FORGOTTEN BOOK: HE DONE HER WRONG

He Done Her Wrong:  The Great American Novel and Not a Word in It -- And No Music, Too by Milt Gross (1930)

American copyright law is a strange hybrid critter.  Originally, works place in copyright could be protected for a period of fourteen years, with the option of a fourteen year renewal.  Authors, publishers, and most readers (I assume) feel strongly about protecting an author's work and income for a reasonable period, and it was soon realized that a maximum of 28 years might deprive and author or his heirs of a reasonable income.  So the law kept changing, helped, in no small part, by influential corporate interests hoping to keep a cash cow afloat, or in this case, a cash mouse.  Disney (and other companies) began exercising their lobbying muscles and the laws keep changing.  Today, any work published in 1978 or after is protected for a period of 70 years after an author's death; any work published before 1978 is protected for a period of 95 years.  Thus, works published in 1930 became part of the public domain as of January 1, this year.  This applies not only to boos, but film and musical works also.

That is why Max Allan Collins was able to publish The Return of the Maltese Falcon this month without fear of legal reprisals; although it should be noted that the copyright here applies only to the magazine version -- evidently the copyright on the book itself expires next year.  That is also why Nancy Drew is now in the public domain, as well as A Farewell to Arms, The Sound and the Fury, All Quiet on the Western Front, A Room of One's Own, A High Wind in Jamaica, Laughing Boy, The Seven Dials Mystery (a new televised version appeared this month on Netflix..coincidence?), The Roman Hat Mystery, and films such as The Cocoanuts, Broadway Melody, Disney's Skeleton Dance (as well as the first Mickey Mouse cartoon in which Mickey speaks -- Mickey himself is already in the public domain), The Holiday Revue of 1929 (featuring the song "Singing in the Rain"), Hitchcock's Blackmail, and the film version of Showboat.  For music, there's "Ain't Misbehavin'," "Bolero," :"An American in Paris," "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," "Happy Days Are Here Again," "Am I Blue?," and sound recordings of "Rhapsody in Blue" by Gershwin, "It Had to Be You," and "California Here I Come."  This year also saw the characters of Popeye and Tin-Tin enter the public domain.

And He Done Her Wrong, an early graphic novel by cartoonist Milt Gross, coming just one after the publication of the first wordless American novel, Lyn Ward's God's Man, which I covered on this blog earlier.  It 's a Perils of Pauline-type of novel and is considered an important precursor to today's graphic novel, drawn in Gross's typical cartoon style.

Here's the plot, from Wikipedia:  "The narrative of He Done Her Wrong centers on a young country man who falls in love with a barroom singer.  A jealous villain tricks the couple and takes the singer to New York.  After a chain of humorous occurrences (presented primarily as slapstick comedy) the protagonist is reunited with his love and discovers that he is the son of a rich industrialist.  While the protagonist and his love settle down and raise a family, the villain is cornered  by the angry fathers of five women with whom he has fathered children, ultimately driven into a life of unhappiness."

Doesn't sound like much, does it?  But when I first read the book in 1963 as a Dell paperback, it knocked my socks off.  Sadly, copy of the book went walkabout many years ago.  I was interested in reading the book again a few years ago, but could not find a copy online, and any copies for sale were more than I wanted to pay.  But now the book is in public domain and is available at the Internet Archive; they jumped on it -- I believe they added the book on January 2.

Now you can enjoy it, too:

https://archive.org/details/he-done-her-wrong/page/n9/mode/1up

Milt Gross (1895-1953) was noted for his cartoon style and his Yiddish-inflected English dialog.  His first comic strip, Phool Phan Phables, began when he was 20.  Several other short-lived comic strips and his first animated film followed.  His first real success came with Gross Exaggerations (originally titled Banana Oil, and later titled The Feitelbaum Family, and then Looy Dot Dope.)   He was noted for his use of "Yinglish," (Nize Ferry-tail from Elledin witt de Wanderful Lamp, for example); probably his most successful book was Nize Baby. 1926.  Other books included Hiawatta witt No Odder Poems, De Night in de Front from Creesmas, Dunt Esk, and Famous Fimmales with Odder events from Heestory.  In 1931, Gross began working for the Hearst syndicate, drawing various strips, including That's My Pop!, which went on to become a radio show.  He suffered a heart attack in 1945 and went into semi-retirement; his last book was I Shouda Ate the Eclair (1946), in which Mr. Figgis nearly starts World War II by refusing to eat an eclair.  He continued to draw, however, with much of his appearing in comic books, including the short-lived Milt Gross Funnies.  He died from a heart attack on November 29, 1953 while returning from a cruise to Hawaii.