While Ricketts had no experience in drawing cartoons when he and Shannon started collaborating on The Alarum in 1886, his companion had. Indeed, Shannon had previously published such drawings in a comic weekly, Judy, or, The London Serio-Comic Journal, which was edited by C.H. Ross.
 Charles Shannon, 'De Trop' (unsigned). In Judy, or The London Serio-Comic Journal, volume 37, 25 November 1885, p. 255. |
Shannon started there as a contributor in November 1885, following in the footsteps of Reginald Savage whose first cartoon in Judy was published on 27 May 1885. Most of Shannon's drawings were glimpses of society life.
While the collaboration on The Alarum was short-lived, Shannon's drawings were continued in Judy until February 1888.
His second drawing in The Alarum (Vol. 1, No. 3, 3 November 1886, p. 7) was another society scene called 'Child of the Period'.
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| C.H. Shannon, 'Child of the Period' (The Alarum, 3 November 1886, p. 7) |
Sitting at a dining table are six people: two men, three women and a girl, attended by a servant who is pouring wine. The woman on the left hand site of the table is the mother of the child who says:
'I don't like mutton, Mamma.'
Mother: 'Think of the poor children who would only be too pleased to have it.'
Child: 'But if they don't have it, how do you know they like it, Mamma?'
