Millionaire philanthropist Jasper Dewgood was a character featured in a short lived strip of the same name in Quality’s Kid Eternity series. Dewgood was described as “[having] a big vocabulary, a bigger fortune, and a still bigger desire to help people out of difficulties”. Dewgood was also tall, blond, wore glasses, dressed quite nicely, had polite manners, and very naive of the blue collar and low class worlds. These traits along with a lack of a girlfriend, and his refined speech all contributed to an air of effiminancy.
On the surface his refined vocabulary was reflective of his wealth and standing, but writer/ artist Paul Gustavson used it as a humorous foil against the comedically seedy crooks whom tried to take advantage of Dewgood. A maiden aunt encouraged Jasper to study Jiu Jitsu despite his abhorrence of violence. Gustavson took this dynamic and made into a running, pratfall filled gag with Dewgood, often trouncing shady crooks who routinely tried to flounce him of money while posing as heads of charitable organizations.
Artist Paul Gustavson drew Jasper using hand gestures that were not traditionally viewed as masculine. His suits were drawn to look impeccable and on two occasions his tie was colored red. In the early 20th century gay men on occasion wore red ties as a signal to other men of their sexual desires, reminiscint of the 1970s when the belief was prevalent that gays wore green on Thursday.
The use of the word “sissy” in issue #7 is the earliest use of the word in a comic to my knowledge. In this story it’s spoken by a woman involved with crooks (“Gum! Phooey! What would the old mob say if they saw me gettin’ all these sissy habits?”). “Sissy” and “pantywaist” are used in issue #8 as derogatory words for homosexual, and specifically used to describe Jasper, first by a man running Ricky’s Gym and then by a woman posing as socialite dowager hoping to bilk him of money.
First appearance in Kid Eternity # 7 (1947) and appeared through #14 (1949).
Tags: gay, Golden Age
Interesting that “red tie” was a gay signal, given that Clark Kent wore red ties with blue suits all those years.
It happened so often they even gave it an explanation: he had red and blue dyes, along with one formula that would bleach cloth white, that made regular earth-cloth resitant to air friction, as he would often have to do a burst of superspeed while wearing Clark drag.
The practice of wearing a red tie wasn’t well known in the popular culture. Gustavson the artist might have known about it or he might not have. The author of the book “Gay New York” where I learned about red ties posits that Jewish immigrants were fairly insular because they came to the US as married couple and or families while the other large immigrant group at the time, Italians, came here mostly as male individuals who may have had wives and families back home, but were essentially single men in NYC, and thus more prone or open to sex with men. So, some greater number of Italian men may have known about red ties than their jewish counterparts like Siegel and Schuster. Who knows with Gustavson. The tie color just struck me as curious in light of the words pantywaist and sissy being used.