Whew! Over the past week, I’ve completely overhauled the Everett True archive in the Comic Supplement. It was a gargantuan task, bordering on insanity, but it seemed the least we could do for a fellow who’s been so good to us for so long.

I went through every paper I could find the strips in, from its debut in 1905 up to the month-long hiatus in 1909, and pulled every comic in the best condition I could find. This meant downloading and comparing thousands of images to select the five hundred that made it to the archive. This task was compounded in difficulty by the haphazard publishing of early comic strips. There were no firm publication dates or sequences; editors would receive packages of strips to publish according to their own whims. This meant that no cranny could remain unsearched, as some small paper from Muskogee might have a strip that was never published in any of the other scanned papers. Search them I did, and I’m pretty proud of the results. There are some that are in poorer condition than I’d like, but they were the best I could find, and there aren’t too many that are in really terrible condition.

We’re posting a dozen favorites from each year on our Twitter feed, so if you’re not over there, be sure to follow us and join in on the fun.

I’ll also note that, after a week in the weeds, my eyes are a little crossed. I think I’ve done a good job at avoiding duplicates, but if you come across any strays, please comment here to let me know!