# Please Identify This Comic Strip
**URL:** https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061
**Category:** Cafe Society
**Created:** [August 29, 2017, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061 "2017-08-29T22:24:38Z")
**Posts on this page:** 15
**Page:** 1
### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2017, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/1 "2017-08-29T22:24:38Z")
It appeared in the 1950s.
It may or may not have been from the UK. Or the US.
The only character that I can remember well enough to describe is the eldest daughter (or maybe roomer), female, early 20s, redhead, wore green, & affected a cigarette holder.
Older parental figures.
Family lived in a red brick building, 3 or so stories tall.
Title may or may not have been “What A Family”, or something like it.
Strip is currently out of publication.
The SDMB can do anything, except solve the murder of Isadore Fink. (Unconnected.)
So you can do this.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2017, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/2 "2017-08-29T22:33:30Z")
Update
There was another character named Leroy, appearance unknown.
May have been a Boarding House, rather than an apartment building.
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### Author:  [@teela\_brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/teela_brown)
#### Post date: [August 29, 2017, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/3 "2017-08-29T22:42:41Z")
Was it _[Our Boarding House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Boarding_House)_?
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2017, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/4 "2017-08-30T21:46:48Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#):
>
> Was it _[Our Boarding House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Boarding_House)_?
Honestly, I can’t tell, from the tiny images.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2017, 9:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/5 "2017-08-30T21:48:42Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#):
>
> Was it _[Our Boarding House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Boarding_House)_?
Hunted online.
I do not believe so.
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### Author:  [@Son\_of\_a\_Rich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Son_of_a_Rich)
#### Post date: [August 30, 2017, 11:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/6 "2017-08-30T23:37:16Z")
> [@teela\_brown](#):
>
> Was it _[Our Boarding House](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Boarding_House)_?
If it was Our Boarding House he probably would have remembered Major Hoople before any of the other characters.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2017, 8:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/7 "2017-08-31T20:59:07Z")
Been poking around on Golden Age Comics blogs–so far, nothing. ☹
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2017, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/8 "2017-08-31T22:01:22Z")
You answered your own question in your OP. Searching Google Images for “What a Family” comes up with several examples, including [this one](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mELguWKkbKA/VH3wOs6mLgI/AAAAAAABTUs/7eSR5r5R2uE/s1600/What-A-Family!-1952-11-29.jpg). Cigarette holder, wearing green, mentions Leroy, only thing you got wrong is that she seems to be blonde.
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [August 31, 2017, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/9 "2017-08-31T22:06:49Z")
And [here](http://comicskingdom.com/blog/2015/10/08/ask-the-archivist-what-a-family) is a page that contains many of those examples.
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### Author:  [@Miles\_Standoffish](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miles_Standoffish)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2017, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/10 "2017-09-01T11:44:32Z")
Jeez those people were jerks.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2017, 12:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/11 "2017-09-01T12:55:36Z")
> [@Darren\_Garrison](#):
>
> You answered your own question in your OP. Searching Google Images for “What a Family” comes up with several examples, including [this one](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-mELguWKkbKA/VH3wOs6mLgI/AAAAAAABTUs/7eSR5r5R2uE/s1600/What-A-Family!-1952-11-29.jpg). Cigarette holder, wearing green, mentions Leroy, only thing you got wrong is that she seems to be blonde.
Thank you!
Are there any published collections, that you know of?
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### Author:  [@Darren\_Garrison](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darren_Garrison)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2017, 6:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/12 "2017-09-01T18:25:48Z")
> [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](#):
>
> Thank you!
>
> Are there any published collections, that you know of?
I had never heard of it before I googled for it. According to that blog entry, though, it was never published very widely, and there seem to be only a handful of example pages on the internet (at least ones with easy to google names.) Other than the page I posted yesterday, there is [this](http://allthingsger.blogspot.com/2014/03/right-around-what.html) one and [this](http://bennypdrinnon.blogspot.com/2014/12/what-family.html) one, [this](https://www.lambiek.net/artists/a/allen_colin.htm) one in a (sparce) encyclopedia entry, and a couple of low-resolution images of original artworks being sold by auction houses. Also, at some unknown point, [he died](https://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=131143704).
Seems like you’ve remembered up an obscure one with little chance of a collection being available. Probably have to subscribe to [newspapers.com](http://newspapers.com) and dig through the archives to find more.
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### Author:  [@Bosda\_Di\_Chi\_of\_Tricor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bosda_Di_Chi_of_Tricor)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2017, 10:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/13 "2017-09-01T22:18:24Z")
My thanks.
🙂
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### Author:  [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2017, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/14 "2017-09-01T23:06:23Z")
> [@Miles\_Standoffish](#):
>
> Jeez those people were jerks.
From the website:
> [@](#):
>
> The Looneys are not normal; they are all impossibly stupid, destructive and obnoxious. They see themselves as superior to the surrounding populace, and seem to all at once dedicate themselves to one big dangerous or otherwise ill-thought-out project, or they’re scattering in different directions doing something they shouldn’t.
They’re sort of like proto-Simpsons.🙂
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### Author:  [@Trancephalic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trancephalic)
#### Post date: [September 1, 2017, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/please-identify-this-comic-strip/795061/15 "2017-09-01T23:15:47Z")
I you do go hunting these down, and they are in the public domain (I’m guessing they are), do consider submitting them to [comicbookplus.com](http://comicbookplus.com) or [Archive.org](http://Archive.org) or somesuch place.