Stripper's Guide

Mazie Krebs wore a lot of hats in her life, with perhaps the most memorable one being as industrial designer. She gained some lasting fame for her flagship project, the Mississipii steamboat christened The SS President.

Not long before that, she went a whole different direction, submitting the comic strip Cindy of Hotel Royale to the George Matthew Adams Service. Mr. Adams must have been very impressed, because he supposedly offered Krebs a five year contract to produce the strip as both a daily and Sunday feature. The syndicate generally stuck to daily material, especially after a disastrous attempt at offering a preprinted Sunday section in 1935 that flopped, so Adams was really going out on a limb for this feature.

Cindy of Hotel Royale was first advertised in the 1936 Editor & Publisher Syndicate Directory, but I've never found any strips published in that year. The earliest I've seen the strip is an example above, a Sunday from the end of January 1937*. Dave Strickler's E&P index notes a start date of January 9 1937, but I don't know the source from which he got that, and that date is a Saturday, not a likely day to start a new strip.

Whatever the start date, it certainly didn't appeal to many newspaper editors. The strip is nearly impossible to find. Oddly for Adams, the daily seems even rarer than the Sunday, which is a real headscratcher for a syndicate that specialized in daily material. Weirder still, as best I can tell you seemed to need both daily and Sunday to tell a coherent story with this strip, and I have yet to find a paper that ran both. Granted, my sample size is awful small -- the aforementioned Inquirer, the Atlanta Constitution and the New Orleans Times-Picayune (the first two ran the Sundays, the latter ran dailies).

In a 1940 interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Krebs had this to say about the strip:

"I rather oversold myself to Mr. Adams. He gave me a five year contract. I had ideas for years ahead but producing a strip a day and a page for the Sunday papers, proved too much for me. Mr. Adams came to town, saw the circles under my eyes, meeting the hollows in my cheeks, and obligingly released me from my contract although it was most embarrassing in view of his commitments and the fact that after a year the strip was beginning to go over big."

I doubt that Adams was too attached to the strip, which was definitely not actually 'going over big.'  However, I must say that it did have a winning appeal to it, both in art and writing. Why it didn't go over big is the mystery. I don't know that I would have bet as big as Adams did on it, but I can certainly see why he liked it so much.

As best I can tell, the Sunday ended on December 26 1937**, with the final installment just a sheet of paper dolls. The daily ended with Cindy sailing off into the sunset on January 1 1938***.


* Though these samples are obviously from the Philadelphia Inquirer, the online digital version of the paper, though it includes Sunday comics sections in this era, does NOT include this strip. It must have run in some other section (maybe a women's magazine section?) that did not get microfilmed.

** Source: Atlanta Constitution

*** Source: New Orleans Times-Picayune, courtesy of Alex Jay.

Labels: Obscurities

Pat Sullivan would in 1919 hit the jackpot as creator of the animated cartoon phenomenon Felix the Cat, but the Australian would start off his US career in newspaper comics. After a promising but short stint in heady company at the New York World, he was demoted to working for the McClure Syndicate. There his job seems to have been to either assist or perhaps just learn to copy the work of William F. Marriner, who was undependable because of his battle with demon alcohol. In Obliging Oliver, Sullivan was obviously training himself to ape Marriner's style. The strip began on May 11 1913 with rather crude artwork, but as the series goes on the Marriner influence takes over until by the end date of April 5 1914 you can't tell Sullivan's work from that of Marriner.

That was a good thing, because it was in 1914 that Marriner died, and it seems to have been Pat Sullivan who was assigned the task of continuing the one quasi-hit McClure had left, Sambo and his Funny Noises, with Sullivan now so adept at the Marriner style that one would be hard pressed to say when the actual switch takes place.

Labels: Obscurities

[Cartoons Magazine, debuting in 1912, was a monthly magazine devoted primarily to reprinting editorial cartoons from U.S. and foreign newspapers. Articles about cartooning and cartoonists often supplemented the discussion of current events.

In November 1913 the magazine began to offer a monthly round-up of news about cartoonists and cartooning, eventually titled "What The Cartoonist Are Doing." There are lots of interesting historical nuggets in these sections, and this Stripper's Guide feature will reprint one issue's worth each week.]



BERRYMAN AND THE TEDDY BEAR
The following sketch of Clifford K. Berryman, cartoonist of the Washington Star, appeared recently in the Louisville Courier-Journal. The writer is Daisy Fitzhugh Ayres.

Everybody knows, of course, that Mr. Berryman is the originator of the immortal Teddy bear. The bear is his emblem and insignia. The saucy little beast that he has popularized all over the world peeps out irrelevantly in many of his bright cartoons. The little familiar bear upon his hind legs appears embossed on Mr. Berryman's stationery. It is incorporated in drawings that he sends his friends and often on the place cards that he is angelic enough to decorate for his wife's luncheons and dinners.

When the man that made the bear famous wants an engagement with his august oculist with whom other people find difficulty in securing an audience, he merely dashes off a little bear upon a post card with a question mark beside it, and the great man at once makes a date with the man as great.
The well-known cartoonist, philanthropically disposed, has drawn many thousands of little bears and drawn many audiences, too, in delivering delightful hundreds of "chalk talks" for charity. Mr. Berryman is as eloquent almost with tongue as with his pencil. The war sufferers have been constant beneficiaries of his talents at public entertainments.

Nor are the artistic and forensic abilities of the family confined to the older generation. Mr. Berryman has a little son, a boy of 12, who is following promptly in the foot prints and the finger marks of his distinguished sire.

Young James is a worthy chip off the ancestral block. He does Teddy bears and chalk talks, too.
Before school was out this summer Mr. and Mrs. Berryman, all "unbeknown" to their young hopeful, stepped into the Friday afternoon exercises of the grade, of which Berryman fils figured on the programme. Proud and amused were the intruding parents to see the confidence with which the youngster, in unconscious imitation of his father, walked to the blackboard and proceeded to illustrate a little running fire of apt comment on things in general, with swift sketches with his chalk. His admiring classmates howled with joy at the boy's clever portraiture of President Wilson, W. J. Bryan and Col. Roosevelt and others of the world's celebrities.

