Guest Comic Saturday
Our featured comic above on the Redskins name is done by a mister Darth Brooks (His internet moniker). Darth is an artist as well, and you can see some of his work here and here. He also makes his own Football Card designs. Darth is a NFL history nut about old teams and uniforms and even spent some time taking very old teams that everyone has forgotten about and seeing how they’d look if they were still around. Check it out, they look great.
I would say I find his thesis presented here about the Skins name interesting. We’ll probably never know for sure why the Redskins got the name they did. Some think Marshall did it on purpose knowing it was a slur because he was a horrible racist. Others, namely Skins fans, seem to think it was in honor of Lone Star Dietz, though someone found an old newspaper quote from Marshall where he explicitly says that’s not true, and the name Redskins was not to honor Dietz. I’ve always personally thought he named them the Braves to try and possibly steal ticket sales from the other Boston Braves (The baseball team that eventually became Atlanta) or piggyback off the Native American theme, then changed it to Redskins to differentiate or because the Baseball team wanted to stop confusion. I don’t think he did it to be racist despite the fact that he was a huge racist, because the culture was different at the time and while the name might be a slur now, it probably wasn’t then. Darth Brooks mentioned to me that at the time there was a kind of Native American sentimentality (because we had finally subdued all of them) and that may have played a part. Again, we’ll never know why they are the Redskins, we should focus more on the current society when it comes to the name anyway. But that’s is a discussion for another time.
Darth’s Comic is not the only one I have received in the past month, so here are the rest. This Sanchez comic was done by TYFPY (No other information given).
We are going to be making Buttfumble jokes for eternity and I love it. This next comic was done by Ian Guevara, who is clearly a fan of my Johnny & The King comics
The next comic was done by 16 year old Kalan Birnie from the remote state of Hawaii, who wrote a comic inspired by Hawaiian football players and a big fan of the recent Heisman Winner Marcus Mariota
“jerseys used once” is easily the best part. The last guest submission I had sent to me was by Adam Weeks, 18, who is a Seahawks fan living in Florida:
“Yeah”
Thank you for asking.
I find the big comic here full of some very faulty logic; connecting Thorpe at all to the ‘Skins really does a disservice to his legacy as a man and a football player. And calling the Oorang Airedales a separate breed, well, I don’t know if that’s true; it was more a marketing thing than anything as far as I understand. But that’s probably a better topic for a dog comic rather than a football comic.
I though Oorang was a breed. Was it just the Kennels name?
Also, I really couldn’t a picture of Marshall that didn’t make him look like a slick s.o.b. Thorpe’s shadow over the early part of the game can’t be overstated. The dude was amazing and the story of the 1912 game between Carlisle and West Point should be a movie.
I appreciate the research, but… yeah, the Washington Redskins having that name probably doesn’t have a lot to do with Thorpe. They were founded as the Boston Braves in 1932, being named after the baseball team whose field they played in (see also: New York Giants, Pittsburgh Pirates [now Steelers], New York Yankees [defunct], Detroit Tigers [defunct], Cincinnati Reds [defunct], etc.). After one season where they lost almost $50,000, the owners other than Marshall dropped out and the Braves moved to Fenway Park. Dietz was hired around this time, but as Febreeze mentions there’s a contemporary quote from Marshall himself in the Hartford Courant where he explains that “Braves” was changed to “Redskins” to keep the old logo but also avoid confusion/signify that the team wasn’t playing in the baseball Braves’ park anymore.
I interpreted his comic in a broad sense. The Skins didn’t name it directly after Jim Thorpe or anything, just that players like Jim Thorpe had caused a bit of a connection between successful sports and Native Americans, which in turn inspired so many sports teams to name themselves as Native terms, which eventually led to the Boston Braves, then inspired the football Boston Braves, which became the Redskins to avoid confusion later down the road.
At least, that’s what I thought Brooks was going for, feel free to correct me there, Darth
That’s exactly right. I didn’t mean that Thorpe specifically inspired the Redskins name but that Native Americans were such a part of the game at the time that it helped establish a connection. Thinking about it though, there was a lot of romanticizing done over the Native American tribes after the last hold outs to “civilizing” gave up.
Hoyer’s number is 6 not 9.
Interesting strip.
Panel 4 = “racisive” -> should that be “racism”?
In the first panel “was was” should be “what was”
Thorpedo is what Australian swimmer Ian Thorpe got nicknamed, is that terrible enough?
Ah yes, President Eisenhouser. Known for defeating the Nazis and becoming a licensed doctor at age 14.
How do you mention President Eisenhouer without mentioning the fame and fortune he achieved as a member of The Beatles? Come on, he was The Funny Beatle.
Really liked the Sanchez one
That first comics captions are terribly formatted and layed out.