Enter Mike and Ike

Illustration of a man at the left pulling back a curtain and his cartoon balloon reads "Enter Mike And Ike." The two walk arm and arm onto a stage by a sign with pointing element to the right and inscription "To Movie Fame," black text on a white background

The illustrator of this design, Rube Goldberg, drew several comic series, including Mike and Ike (They Look Alike), Boob McNutt, and The Weekly Meeting of the Tuesday Women's Club. In 1927 he signed a contract with a movie company to introduce his characters Mike and Ike to the big screen in a series of two-reel comedies.

Rube Goldberg is synonymous with complicated inventions that perform simple tasks. He was an engineer and inventor as well as an illustrator. In his series featuring Professor Lucifer Gorgonzola Butts, Goldberg drew schematics of the comical gadgets by which he came to be known.

Goldberg was a founding member and first president of the National Cartoonists Society, whose Reuben Award for cartoonist of the year is named after him. He received a Pulitzer Prize for his political cartooning in 1948, and in 1995 was honored with a commemorative stamp as part of the "Comic Strip Classics" series from the U.S. Postal Service.