The older of the two children of the house of Berryman, Miss Florence, is a pretty girl in the early teens, with the sweet courtesy of manner of dead and gone generations, and as great a talent for music as her father and brother have for drawing things. She performed Mendelssohn's difficult Rondo Capriccioso with finished technique when she was only twelve.

Mrs. Berryman is president of the Cultus Club, that well-known organization of brainy women. She was a Washington girl.

Before Mr. Berryman's rise to fame he was the special protege of Senator Jo Blackburn, who admired the budding talents of the Woodford county boy,

CLUBB FORCES THE ISSUE
A cartoonist who did not wait for campaign issues, but who made the issues with his cartoons is John Scott Clubb, of the Rochester Herald. In the recent municipal elections in Rochester political leaders admitted freely the influence of his cartoons. Although his party lost, Clubb's work, it is said, will long be remembered.

He centered his drawings about two characters, "Uncle" George W. Aldridge, G. O. P. State Committeeman, and admitted "boss" of the city machine, and Mayor Edgerton, Republican candidate for reelection. So earnestly did Clubb lampoon these partners, and so effective was his satire, that the Democratic-Progressive committee printed 10,000 copies of a booklet containing the cartoons, the supply of which was soon exhausted.

The cartoonist is country-bred, and still retains his love of rustic ways. His home, which was designed by himself and artist friends, contains a unique workroom, a replica of a farmhouse kitchen, furnished to the minutest detail with fidelity to the original. With its rag rugs, rush-bottomed chairs, horn lanterns, and golden corn hung from the rafters, every corner of the room is redolent of old-fashioned country life and comfort.

Clubb is never so happy as when working in the garden with overalls and garden tools. His love of the bucolic is reflected in many of his drawings, which have won for him hundreds of country admirers. One day he drew a cartoon in which a milkman was seen seated on the wrong side of the cow. The flood of protests from his farmer friends amounted almost to a deluge.

USING A McCUTCHEON CARTOON
John T. McCutcheon's cartoon in the Chicago Tribune, picturing the lad whose mother did not raise her boy to be a soldier, has been used as a recruiting poster by the Seventy-First Infantry, New York National Guard. Under a reproduction of the cartoon is the following announcement:

SEVENTY-FIRST INFANTRY, N. G., N. Y.
wants a limited number of the other kind of young men;
the kind with red blood in their veins.
ARMORY, THIRTY-FOURTH ST. 8 PARK AVE.
Headquarters nights Tuesday and Friday.
Drop in and talk it over. 

Mr. McCutcheon is now in the Balkans for the Tribune.

CARTOONS AND CAPITALISTS
"Turning over the leaves of a socialist paper," writes Carolyn Vance, in the New Orleans State, "I came upon the caricature of a 'typical capitalist.' Some day I am going to the editor of that paper and tell him that his staff artist is slipping something over on him. It's all wrong . .  . You know the creature of the cartoons. He is usually pictured sitting, huge and unwieldy, glaring at an emaciated workman. He doesn't look as if he had the strength to deal a hand at cards."

Miss Vance, who is something of a cartoonist herself, to prove her point, looked up some "typical capitalists" on the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. She concludes: "A true picture of the capitalist would be hard to draw. He would have to be both fat and thin; both jovial and taciturn."

BRINK DROPS INTO VERSE
Friends of R. M. Brinkerhoff, the New York Evening Mail cartoonist, have learned not to be surprised at anything he does. Nature endowed him with a number of gifts, including a fine tenor voice, and the ability to write. It is not often, however, that Brink drops into poetry, but some verses over his signature that headed the "Mail Chute" column of the Mail the other day reveal him in an altogether new light. Rather gruesome verses — but here they are:

A GREAT LAKES BALLAD
Just out a ways from Sarnia —
A half a mile or more —
There's a little island lyin'
And the Minnie D is plyin'
Past the little pier
A-pointin' out from shore.

It's here my Island Mary lives
An' stands out on the pier,
Her dress all white and flyin'
A-lookin' out an' tryin'
To reco'nize and hail me
When I sails my cat up near.

I never liked her skipper,
An' swore I never would;
A fairly decent chap he was . . .
But I could never go him, 'cause
A-sailin' out he'd beat too close
To where my Mary stood.

Somehow I knowed he loved her;
I mighta known before;
He'd keep the kids a-sailin',
A-tendin' sheet and bailin'
An 'him just settin' watchin'
Somethin' white along the shore.

An' when I seen him landin'
The sweat come out on me.
'Twas then I swore I'd drown 'im
With his British flag around 'im
So there'd be no Union Jackie
On the schooner Minnie D.

I seen my chance an' done it —
I hope Gawd didn't see.
They found his body floatin'
All soft an' blue and bloatin'.
The papers called it accident —
That's near enough for me.

STATION MASTER CARTOONIST
A station master doubtless has many opportunities for observing human nature, but there are few station masters who can put their observations into concrete form. An exception is Charles Black, the "man in gray" at the Southern Pacific station at Sacramento, Cal. Mr. Black, who cherished boyhood ambitions to become a cartoonist, now occupies his spare time drawing caricatures of prominent persons of his city. Traveling men, policemen, and railroad men are among his favorite subjects.

EXHIBITS WAR CARTOONS
War cartoons from European papers were exhibited recently by Prof. Roland G. Usher in the Washington University auditorium, St. Louis. In the course of an address which accompanied the exhibit Professor Usher said that the cartoonist's art in Europe was a generation behind the same art in America. Many European cartoons, he declared, were drawn down to the comprehension of those who cannot read. War cartoons, the speaker argued, were intended by editors to please their readers by coinciding with the ideas the latter already had formed. Thus, all the cartoonist had to do, he said, was to cheer the people up by depicting to them the stupidity of their enemies, or to anger them by portraying the barbarism of the enemy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harold Heaton, formerly cartoonist of the Chicago Inter Ocean, has been teaching dramatics to certain Chicago north-shore society persons. Mr. Heaton recently returned from an extended Chautauqua tour of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, which reminded him, he said, of his barnstorming days as an actor.



