Today’s feature is Aubrey of the Tenements, by J.M. Conde. Beautifully rendered and thoughtfully premised, the strip concerns itself with the mischievous antics of a parrot and a cat who have been transplanted from tenement slums to palatial comfort. The first couple of strips show the pair in their former digs and tells how they came to be adopted into high society, while the later entries mine a formula where the jerkfaced parrot tries to mess with the cat, but Aubrey manages to come out on top. It’s a situation that would be reworked endlessly thirty years later in cartoon shorts, but it’s put to good use in this turn-of-the-(last)-century treat.

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