Mr Coffee Nerves

This ad from 1936 has officially become history : as of this year (about half a century after George got his wings) Kraft no longer produces Postum, the caffeine-free coffee replacement.

The art for this strip was provided by Paul Arthur, an alias used by Milton Caniff and Noel Sickles (according to Alex Toth). There’s another ad after the click (nicked from eBay), for Baker’s Coconut mix this time, which is also credited to Arthur, and follows a very similar story line.

Pal Arthur 2

(thanks, Merlin)

This entry was posted on Sunday, December 14th, 2008 at 10:41 am and is filed under Advertising. The author deemed the following tags appropriate : Milton Caniff, Noel Sickles. You can follow any responses to this entry through its very own RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “Mr Coffee Nerves”

slieber234 (Steve Lieber)
July 30th, 2010 14:40
1

@colleencoover You are WRONG: http://tinyurl.com/dajgae
STWALLSKULL » HEY! KIDS! COMICS! : Carl Barks’ Donald Duck : December 15th, 2008
December 15th, 2008 23:37
2

[...] Mr Coffee Nerves from The Ephemerist [...]
Stay healthy | The Ephemerist
March 25th, 2009 14:22
3

[...] reliever ran in 1937 and 1943 respectively. The Peter Pain character (which is somehow similar to Mr Coffee-Nerves) would continue to appear in similar ads well into the 1960’s, quite often with art by Jack [...]
Melody
April 8th, 2009 14:51
4

I have a bunch of Caniff/Sickles Postum ads in a book of early Terry and the Pirates strips. I love them, and I’m constatnly confusing people with references to Mr. Coffee-Nerves.
jim kelsey
January 12th, 2010 00:54
5

after all these years, i assumed paul arthur was a real person, not an alias. but, whoever he actually was, he was admired by me. you see, back when i was a kid, i took a correspondence course in cartooning and mr. coffee nerves was included in one of the lessons; (as drawn by paul arthur.) i loved the style and wanted to draw just like that.

The Ephemerist

Thriving in the margins since 2002…

Mr Coffee Nerves

5 Responses to “Mr Coffee Nerves”

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