Cartoonist V.T. Hamlin's breakthrough to prominence came early on in the 1930s with a comic strip called ALLEY OOP -- still running in the New Century, generations after Hamlin's death. This new volume, ALLEY OOP'S ANCESTORS, traces the evolution of Hamlin's style during the 1920s through two humor strips for a newspaper in Texas, the Star-Telegram of Fort Worth. From 1924 comes the absurdist slapstick fable of THE HIRED HAND, and from 1925-1926 comes the sports cartoon THE PANTHER KITTEN, designed to promote the city's Fort Worth Panthers baseball club (a.k.a. the FW Cats). Reproduced from primary-source drawings and original printings, with commentary from comics historian (and Hamlin protege) Michael H. Price, with cartoonist/scholar Frank Stack.