The Addams Family began not as a family, but as single nameless characters in Charles Addams’ single panel comics in the New Yorker.

I have looked for some time trying to find a publication order for the strips, but have come up empty handed. So I will be sharing them in the order they appear in the book Drawn And Quartered on Wednesdays.

I know i switched books since last week, but as this was the first compilation released, i have a feeling there order will be more true to how they were released originally.

Drawn and Quartered title page with Pugsley.

Pugsy was not named until 1964, with the release of the TV Show.

Today we have three character that appears to be Morticia. Charles Addams’ first wife was always assumed to be the inspiration for Morticia, but he met her years after the character’s creation. He insisted the character was based on the qualities he found appealing in a woman, so it made sense he would marry someone who resembles Morticia.

    • nocturne@slrpnk.netOP
      26·
      23 hours ago

      The Addams family started in the New Yorker in 1938, a full 26 years before the TV show aired.

      The family members were unnamed until the 1960s. Matriarch Morticia and daughter Wednesday received their names when a licensed doll collection was released in 1962.

  • addie@feddit.uk
    7·
    22 hours ago

    Okay - that’ll be interesting. There’s not much “the future Addams family” in that collection; there’s quite a lot of creepy-and-kooky, a fair amount of 1940s humour that’s aged really badly (misogyny and foreigners with funny ways) and also a fair amount of stuff that I just don’t understand at all. Will be pleased to see the ‘wisdom of the crowds’ for what’s actually going on in some of them.

    Bit of a prototypical Far Side in a way. Addams has a fair amount more technical skill than Larson, but can be a lot meaner in his jokes; they’re very much about an ‘everyday picture with funny caption’ or vice-versa.

    • nocturne@slrpnk.netOP
      8·
      22 hours ago

      I have already identified a strip in the first dozen pages I will not be publishing due to a racist caricature.

      As I now have multiple books, I may bounce between them. I switched to Drawn and Quartered today because I know the character to become Morticia was the first that was illustrated.

      Nothing is carved into a headstone yet, and my research for a release order continues.