A BROOKLYN PRODIGY
A nine days' wonder just now in Brooklyn, N. Y., is Frank Martin, a 13-year-old cartoonist, who promises to become another Bud Fisher. The New York Herald, in appreciation of the lad's cleverness, publishes a sketch of his representing a reception to the Herald "funny folks."
Frank says that he would rather draw pictures than study. "The only hit I make at school," he says, "is at Christmas time, when I draw Santa Clauses and reindeers on the blackboard. At other times I am not popular with the teacher."

FITZ AS A MODELER
D. R. Fitzpatrick, whose cartoons for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have placed him within so short a time in the cartoonist's Hall of Fame, has been experimenting in a new field. Fitz has ambitions to become a second Phidias, and to that end has modeled a group of figures which was among the attractions at the recent newspaper artists' exhibition at the St. Louis Press Club. Two rather mournful figures of a tramp, huddling for warmth against a brick wall, were conventionalized in a pair of book ends. Fitz's masterpiece, however, shown herewith, was a candlestick design in which a charming, semidraped female figure is seen. "They are my first attempts," writes the artist, "so go easy on them."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An exhibition of English recruiting posters has been opened at the Hohenzollern Kunstgewerbehaus in Berlin. The proceeds will be given to the home for airmen established by the German aerial league.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Associated Illustrators and Central Art League of New York have opened studios in the McCarthy building in Syracuse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cartoons of the British Tommy by the artists of Kladderadatsch, and other German periodicals, are being used as targets in Bavaria for shooting practice.

WHERE WILDERNESS IS PARADISE
Writing from the New York Globe, H. T. Webster, cartoonist-in-chief for that palladium, says that he has returned safely from Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks, where he got a taste of millionaire camp life, and that he never expects to see such a fancy place again. There were electric lights, bowling alleys, billiard tables, a shooting gallery, a power boat, and a hydro plane. As for birds, Web says that he saw two, and managed to bag one. He also caught one bass. Deer were plentiful, though, he adds, and one of the party shot a fine buck.

While in the mountain camp, the author of "Boyhood Thrills" was introduced to a new kind of thrill — fantan, played not with cards, but with Chinese cash. Anyone, says Web, will become a fantan fan, once he has played the game. Herb Roth made several caricatures of the gamesters.

INFLUENCE OF CARTOONING
An illustrated lecture on "Caricature and Cartoons" was given recently before the Thursday Morning Club of Trenton, N. J., by Arthur M. Howe, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. Mr. Howe sketched the history of political cartooning in its earlier stages in England and France, and traced the evolution of the art both in Europe and in the United States. He gave considerable attention to the achievements of Thomas Nast, particularly Nast's fight against the Tweed ring.



IN THE STONE-BRUISE AGE
One of Bushnell's. new "kid" cartoons. His series, "In The Stone-Bruise Age", is winning him new friends.




WINS POSTER PRIZE
Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's $100 prize for the best poster on the subject of "The Immigrant in America," has been won by Adolph Triedler, of New York, who has made a name for himself by his remarkable poster designs. Mr. Triedler is a member of the Art Students' League.

FAMOUS SAYINGS
The New York Tribune has been depicting in cartoon American history as it would be if interpreted in terms of present-day currency in politics.

The first cartoon represented George Washington refusing command of the continental army because he was "too proud to fight;" and other subjects are:

Patrick Henry delivering his famous speech: "Give me liberty or give me 'strict accountability.'"

Benjamin Franklin informing George III that the Declaration of Independence was for home consumption only.

General Grant writing his memorable dispatch: "I intend to talk it out on this line if it takes all summer."

WEED IN A SMASHUP
Clive R. Weed, cartoonist of the Philadelphia Evening Ledger, and Mrs. Weed were painfully injured recently when the automobile in which they were riding collided with a telegraph pole near their home at Fox Chase. Mrs. Weed was thrown through the windshield, and badly cut and bruised. Mr. Weed managed to remain in the car. His injuries were less serious.

HARDING'S VERSES AND THEIR ANSWER
Nelson Harding, cartoonist of the Brooklyn Eagle, recently penned some verses in his newspaper that appear to have got under the skin of some of our good hyphenated Americans. "Issues and Events," a weekly newspaper dedicated to the task of explaining the German viewpoint, reprints Mr. Harding's verses, and then answers them. Thus:

KRUPPODILE TEARS by Nelson Harding
"I weep for France," the Kaiser said.
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Shells of the largest size,
Holding his pocket handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"HYPHENATED-NEUTRALITY" TEARS
"We pray for peace," some Yankees say.
"We deeply sympathize."
"With sobs and tears," they're sending out
Shells of the largest size
Direct, or via Canada,
To England, France and Russia;
To Russia, butcher of not few.
My dear "N. H.," what right have you
To hypocrit — i — c — i — z — e?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Philadelphia Evening Ledger has presented Billy Sunday, the evangelist, with a framed cartoon drawn by C. H. Sykes of that paper. The cartoon, entitled "Safety First," pictures Satan fleeing before the announcement of Sunday's revival.

ONLY A WOODEN BLOCK
IT was only a wooden block, and yet. if it had been the relic of a saint, it couldn't have attracted more ardent groups of devotees. It was the original block of Tom Nast's Tweed cartoon that marked the beginning of the famous fight against the New York ring. The block, its surface engraved with a figure of a heavy man, bowing obsequiously, with one hand between the folds ot his coat, formed part of the November exhibition held by the American Institute of Graphic Arts at the National Arts Club, New York.

In the same case was to be seen a small volume illustrated with woodcuts by Nast, and entitled ''The Fight in Miss Europea's School; Showing How the German Boy Thrashed the French Boy, and How the English Boy Looked On." The cartoons were inspired by the Franco-German war.

Another interesting Nast exhibit consisted of a wooden block bearing an unfinished cartoon. It was drawn at a time when there was much mystery as to whom Grant would pick for his cabinet. It shows Grant shaking seven cats out of a bag, each cat completely, drawn except for the head. The artist sent the block into Grant's private office, with a request that the president complete it. Grant laughed heartily, but he refused to identify the cats that were "out of the bag."

