feature that migrated from her Sunday newspaper strip (added 1945).
- Mopsy #8 was among the issues of the series later stripped of its cover and bound into St. John's Giant Comics Editions anthology collections, confirming the publisher's ongoing use of Mopsy material across multiple formats.
- The broader St. John Mopsy run was subsequently reprinted by Charlton Comics in TV Teens (#7–#13, mid-1950s), and Berkley Books issued a Mopsy paperback collection in 1955, demonstrating the character's cross-format commercial life.
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