‘Mary Worth’ and its disputed heritage in the working poor

 

Bill Knight column for 5-10, 11 or 12, 2021

Five years ago this week, cartoonist June Brigman took over the iconic newspaper comic strip “Mary Worth,” continuing a popular feature whose roots some say are tied to a Depression-era strip with a lead character of the same name but much different circumstances.

Brigman is a veteran illustrator, working on comic books including “Supergirl” (DC) and “Power Pack” (Marvel), plus “Star Wars” titles and the “Brenda Starr” strip.

“Mary Worth” syndicator King Features disputes a connection to “Apple Mary,” an oft-forgotten strip by Martha Orr about a plucky woman hit hard by economic misfortune, making ends meet by selling apples on the street, and dispensing advice.

“ ‘Mary Worth’ is not a continuation of the Depression Era favorite ‘Apple Mary’,” the company says. “The strip was created as a replacement. The only thing the new title character had in common with her predecessor was a first name.”

Actually, the strips share several things: her last name, a late husband with the same name who worked on Wall Street, a past in New York City, and even a subtitle to “Apple Mary” – “Mary Worth’s Family.”

What they don’t share is a lead character struggling with poverty.

Today’s Mary is a “60-something” Ohio native, college graduate, ex-teacher and widow of Jack” Worth, a Wall Street whiz who left her a comfortable income. She once lived in New York but now resides in a condo in Santa Royale, Calif., where she volunteers at the local hospital and advises friends and colleagues.

The original Mary was an elderly widow who sold apples on the street to get by and humbly offering advice to others.

Debuting in 1934, “Apple Mary” became a popular feature, offering hope in trying times. Orr was one of the first women comic-strip artists, and “Apple Mary” was credited as the first “soap opera” strip.

Also an early strip to use current events in its plots, its inspiration came from newspaperman Damon Runyon’s short story “Madame la Gimp” – which also inspired the character Apple Annie in the films “Lady for A Day” and “Pocketful of Miracles.”

“Comic strips like ‘Little Orphan Annie,’ ‘Annie Rooney’ and ‘Apple Mary’ (later ‘Mary Worth’) described the plight of the dispossessed middle classes, who moved from security, even affluence, to poverty,” wrote Barry D. Karl in “The Uneasy State: The United States from 1915 to 1945.”

Apple Mary’s late husband was a tycoon whose death left her penniless, with a crippled grandson, but she persevered.

“The series met with instant success in the bleak 1930’s but, as the United States was slowly getting out of the Depression, the worthy but indigent Mary became more and more irrelevant,” wrote Maurine Horn in “The World Encyclopedia of Comics.”

In 1938, Orr – whose uncle was Pulitzer Prize-winning Chicago Tribune editorial cartoonist Carey Orr – quit the strip, which was taken over by writer Allen Saunders and Orr’s assistant, artist Dale Conner (together credited as Dale Allen). Saunders in the “The Journal of Popular Culture” and other sources said he added the subtitle “Mary Worth’s Family” and by 1942 its title was “Mary Worth,” still written by Saunders.

Saunders said he was given the strip and developed it to accommodate women newspaper readers. A veteran of other continuity strips he termed “open-ended novels” (“Steve Roper & Mike Nomad,” “Kerry Drake”), Saunders said he revised the character by restoring her family fortune and moving Mary from a New York tenement to Santa Royale, Calif.

Whether or not “Mary Worth” emerged from “Apple Mary,” the first strip at least lay the foundation. The current Mary continued to dispense advice after Saunders retired in 1979, with several writers and artists working on the strip. Today, Karen Moy writes the strip (available at comicskingdom.com if your local paper doesn’t carry the strip.)

“Apple Mary” soothed troubled readers needing an escape from the uncertainty of the 1930s and ’40s, and it showed continuity comic strips with domestic instead of action themes could succeed. More recent stories have addressed social issues, such as juvenile delinquency, unwed motherhood, drug addiction, alcoholism, concerns about the elderly and the generation gap.

However, it’s regrettable that apparent discomfort with a poverty-stricken protagonist sacrificed the sense that the less-fortunate an be wise, decent models, too.