UNCOMMON CENSORSHIP
American cartoons on Russia's reverses evidently are not popular in the land of the Little Father. The Literary Digest prints in a recent issue censored portions of its pages from a July number that had the misfortune to reach the empire of Russia. Thus, a cartoon by Sykes, of the Philadelphia Evening Ledger, showing the Russian bear being ejected from the door of Austria, comes back completely blotted out, as does also one of Nelson Harding's Brooklyn Eagle cartoons, which represents Bruin as rather short of ammunition.

"It must be frankly admitted," says the editor, "that the cartoons are not altogether calculated to fill the heart of a tender-skinned censor with joy. . . . It is a bit disquieting, however, to feel that one's editorial efforts are of such a character that a great Empire of 175,000,000 must be protected from them."





DE BECK'S NEW COMICS
Will De Beck, formerly cartoonist of the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, has removed from Pittsburgh to Chicago, where he is portraying for the Adams syndicate the adventures of two comic characters whom he has named "Finn an' Haddie." So favorable has been the reception of this feature that Mr. De Beck is looking forward to a life of luxury. During his spare time he intends to study at the Chicago Art Institute. He has furnished an apartment near the lake on the north side. One of Finn an' Haddie's adventures is por trayed herewith.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

H. H. Playford, cartoonist of the Johannesburg (South Africa) Post, is planning to make the United States his permanent home. Prior to his South African connection Mr. Playford lived in London, where his work appeared in many of the British illustrated newspapers and weeklies. He will leave soon for America.

NOT UNETHICAL
According to a decision recently rendered by the judiciary committee of the American Medical Association, it is not a violation of professional ethics for a physician to permit himself to be cartooned. This was the verdict given after hours of deliberation following charges preferred by certain Virginia physicians against Dr. George Ben Johnson, of Richmond.

THE SECRET'S OUT
H. Mitchell is one of New York's foremost artists and H. T. Webster is likewise a leading cartoonist. They spend their vacations together in the Adirondacks, borrow each other's cigars and show other traits of untrammeled friendship.

This period of chumminess has extended over several years and in that time neither has known the other's first name. When the subject is ever brought up they have shown such a natural skittishness that they quickly veered to other topics.

The other night, however, both attended a banquet. The toastmaster — an uncouth person with no regard for the finer sensibilities — called upon "Harold Mitchell" to speak. Webster almost fell off his seat with joy until a little later the toastmaster called upon "Harold Webster."

Neither refers to the incident for it seems that they had often discussed with great vehemence how they hated the name Harold. — Passaic (N. J.) News.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hal Eyre, cartoonist of the Sydney (Australia) Telegraph, writes that he has been in the thick of a hot political campaign, and that cartoons on international subjects have been sidetracked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The body of Phil Porter, the young Chicago cartoonist, who had been missing for several months, was found recently on the shore of Twin Island, near Morris. Ill., by two hunters. Identification was made by Miss Annette Styles, Mr. Porter's fiancee. The body had lain in the water for a long time, and was scarcely recognizable. How he met his death is a mystery.

THE FRAME WAS WORTH IT
Like most great artists, Frank Brangwyn, of London, whose recruiting posters have induced many a young Britisher to join the colors, and whose panels at the San Francisco exposition have won him thousands of American admirers, had hard sledding in his younger days. On one occasion he made an effort to raise the ridiculously small sum of ten pounds on one of his pictures. The dealer looked at it and made an offer of ten shillings. The artist replied indignantly that the frame alone was worth that much. "I am aware of that," replied the dealer; "that is what I'm buying."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lewis C. Gregg, cartoonist of the Atlanta Constitution, has opened an art school in Atlanta where he will give special attention to newspaper and cartoon work. Mr. Gregg is a member of the Art Students' League of New York, and one of the leading cartoonists of the South.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dayton (Ohio) friends of W. A. Rogers, the New York Herald cartoonist, recall that as a boy he worked in his brother's paper mill in the Ohio city.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jack Casey, former New York and San Francisco newspaper cartoonist, who was reported missing after the fighting in the Champagne district, and believed to have been killed, has reached Chalons, where he has been sent to the hospital suffering from a foot wound.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bert Levy

Bert Levy, creator of the "Samuel and Sylenz" series of comics, has voluntarily surrendered a salary of $12,000 a year, and paid $2,200 to be released from his contract, rather than continue the series which he found was offensive to his fellow Jews.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. and Mrs. Edgar A. Schilder announce the arrival of a baby girl. Mr. Schilder, formerly cartoonist of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, is now with the International Syndicate of Baltimore.

NO TIME TO BOAST
Like the person who cried out ungrammatically, "I will drown! Nobody shall save me!" was the Kentuckian in Fontaine Fox's latest story. Fox says that he was swimming in the Ohio River near Louisville last summer when he saw a man leap from a skiff in midstream. He sank two or three times, and came up sputtering. "I can't swim!" he gasped. The companion of the victim, who had remained in the boat, watched the unfortunate with languid interest. "Well," he finally drawled, "if you can't swim, this is a fine time to be bragging about it."

FROM SPORTS TO BOOZE
Thomas Doere, formerly sports cartoonist for the Philadelphia Times and the Boston Traveler, and more recently associated with R. O. Evans in the publication of a cartoon book in Baltimore, is now drawing a daily cartoon for Dr. W. E. Biederwolf, the evangelist. He is at present in York, Pa., where he is waging a cartoon fight against the liquor traffic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Keeping up with the Joneses," the comic series by Arthur G. Momand ("Pop") has been filmed by an eastern moving-picture concern. Mr. Momand was on the art staff of the New York World, and later of the New York Evening Telegram, before going abroad to study.

Labels: What The Cartoonists Are Doing

Here's a Magic Slate card, given away by the New York American. Mr. Jack seems to be married in this card, though he was more typically portrayed as a bachelor in Swinnerton's cartoons.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

Ray Hoppman pops up mostly at lesser syndicates in the 1920s and 30s, but in 1927-28 he may have gone out on his own, figuring he couldn't do much worse at selling his wares than Readers Syndicate, CV Syndicate, Columbia Newspaper Service and the like. Apparently his first successful feature (and by successful I merely mean that it found a few takers) was the weekly panel cartoon, Twinkling Stars.

Twinkling Stars may not be just another one of those ho-hum movie star bio features -- it may well be the first of the breed. Seein' Stars, Closeup and Comedy, Star Dust, Screen Odditiies ... they all postdate it. Am I forgetting an earlier one?

