The History of Undertoad Comics

Chapter Two: The Humble Beginnings of the Photo-Comic Unbeknownst to him, Winston Beck had sired an illegitimate child with one Stella St. Bella, a can-can dancer and pickpocket out of Walker’s Point. The birth of her son in 1869 soothed her wild ways and Stella took to a convent in St. Paul, MN. Naming him Thaddeus Zechariah Beck, she raised her child in the convent telling him his father died a hero in the Civil War.
Thaddeus Beck c. 1911	Thaddeus grew up to be a grocer in Minneapolis of no great importance. He married and had two children, Clara Frederica and Aloysius Diablo, born 1897 and 1898 respectively. His wife Madeline died during childbirth in 1900 with a third child, a stillborn. Thaddeus did not learn his true lineage until 1904 when his mother revealed on her deathbed the actual identity of his father. Being a quiet, pious, and altogether boring man, Thaddeus was at first appalled to learn what his father had done. As time went on, however, he became inspired by Winston’s rebellious spirit and decided to return to his father’s home (largely in hopes of collecting an inheritance of some kind). In 1906 he moved his family to the east side of Milwaukee and started another small grocery. It was not long, however, before he met a man who would change is life forever.
Charles “Buck” Nautilus was born in 1842 to the streets. Never knowing either of his parents, Buck became involved in dozens of shadowy enterprises by the age of eighteen. He was a sharp-witted boy and excelled at most everything he attempted. In spite of a lack of any formal schooling, he became a lawyer of note and opened his own practice at the age of twenty-eight in 1870. The practice thrived and Buck found himself comfortably well off by middle age.

In 1908, Thaddeus consulted Buck about finding some way to recover any of the lost fortune made during Under Toad Pictograph’s sixteen years of successful business. Interested in the uniqueness of the case, Buck thoroughly investigated the matter and discovered that most of the remaining capital had come under the control of Tom-Tom Rivera, a former clerk in the business. Through the use of trickery, threats, and outright blackmail, Buck was able to secure a very sizeable monetary settlement for his client as well as six overlooked photography studios and two ancient printing presses.

Thaddeus was a simple man and completely ignorant of what to do with his new acquisitions. Buck, the other hand, had what would prove to be a unique idea. Correctly identifying the growing crazes for both films and

Charles “Buck” Nautilus
c. 1863

comics, Buck thought it sensible to expect that a combination of the two could make good money. Being forever poor with finances, Thaddeus hired Buck on the spot to manage the business part of a new company that would produce just such a combination. The partnership decided to adopt the name of Winston’s old company and Under Toad Comics was born.

A photo of corn from issue 13 of "Selecting Quality Produce"

Thaddeus immediately threw himself into the artistic side of the enterprise, attempting to make comics of a solid and practical nature so as to “educate those little ruffian kids right out of the hellfire”. Hiring artist’s models at day wages, he would shoot a short story on an amateur Kodak portable camera and arrange the photos with printed text. From there, teams of workers would develop a new set of photos for every single comic and arrange them as shown by Thaddeus. The cost was moderate but the stories were inevitably dull and unpopular. The public had little interest in comics with titles like “Selecting Quality Produce” and “26 Ways to Kill a Mouse.”

In spite of an impressive advertising blitz, sales were slow and by late 1909, Under Toad Comics was ready to close up shop. Luckily, the company’s impressive resurrection was yet to come from an unexpected source: Thaddeus’ 13-year-old daughter, Clara.