It was in 1914 that a comic-strip cannibal chieftain named Gomquotz spoke out, astonishingly, in a mixture of Russian and Yiddish. So tickled were Jewish readers that Cartoonist Harry Hershfield shrewdly abandoned both Gomquotz and his setting—a strip called "Desperate Desmond"—and created a thoroughly Jewish character, Abie Kabibble. The new strip he named "Abie the Agent." For 18 years Abie appeared every day in the Hearstpapers (syndicated by Hearst's King Feature Syndicate), until last fortnight. On the day he disappeared, something new popped up in...
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