Twinkling Stars was a weekly feature, and it's longest run so far found was in the Columbus Dispatch, where it appeared from January 30 to September 11 1927.

PS -- I'd never heard of Renee Adoree, and assumed she was just another foreign silent star who couldn't make the transition to talkies. The truth was much sadder.

Labels: Obscurities

I'm not one to hide a Winsor McCay strip, even one we've already covered. Okay, truth is I worked on these images and only then realized that we'd already covered A Perfect Gentleman. So here we are once again, with a new sample and one that we've seen already, but this one is in a bit better condition.

These samples are from the San Francisco Examiner, which for some reason didn't bother printing the strip's running title.

Labels: Obscurities

Paul F. Brown is only known to have produced two newspaper strip series, both for the Boston Globe. His second, Sawdust Sim, was a virtuouso performance. His first, Precocious Peter, on the other hand, was as forgettable as the second was memorable. In this series which ran occasionally from May 7 1905 to February 3 1907*, a little boy dreams of some job or activity in which he'd like to engage. In some strips, like the one above, he comes out the hero; in others he gets in some very mild trouble, seldom his fault. In still others, he just plays at it and the strip ends without any real conclusion. I guess since the Globe had Billy the Boy Artist, they needed a little angel to balance out that more mischievous boy.

Note that in the episode above the Globe typesetter has had a little flying finger trouble spelling Precocious.

* Source: Dave Strickler's Boston Globe index.

Labels: Obscurities

Running only six times in the period January 24 to March 11 1907, this George McManus obscurity offers smug readers of the New York Evening World a view of how the other half lives ... defined as those poor wretches who do not live in New York City. This series gave McManus an occasional break from producing Newlyweds strips, for which readers had a voracious appetite. Each episode offered a look at a different hometown, starting with Chicago, Boston (January 29), Philadelphia (February 5), Milwaukee (February 9), New Jersey (March 5), and finally Louisville on the end date.

Labels: Obscurities

[Cartoons Magazine, debuting in 1912, was a monthly magazine devoted primarily to reprinting editorial cartoons from U.S. and foreign newspapers. Articles about cartooning and cartoonists often supplemented the discussion of current events.

In November 1913 the magazine began to offer a monthly round-up of news about cartoonists and cartooning, eventually titled "What The Cartoonist Are Doing." There are lots of interesting historical nuggets in these sections, and this Stripper's Guide feature will reprint one issue's worth each week.]



REPRODUCING BIASED CARTOONS
The Philadelphia Record takes exception to the practice of certain editors of reproducing from the foreign newspapers, especially the German, “offensive cartoons and comment intended to place the United States, as represented by the President and his advisers, in a ridiculous and unfavorable light.”
If this be “hybrid journalism,” as the Record alleges, the editor of Cartoons Magazine must plead guilty. Ours, to quote further, “is the same spirit that, during the civil war, would have taken pleasure in reprinting from Punch its coarse caricatures of Lincoln.”

“When one considers,” adds the writer, “with what consummate skill and tact President Wilson has steered the ship of State through the most serious crisis in half a century it is difficult to understand that form of Americanism that seeks to belittle these achievements by giving wide publicity to the views held by ignorant and violently prejudiced foreign observers.”

The editorial is not directed particularly at Cartoons Magazine. We cannot agree, however, with the writer. Why, just for the sake of sparing our own feelings, should we conceal what others, “ignorant and prejudiced” though they may be, are thinking and saying of us on the other side of the Atlantic? Ought we to reproduce only the “nice” things, and blind ourselves to the unpleasant things? Only an ostrich, we believe, would pursue such a policy. Unjust and biased as many of these cartoons may be, they represent the soul thoughts of the nations they represent. They summarize the opinion of the man on the street. It is only the advocates of peace at any price who would deliberately close their eyes to the attitude of other powers toward us. Possibly we can read a lesson, although an unpleasant one, in some of these cartoons and sentiments, and, reading the lesson, be prepared for anything that may come in the future.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Edgar A. Schilder has left the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette and signed up with the International Syndicate of Baltimore, Maryland.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harvey G. Parsons, formerly cartoonist of the Kansas State Journal has been drawing a number of sketches for a new Kansas history to be used in the public schools of that state.


BERRYMAN'S KINDLY PENCIL
Clifford Berryman, cartoonist of the Washington Star, has a sincere admirer in Daisy Fitzhugh Ayres, a correspondent for the Louisville Courier Journal. In one of her recent letters, Miss Ayres points out the fact that Berryman never takes liberties with other person's features. One of the most genial and whole souled of men, she says, Mr. Berryman enjoys a unique distinction in his art. We read:

“He never caricatures a face. However grotesque the pose and situation may be of the human object whom the circumstances of the day suggest to be the butt of his incisive pencil, the victim's facial characteristics, no matter what the expression of the moment depicted, are never in the least degree distorted.

“And this is where, perhaps, the kindliness of heart of the gifted young Kentuckian, is most conspicuously evinced.

“Not one of us enjoys being ridiculed. Our mug is our most sensitive organ. Our facial map lies mighty close to our heart, physiology or no physiology. To have our fair features distorted out of drawing to illustrate even the most poignant political situation, is an injury unbearable. Mr. Berryman, the star of Washington's cartoonists, leaves famous physiognomies to 'requiescat in pace, and not to rest in pieces,’ as O. Henry used to say. He takes outrageous liberties with the rest of famed physical anatomies, but he never monkeys with the features. That's Cliff. His nimble pencil has a heart of gold and not of lead.

“Notice for yourself, Wilson, Bryan, Roosevelt, the Kaiser, all the best selling countenances of the period, which are daily the object of Mr. Berryman's symbolic sketches. In each case the likeness of the celebrity remains intact, through every variant expression.

“And Mr. Berryman has a wonderful talent, too, in portraiture, and the temptation to distort, for a laugh's sake, must oftentimes be strong. But Cliff was raised a good old-fashioned Kentucky Presbyterian, and his conscience never lays down on the job.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Some of these cartoons showing Uncle Sam handing out coin to foreign borrowers would have more point if it was the government that proposed to lend the money -- Pittsburgh Times.





