Ella Cinders

Ella Cinders is a syndicated comic strip created by writer Bill Conselman and artist Charles Plumb. Distributed by United Feature Syndicate, the daily version was launched June 1, 1925, and a Sunday page followed two years later. It was discontinued in 1961. Chris Crusty ran above Ella Cinders as a topper strip from 1931 to 1940.

Initially, as the name implies, the strip presented a variation on the classic Cinderella story, but then it diverged into other plotlines, as noted by comics historian Don Markstein:

Ella is the Cinderella of the comic. She has the standard 1920s charm look with classic straight black hair cut in a bob and large round eyes common in comics. She dressed in simpler clothing, more prominently in the earlier years of the comic, and was not the rare beauty common in other stories.

Ella's step family is made of Myrtle "Ma" Cinders, her stepmother, and her stepsisters Prissie and Lotta Pell. Prissie has been described by Conselman as "pinched and acid" and Lotta as "fat and foolish." Both sisters use their free time to torment Ella while she is assigned household work by Myrtle "Ma" Cinders. To endure the treatment from her step family Ella joins with her allies her brother, Blackie, and her boyfriend, Waite Lifter, to wisecrack and find happiness in sarcasm.

As the story progresses Ella receives her "fairy godmother" moment from a beauty contest where she wins by a judge randomly selecting her photo. As a prize for winning the beauty contest Ella receives a job at a movie theater and she and her brother move to Hollywood. Once there Ella learns that the studio is now defunct. She and Blackie decide to stay in Hollywood anyway and continue with melodramatics in the daily comics and one-episode gags in the Sunday comics. Ella continued this life of fun but never prospered. She eventually married, though her husband Patches spent a large amount of time away having adventure.

The prolific Alfred E. Green directed the film adaptation Ella Cinders, starring Colleen Moore, produced by Moore's husband John McCormick, and released by First National Pictures on June 6, 1926.

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