Customer Reviews

Fontaine Fox's Toonerville Trolley

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Though this book is on a cartoon series out of print for more than half a century, it depicts accurately small town life in our country post wwI thru post wwII (early 1950's). everyone is a character, no one is left out. the trolley may no longer be a part of life in my neck of the woods...but the characters live forever! look around for mickey mcguire, the terrible tempered
mr bang, the powerful katrinka, and all the harried commuters...
you will find yourself in fontaine fox's yesterday as well as
2002! :> and enjoy!

A beloved, long-running strip which doesn't get revisited nearly as often as it should, Fontaine Fox's "Toonerville Folks" (often billed as "Toonerville Trolley" in honor of its most famous cast member) is as deserving of a comprehensive re-release as a number of other one-panel dailies currently getting the "complete" treatment. Until that happens, this long out-of-print book (which, while only skimming the surface of the nearly 47 year history of this feature, serves as an excellent introduction) is one of my treasures.

excellent book alsowonderful service from amazom and book dealers very happy with results thanks again doug dakin

The famous trolley ran for over 40 years, with a few to spare before the first and after the second world wars. This cartoon not only set the pattern for one-panel cartoons of later decades, it captured the patterns of life in the years that it spanned.

Those patterns included many that have passed from common usage, like monikers that commonly refer to a person's weight, height, big feet, or other physical feature. That tradition of naming goes back at least to the Icelandic sagas of 1000 CE or so, but has largely faded from contemporary view. The Trolley decades also cover the gradual transformation of middle America from rural to suburban, and includes racial stereotypes that raise hairs on the back of a modern reader's neck. Some of that is revisionism, though, seeing the world of the 1920s or 1940s with eyes trained to the 2010 decade. In its own context, it came across as simple, honest fun that plain folks could enjoy. (City folk came in for plenty of jabs, with their paper money and shameless bathing suits.)

Although nostaligic, it doesn't recall an era or slice of America in which I lived. I see the Trolley as an historical document and quaint oddity, but it's not one that moves me in any personal way.

-- wiredweird