ODE TO OUR NEIGHBORS
by Fred Myers in the Kidder (Indianapolis)

When I was sick with grip and chills
and half a dozen other ills,
The neighbors called each day to tell,
When they were sick how they got well.
And each one had a remedy
For ailments that afflicted me
They pumped me full of nasty dope
Until I finally gave up hope.

“Good morning—how you feeling?” “Punk.”
“You ought to try some of this junk
It fixed my uncle when he had
The same as you but twice as bad.”
“You can't go wrong,” another said,
“With a Swiss cheese poultice on your head.”
Or “Dr. Perkins Peanut Pills You'll find will cure all human ills.”

The undertaker called each day
To be there when I passed away,
Afraid, the mercenary slob,
Somebody else might get the job.
The parson asked my fav'rite hymn
And while the lights were low and dim
Another hung around for hours
To ask about my choice of flowers.

At last when I was nearly dead
I called my family in and said,
“If I must die then I'll agree,
But please don't let 'em poison me.”
So now as long as I shall live,
To others nasty cures I'll give.
To give, the Good Book says, I b'lieve,
Is far more bless'd than to receive.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ad. Goodwin has been free-lancing in New York since leaving the Buffalo Express.

PUNCH CARTOONS DE LUXE
Lovers of good prints will welcome the announcement of Punch to the effect that the first of a series of war cartoons published originally in the famous British weekly is now offered in de-luxe form. The set consists of twelve cartoons, printed from the original plates on tinted India paper, and mounted on rough-edged Whatman boards. Among the prints are Bernard Partridge’s “The Triumph of Culture,” “The World Enemy,” and “The King at the Front,” and L. Raven-Hill’s “India for the King.”

“CARTOONISTS GALORE”
“The largest aggregation of cartoonists ever gathered under one tent,” as Helena Smith Dayton expresses it, served as a jury of critics at the dress rehearsal and fashion show of costumes for the suffrage parade recently at Mrs. Dayton's studio in New York. Society leaders, actresses, novelists, and suffragettes mingled with the cartoonists, had their pictures taken, and partook of tea and macaroons. Among the cartoonists who received invitations were Clare Briggs, R. M. Brinkerhoff, Robert Carter, Oscar Cesare, T. A. Dorgan, Norman Green, Bud Fisher, Fontaine Fox, R. L. Goldberg, Rollin Kirby, Fred A. Opper, Hy Mayer, W. A. Rogers, Lawrence Semon, Herb Roth, Cliff Sterrett, C. A. Voight, H. T. Webster, Art Young, Hal Coffman, Winsor McCay, J. H. Cassel, Rehse, and Marcus.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

We don't know whether it is much of a boost for suffrage to have it announced that “Secretary Redfield is for it.” In fact, when you think of the cartoons you realize that little men with side whiskers are always for it, anyway.—Chicago Evening Post.

WAR BOTANY
A genuine addition to the humor of the war has been made by Claude H. G. Woodhouse in his collection of “War Plants” published by a London firm. The “products of intensive culture” described by Mr. Woodhouse would challenge even Luther Burbank's art. They belong more to the school of Edward Lear or Oliver Herford. The sample reproduced herewith is christened “Sanguinaria Williamia,” and is described as a “plant at one time placed by British botanists among the Sweet-Williams (Caryophyllaceae),” but which really belongs to the Sanguinariaceae. It is, moreover, a flower “easily recognized by its two curiously upturned petals and by its epaulettelous leaves.” As regards habitat, for full development “a place in the sun” is essential.

DORGAN’S IDEA CONTEST
T. A. Dorgan (“Tad”) has been carrying on through the columns of the Cleveland Leader, a popular contest for amateur artists of the Forest City. Prizes of autographed cartoons were offered, and artists were asked to submit ideas and sketches for an “Indoor Sport” cartoon.

MINOR SAILS FOR EUROPE
Robert Minor, of the New York Call, has sailed for Europe, where he promises to “rip the brass buttons off from the big war.” According to his publishers, he is going to tell the truth, and to sketch things as they are, not glorifying horror for the mere sake of being horrible. His pictures, we are told, “will not be colored by the sheen of gold lace or the glitter of helmets.”

“HANSI’S” INFLUENCE ON THE FRENCH STAGE
Writing in Pester Lloyd (Budapest) on French war sentiment, Max Nordau, the Hungarian critic, and Paris correspondent for Vienna, Budapest, and Berlin newspapers, tells of the influence of “Hansi,” the Alsatian cartoonist, on the stage of France. In a translation of his article, made for the Vital Issue, we read that the characters in the war play “Alsace,” by Gaston Leroux and Lucien Camille—that is, the German characters—were taken from the cartoons of “Hansi,” and especially from his bitingly sarcastic book “Professor Knatschke.”

They are, as Nordau tells us, “officers stiff as ramrods, of enormous self-conceit and little education, grotesque officials without tact or understanding, a long-bearded, bespectacled, portly professor in a coarse woolen coat, wearing the green Tyrolean hat, adorned with the beard of a chamois ....  coarse-hearted, despicable, greedy, forward women, who look like milkmaids dressed for a visit to the city .... foolishly arrogant barbarians without a trace of understanding for the feeling of disgust .... which they arouse in the vanquished.” The play was produced at the Theatre Réjane.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“The cartoonists,” says the Kansas City Journal, “always try to make a public man they would condemn look repulsive, but in the case of Dr. Dumba they have only to make him look natural.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

J. H. Donahey, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, has erected an office building in the Forest City, and has been dreaming of concrete, steel beams, and fire escapes.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

John T. McCutcheon, who has returned from his second visit to the war zone, has been contributing to the Chicago Tribune an interesting series of sketches from the front. Mr. McCutcheon's most thrilling experience was his trip over the German lines in a French aeroplane.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harry Murphy, cartoonist of the Chicago Examiner, has been doing the big fairs on the Pacific coast.

WEB'S HUNTING TRIP
H. T. Webster, cartoonist of the New York Globe, accompanied by Frank Casey, art editor of Collier's Weekly, spent a week last October in the Adirondacks. They made their headquarters at the lodge of F. P. Collins, adjoining the Harry Payne Whitney estate, and hunted both on Mr. Collins’ and Mr. Whitney's preserves. Web writes that he bagged some partridges, which is not surprising, considering that the joint estates included some 96,000 acres.

