Book One of the Funny Papers Trilogy, De Haven's dazzling tour of twentieth-century America, FUNNY PAPERS chronicles cartoon icon Derby Dugan's beginnings in the rough-and-tumble world of yellow journalism in turn-of-the-century New York, when Hearst and Pulitzer owned tabloid America. The aptly named Georgie Wreckage, a sketch artist for Pulitzer's daily World, rockets to fame as the creator of what becomes a hugely successful cartoon franchise.