Printed 112 years ago today in The Seattle Star. Image cleaned up, especially on the letters, see the original.
Found on the Library of Congress site. Feel free to pick something from there and post it yourself!
I have many questions:
I have some answers (but not the big one).
A "loafer" is an old timey word for tramp, from German/Dutch "landlaufer" meaning "land walker".
The rest is speculation, but I think this is a sort of anger at nobody returning his umbrella. Nobody does this, which is why this "person" is just a stick. Someone stole Ev's umbrella and didn't return it. But you can beat up nobody, so, here's a literal strawman to beat up.
https://www.barnaclepress.com/comic/Nobody/
Looks like someone had basically the same idea at the same time with another character, only the punchline was that "nobody" challenged the thing instead of Everett (forcefully) doing it
"nobody" challenged the thing
Funny that it relies on a wordplay that is similar to the "nobody" phrasal template meme.
Old Nobody looks like the start of a creepypasta. Like in all aspects of their being. Weirdly shaped, no information, people hostile to it (although this is True, he's hostile to almost everyone). Just weird!
I took it as nobody does this personified.
In the source comic that Skua pointed to, the second panel is basically that character saying "you know who returns umbrellas? NOBODY!" But E.T. cut him off by bonking him.
The character also put me in mind of those old Family Circus cartoons, when the kids did something evil, the parents would say "who did that?" and the kids would say "Not me!" and "Nobody!" And there'd be invisible ghost-kids with labels like Not Me and Nobody on them running around.
why does he look like that?
He has no body
I read this as this is something nobody does
My guess is that True is objecting to someone using the passive voice: having borrowed his umbrella without asking and then returning it without taking responsibility, insinuating that persons unknown are to blame for the inconvenience that he is now taking the credit for remedying.
Old Nobody is the character of another comic from the same time period, by Clifton Meek. Meek apparently ghost-wrote a few Everett True comics as well. It seems like Nobody's gimmick started off with more or less the exact same first panel as Everett comics, but Nobody's thing would be that he would never actually challenge the problem because he's "nobody"
Oh, cool, there's an Everett reference in Old Nobody on the page you linked.
Two, in fact.
New reaction image detected
OOOH!! Mystery solved! I'd tried searching, but it turns out the terms I should have used were "meek nobody comics". Thanks!
I like how they always have the exact same punchline, you don't even need the second panel
Ev has gone clean round the bend.
A place to appreciate the twentieth century comic character Everett True of "The Outbursts of Everett True." Feel free to check out the sticky.