Joe Palooka's manager Knobby Walsh worried about an upcoming fight
with a "windmiller"(a fighter with wide erratic swings). Knobby was
sent to a library to locate a book about "Don Coyote", who supposedly
knew how  to fight "windmillers". Knobby was disappointed that the
book had nothing
to do with boxers. I probably read this in the 40's or 50's. I'd like
to know when and where it appeared and how to get a copy. I believe it
was a series of daily strips.

You've got a pretty good memory considering this was a cartoon from
half a century ago (can you believe it..?).

Here's the actual text from:

The Coshocton Ohio Tribune 
Wednesday Evening, February 28, 1951

JOE PALOOKA  by Ham Fisher

--Say Doc...D'you remember a guy nam Don Coyotee?  He was a Spanish
light-heavy, I think.

--Never heard a him.  Ast Alec...He oughta know.

--Before my time.  Why don'tcha look it up in Nat Fleischer's record
book...say how's Joe comin' along...they say he...

--You bums don't know from nuttin'!

--Pssst, Leemy...I'm Jennings from The Mirror.  I heard you asking
about Don Coyotee.  Would you by any chance mean Don Quixote who
fought The Windmill?

--That's it.  That's the guy...th' one which fought against th'
greatest winmill style of all time!  Tell me...Where kin I find 'im...


----------

I found the original strip (in image form, as it actually appeared in
the newspaper) at a wonderful site I recently discovered:

http://www.newspaperarchive.com

For a fee of $4.95, you can get one-day access to the site and peruse
as many old comic strips (or other items) as you'd like.  The page I
pulled up with Joe Palooka also was running Red Ryder, Lil Abner, Out
Our Way, Captain Easy, Orphan Annie, and a good many other classics.

Monthly, quarterly, or yearly subscriptions are also available.  

Be forewarned...searching the site and loading the pages is a
cumbersome process, but as I think you'll agree, the results can be
rewarding.

I looked to see if there was a book with Joe Palooka cartoons but
didn't find one.  Now that you have a date when the strip appeared, it
may also be the case that your local library has microfilm copies of
the town newspaper that may well have carried Joe Palooka.

I hope this has been a fun read.  Good luck in your search.  If you
have any trouble at all with the newspaperarchive site, just let me
know through a request for clarification and I'll be glad to help you
further.

pafalafa: very nice work. the newspaper archive is dreadful/unusable.
I did order a picture of the strip in the Coshocton paper. I couldn't
use the archive to locate an Cincinnati paper where I'm sure I first
saw the strip

Thanks for the nice rating...always appreciated.

The Joe Palooka strip was very popular, and ran in papers all over the
country.  Even if you can't locate the particular Cincinnati of your
youth, you can probably find some papers wherever you are living now
that have archives on microfilm back to the 1950's.  I bet they
carried Joe Palooka as well.  A librarian should be able to help you
out on this, but if not, just pay another visit to Google Answers and
let us know how we can help.