I bought an old book the other day called, “Great Comics.” It has comic strips from the New York Daily News and the Chicago Tribune. So many I remember well from the Daily News years ago. There is Dick Tracy, Dondie, Little Orphan Annie and Smokey Stover, to name a few.

I always loved Smokey Stover. I never understood it, but loved it and my mother did, too. She liked the crazy words thrown out throughout the strip like “Notary Sojac” and “Foo.” Smokey, created by cartoonist Bill Holman, was a fireman and the strip was about his crazy life. He and his boss Chief Cash U Nutt drove to fires in the Foo Mobile.

The Smokey Stover comic strip started running in March 1935 and ended in 1937 when Bill retired it. I guess I remember it from the early ’70s, possibly, late ’60s.

After seeing it in the “Great Comics,” book I looked for more Smokey strips online and was pleased to find a whole site dedicated to Smokey and gang with hundreds of comics from the 1930s through the 1970s. That’s here: www.smokey-stover.com

Check it out if you get a chance. It’s really good stuff.