Once upon a time, in a universe far, far away (a.k.a. 1964), a couple of months after I turned eight, the Providence Journal began running a comic strip called "Einstein" about a sentient, globetrotting (and "storybook-trotting" as well) dog and his human, a little boy named Leroy. Every strip (or, perhaps, every other strip), had some sort of a puzzle to be solved or activity to be done.

The strip only lasted about a year, but I vividly remembered it and recall being disappointed when my dad cleaned the cellar and tossed a big pile of old newspapers that I didn't have a chance to go through because I was hoping I could find some "Einstein" strips. However, as the years passed, it got to the point where I wondered if I hadn't imagined the strip, then I made a few inquiries into the newsgroup rec.arts.comics.strips and the second time someone came up with some information for me.

The short saga of the search is told here: Adventure! Fun! Puzzles!

Anyway, in January, I got a note from a gentleman named Pete (I don't know if he wants me to use his full name, so I won't), who said he'd found my blog entry after searching for "Einstein" on e-Bay. He also remembered the strip. His recollections:

"I remember several stories. They went to Holland in a balloon. There was a wild west story. In August of 1964, they followed Alice through Wonderland. I still have the Cheshire Cat that I carved at age nine, per instructions in the strip, from a bar of soap. And they encountered the Sphinx with Einstein answering the riddle about what walks on four legs, then two, then three (a human going from baby to man to old man with cane)."

Pete then said he collected the strip every day, but had lost most of them. He then said he would send me a copy of any strip he could find.

Well, he could only find one, the August 6, 1964, strip in the Alice sequence, but here it is, almost 43 years and many memories later:



He does say he intends to go find the rest of them on microfilm and print them off and asks if I would like to have copies. Would I! :-)

Labels: comics, memories

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. . . . . noted and logged by Linda at 6:58:00 PM

Comments:

hello,
i am a little late in finding your web site. my name is ken rinciari. i am the original illustrator of einstien and leroy.

i originated what einstien and leroy looked like.

after a few months i was fired. the strip was in about 60 papers. the boston globe being the biggest. they thought my drawing was not slick enough.

if you have access to the earliest strips, i would love to see them again.

hope to hear from you.

kind regards,
- ken rinciari

jk.rinciari@quicknet.nl

# posted by  Anonymous : 1:10:00 PM

 

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