CARTOONISTS HUMBLE ACTORS
At Bayside, L.I., recently a baseball team captained by T. A. Dorgan (“Tad”) and composed of New York cartoonists and newspaper artists, defeated a team of actors captained by James J. Corbett, former heavyweight champion of the world. Four innings were played, and the score was 18 to 3. “Tad” was in the box for the cartoonists. Among his players were Hal Coffman, Lawrence Semon, Robert Carter, Rube Goldberg, and Walter Hoban. A clambake followed the ball game.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Winsor McCay, who is again on the vaudeville stage, was the guest of honor recently at a banquet in Brooklyn. Following the banquet the guests attended his performance at the Orpheum Theater. William E. Kelly, postmaster of Brooklyn, stepped upon the stage and presented Mr. McCay with a huge basket of American beauties.

CARTOONISTS AND CANDIDATES
Town Topics, of Cleveland, Ohio, makes the following observations on the work of the cartoonists during fall political campaigns. “Personally,” comments Town Topics, “these cartoonists are genial enough men,” and probably do not intend to be so disagreeable. “But,” adds the writer, “editors think that it is necessary, in order to win, to make their political opponents look like pirates, highwaymen, murderers or clowns. So they are giving the orders to the cartoonists to get busy on rough stuff. The cartoonists are making some of the politicians look like born criminals, and others like born fools. Of course, they do not look that way any more than the cartoonists look disagreeable, but the editors and cartoonists, regardless of whatever breeding and education they may have, think it necessary to cater to a low element and to use coarse pictures in political campaigns.”

CARTOONISTS, ATTENTION!
A reader in Pekin, Ill., sends in “free of charge” the following suggestions:

“(1) Draw roosters representing all nations. A hen house with roosts in it, with the most quiet country sitting on the highest one. At the bottom have Belgium drawn out as a rooster lying dead on the ground, and Germany drawn in a different position battling hard with Russia and England. Also have Austria and Turkey there, with Bulgaria looking in the door ready to assist Germany, and have a nest on the wall with Japan sitting idly in it. Remember have the Eagle sitting above all watching the outcome.

“(2) Draw two steam rollers, one representing Germany, and the other Russia. Have them bucking each other, with Germany getting pushed back, and Russia in a zig-zag fashion, try to draw the cities as their destinations.

“(3) Draw a motorcycle coming down the road a-tearing, with Austria and Turkey following, and Belgium drawn as a man ran over, and Serbia right in front of the tire coming next, and the rest of the allies with all hands joined, stretched across the road, ready to stop him. Represent Japan by having him with his motorcycle fixing his tire in the rear of the allies.”

MISS DAVENPORT KILLED
Miss Cleo Davenport, sister of the late Homer Davenport, was killed September 29 in Los Angeles, when struck by an automobile. Miss Davenport was strolling with her fiancé, Frank Travers, an official of the Panama-Pacific Steamship Co., when the accident occurred. Mr. Travers was seriously injured. The driver of the car escaped without revealing his identity.


A BOOK OF BOYHOOD THRILLS
If you still have, tucked away under your vest, the heart of a boy; if you still sometimes chuckle over the exploits of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn; if your memory still wanders back along the Road to Yesterday, or lingers in the Golden Age, you will appreciate the little book of “Boyhood Thrills” drawn by H. T. Webster, cartoonist of the New York Globe, and published by the George H. Doran Co.

Many of the thrills already are familiar to readers of Cartoons Magazine. But every one of them will summon back a half-forgotten little comedy or tragedy. Do you remember testing the tomato-can telephone; calling for the first time on your sweetheart with a livery rig; putting things on the track for No. 3 to run over; finding a copper boiler in the junk heap, or tormenting a faithful dog friend by hiding under a pile of autumn leaves?

Mr. Webster received his original boyhood thrills in the small town of Tomahawk, Wis., which nestles among a chain of crystal lakes. He was brought up on Mark Twain, and he had an old-fashioned mother who allowed him to go barefoot.

Five sets of cartoons are included in the book under these heads: “The Thrill That Comes Once in a Lifetime,” “Our Boyhood Ambitions,” “The Most Futile Thing in the World,” “Life's Darkest Moments,” and, “Dogs, Automobiles, and Things.”

The artist has sent in a sketch showing a thrill he himself recently experienced.

CARTOONISTS AS HISTORIANS
“Punch cartoons,” observes a writer in the Boston Advertiser, “must take place among the few sets of contemporary documents that have their origins in the brains of artists with pencil and brush, that actually reflect the views of the British people. Many students of the war are beginning to collect literature that is illustrative of its myriad phases or that mirror the fleeting hates and sympathies of the nations involved. No collection can hope to be complete if it omits the important work of the cartoonists.

“Time alone can reveal what measure of incentive or what fraction of interpretation is furnished by the men who see things not in words, but in the virile shapes of visible figures of men and of events.”

Labels: What The Cartoonists Are Doing

Here's another card from Dave Breger's series for Nyack Art Pictures. For those interested, the code on the back is 605 / 89368, whatever that means. Still only finding unused copies of these, so I'm still just guessing that the series was published in the 1950s.

I worked my way through college pumping gas. One of the last full service stations in our area. I didn't cut hair, but I did check fluids, wash the windshield and see if the tires were properly inflated. Not only did I get a tip maybe once or twice per hundred fill-ups, but people sometimes actually got angry when I'd find that their oil or other fluids were low. They seemed to be dead certain I was lying about them needing a top-off or that I was making a kickback by selling oil and tranny fluid ... which I wasn't.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

Raeburn Van Buren was just about to embark on a long stint working on Hearst's daily romantic cartoon series when he was tapped to provide a very short series for their Sunday magazine covers. Let's All Elope was only three episodes long, and foolishly tried to tackle a story of two star-crossed couples in a comedy of errors that needed way more space to make any sense to readers. The final episode, above, reads more like the Cliff's Notes to the story than the story itself.

Let's All Elope ran from February 12 to 26 1933, and comes just months before the end of the King Features magazine cover series. With cover series like this, no wonder it was cancelled.

