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 in this, the first book in Tom De Haven's epic trilogy of twentieth-century pop-culture America.