Recently, I had a to check a number of microfilm reels of the Brooklyn Daily Times. As I scrolled through the reels, a recurring comic feature caught my eye. Modish Mitzi features stunning fashion illustrations and the trials and tribulations of the titular Mitzi, a wealthy fashionista who always has to have the latest styles. With the help of her equally stylish friends Polly and Adelaide, and of course, the funds from her very accommodating father, Mitzi somehow manages to both navigate her socialite lifestyle and always be wearing the most up-to-the-minute 20s and 30s fashions while doing so.
This is the first panel of a comic that appeared in the January 5, 1928 issue of the Brooklyn Daily Times. Titled "Such a Few Little Bundles," the strip has Mitzi proudly showing Dad some of her purchases from the day's shopping trip. As you can see from the panel above, the strip's relatively light narrative is mostly an excuse for fashion and style commentary and detailed fashion illustrations to match.
This last panel from a strip titled "Not What's New, But What's Newest" shows a common theme of the strip: Mitzi always has the very latest fashions, even more so than Polly and Adelaide. In this comic, Mitzi generously gave her friends some bolts of "very new silk prints," but has of course kept the most cutting-edge fabric for her own dress.
I wanted to find out more about the comic and its author, Jay V. Jay, so I did some sleuthing. According to this blog about historic American newspaper comics, Modish Mitzi began in 1923 and ran for over 15 years. Allan Holtz, the comic historian who wrote about the strip, adds: "On top of that it even spawned imitators. A few other titles of this genre are The Stylefinder Family...and The Connoisseur. But easily the most bizarre of the lot is Comrade Kitty, which discussed proletariat fashions in the socialist newpaper The Daily Worker." Who knew that fashion comics were such a popular genre?
Most interesting of all, however, was a comment on Holtz's blogpost regarding the identity of Jay V. Jay. It turns out that the pseudonym actually represents three women who created the comic: writers Virginia Vincent and Jeannette Kienkintveld and artist Laura Johnston. According to the Women in Comics wiki, they even based the comic's three main characters on themselves:
Source: Washington Post, 2 March 1924
"Laura Johnston, artist...insisted upon being her own heroine because what was the use of being the artist if you couldn't give yourself the handsomest clothes?...Adelaide, the Catty Blonde, [is] Jeannette Kiekintveld, who objects to being called catty, and is overruled by the others who say that all blondes are catty...Pretty Polly [is] Virginia Vincent, who is the Younger Generation because she is two years the junior of the others." It was a thrill to discover that this comic which I found so beautiful and funny (I definitely detect a tongue-in-cheek tone to their treatment of Mitzi...) was created by three women.
For more Modish Mitzi, you can search Brooklyn Newsstand (as the comic was occasionally printed in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle during 1934), come to the library and use our Local Newspapers on Microfilm collection, or simply browse the Barnacle Press website, which has a number of Mitzi strips posted online.
For now, one more comic from the Brooklyn Daily Times titled "Mitzi Just Wears Herself Out!":
This blog post reflects the opinions of the author and does not necessarily represent the views of Brooklyn Public Library.
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