Posted in: Comics | Tagged: about comics, Bill Woggon, Dazzling Diamond Lil, katy keene, nat gertler

Everyone Forgot Katy Keene Creator Bill Woggon's Dazzling Diamond Lil'

In 1946, Katy Keene creator cartoonist Bill Woggon created Dazzling Diamond Lil', who appeared everywhere but was forgotten until now.

Published Sat, 12 Aug 2023 06:57:07 -0500

by Rich Johnston

Last updated Sat, 12 Aug 2023 07:08:34 -0500

Comments

In 1945, cartoonist Bill Woggon launched a newspaper strip starrig fashion queen Katy Keene. Starting in backup stories, within a few years she would have her own comics series… and then multiple series, plus one shots, annuals, and specials. Eventually, she reached a level of public attention that few comics characters get, certainly back then, her own live-action TV series. Then in 1946, with Katy Keene still at the start of her popularity, Woggon created another character, Dazzling Diamond Lil'.

However, as it stands, there is no Google result for "Dazzling Diamond Lil" for the strip, only one 1980 article in the Washington Post, noting the 1928 play Diamond Lil by Mae West as "dazzling". Well, with this Bleeding Cool article, watch that change fast.

So how has Dazzling Diamond Lil' been forgotten? It's because she didn't appear in comic books. She appeared in newspapers… and not on the funnies page. Dazzling Diamond Lil' was a single-panel cartoon series that only appeared in ads for local jewelry stores. It's a series about a little girl with diamond eyes who is always finding the most ridiculous situations in which to encourage folks to shop at the jewelry store which ran the ad. Now, this forgotten feature has been collected for the first time in the About Comics paperback Dazzling Diamond Lil'.

Nat Gertler is a comic book-and-related hero, an Eisner Award-winning comics history writer, putting work back into print that had been unduly forgotten, missed out from the canon or in urgent need of archiving. From religious-themed cartoons, to The Green Book, his work as About Comics is always worthy of note.

And now he publishing a paperback collection of over 90 of Lil's cartoons and promotional images, plus a few examples of another advertising cartoon series by Woggon, Penny Wise and Gertler writes an introduction and he does point out that a few of the cartoons include racial caricatures common to the the time. As Disney+ says "These stereotypes were wrong then and are wrong now."

Comics were a regular sight in newspaper advertisements in the mid-20th century, including series like Dazzling Diamond Lil' which focused on a single industry and which had dialogue that included space for including the the name of the local store. While the archives of over a dozen different papers were used for building this collection, for consistency all the captions have been re-set and the fictional Störenamé Jewelers used for what would have been a read, but variable store name. About Comics has recently been delving into advertising comics, an overlooked part of the cartoon arts and other collections include Pete Tumlinson's adventure strip Cherry Sundae, and Wife Gets Smart, Makes Husband Happy: Supermarket Comic Strip Ads of World War II.

Dazzling Diamond Lil' is a 100 page 5.06" x 7.81" black-and-white paperback cover priced at $10 and available for immediate order from Amazon. Which should get picked up by Google any day now. Retailers are asked to contact About Comics on questions@aboutcomics.com.

UPDATE: Bleeding Cool now has a Google result for Dazzling Diamond Lil, but we did also find one, unnamed, in the back of this Johnson City Press article…