Labels: Magazine Cover Comics

Courtesy of Cole Johnsons's archives, today we have the entire run of a series about J. Campbell Cory's trip to Montana. This series ran in the New York World for four installments from November 27 to December 18 1898.

From the perspective of humor, the series is no classic, but Cory's delightful art and the superb coloring job on the first and last installments make this series worth remembering. His depiction of frontier life may or may not reflect the state of the wild west as he encountered it, but it certainly plays into all the familiar stereotypical accounts brought back by Eastern dudes in search of what Teddy Roosevelt would soon call the 'strenuous life.'

You may wonder at my choice of The Funny Side of Life in Montana as the headline title. After all, it was only used on the third installment, and that installment was a minor one, running in two colors on an interior page of the World. But Ken Barker chose this as the series title for his New York World index and I agree with his choice. This is the only installment which recognizes that this is a series, by use of "Series III" in the headline, and so we both think that Cory considered this his true title, despite it not being used elsewhere.

Labels: Obscurities

The Chicago Tribune went for German cartoonists in a big way in 1906-07, and my impression is that some of them were brought over to Chicago while others submitted material from their homeland. My guess is that Victor Schramm is one of the latter type, especially since he consistently adds 'Munich' after his signature.

Schramm created only one series for the Tribune, but what a memorable one it was. Karl and Fritz is about yet another pair of rotten kids who play pranks --- okay, so that part is a real yawn -- but wow are these some memorably stomach-turning pranks.

I've only seen a handful of strips, but each one outdoes the last for pushing the envelope of good taste. I'll not say more than that, but leave it to you to discover the depravities of Schramm's weird mind. After you've checked these out, head on over to Barnacle Press for more.

As usual with these Germans in the Tribune, determining the full runs of their strips is made harder because in most Tribune microfilm the Feininger pages are missing, and the other Germans are often inhabiting the other side. With the help of Cole Johnson, who had a pretty good collection of miraculously unpilfered sections, it seems as if Karl and Fritz ran June 3 to December 2 1906. Cole also supplied the sample scans.

Labels: Obscurities

One of these days we'll discuss the classic and much in need of reprinting Barney Google topper Bunky, but today we're going to settle for a forgotten secondary topper, Knee-Hi-Knoodles.

In the mid-1930s King Features started strongarming cartoonists to supply not just one but two toppers for each Sunday strip, all the better to shore up the front page headline that "The Sunday Gawker has 99,999 Comics!" Billy DeBeck responded with an oft-changing set of panel cartoon series. Knee-Hi-Knoodles offered up wacky wisdom from the mouths of children when it began on September 9 1934. Eventually, though, DeBeck found the restriction to kids more than he wanted to deal with, and on March 24 1935 the title was changed to DeBeck's Knoodles, so that the gag lines could be an all-ages sport.

The feature was dropped after the installment of June 23 1935, and DeBeck produced only a single topper, Bunky, for the next few months, flouting King Features' directive.

Labels: Topper Features

[Cartoons Magazine, debuting in 1912, was a monthly magazine devoted primarily to reprinting editorial cartoons from U.S. and foreign newspapers. Articles about cartooning and cartoonists often supplemented the discussion of current events.

In November 1913 the magazine began to offer a monthly round-up of news about cartoonists and cartooning, eventually titled "What The Cartoonist Are Doing." There are lots of interesting historical nuggets in these sections, and this Stripper's Guide feature will reprint one issue's worth each week.]


THE MODERN CARTOON
From the Portland Oregonian
When it is declared that there are nowadays no great cartoonists or illustrators, it ought to be recalled that the conditions controlling the art of newspaper caricature and pictorial lampooning are not what they were fifty, or twenty, or even ten years ago. Let us go back no farther than Thomas Nast, who was the most famous, and usually regarded as the greatest, of all American cartoonists. Mr. Nast's first and only notable work was with Harper's Weekly. During the Civil War, a tremendous episode in our history, he began his work. No one who has examined the usual political and personal caricatures of that day can fail to note their wretched and brutal character—miserable as art productions and savage in spirit and expression. Mr. Nast did much to make the profession of the caricaturist respectable. His talents as an artist were considerable, but his insight into affairs, his understanding of the motives of men, and his ability to give them pictorial form are the real secrets of his power.

There was no rival for Nast. He was alone in a field practically untilled. He rarely drew more than a single cartoon a week, and it is easy to see that he had ample time for the study of events and for the full play of his genius. To a great extent the weekly drawing of Nast was inspirational, for undoubtedly he was a man of temperament as well as a student of current history. He was not called upon for a daily offering, and he was therefore not oppressed by the exacting and remorseless grind of daily journalism.

When Nast left Harper's Weekly, after years of remarkable service to his employment and to the cause of truth and decency in public affairs, he made no impression through his contributions to the newspapers. His vogue was gone. He died a heartbroken man. It is an open question whether he might not have sustained his great reputation if he had remained with  Harper's. In his latter days other caricaturists had come to the fore and Nast and Harper's no longer enjoyed a monopoly in that line.

Who looks nowadays to an American weekly for a cartoon? Originally the newspaper had no pictures or illustrations and did not have them for many years after they were a feature of the weeklies and monthlies. But with the discovery of a practicable process of newspaper illustration, and with its development through the adaptation of engraving and other methods to newspaper needs, the place of the weekly and the magazine was almost wholly taken by the newspapers, so far as illustration of current events is concerned. Yet it is true that in Great Britain the cartoon remains the peculiar possession of the weekly, and it is the same in Germany. There is a wide difference, however, in the German and British methods, for the Briton seeks to make of his cartoon an elaborate work of art, and the German confines himself to simple lines and memory impressions. The Englishman often uses models and excels as a draughtsman. The German burlesques his subject, and strives for humorous and grotesque effects. So does the American, though there is in this country a wide variety of style and treatment. There is no real American school, as there is a British and a German school. But there are thousands of American cartoonists giving the public their daily output, and making their appeal on every possible subject of human interest.

There is now no Thomas Nast of American journalism. Under our conditions it is doubtful if there could be. But there are a great many fine artists drawing good cartoons and excellent cartoonists making pictures that could by no stretch of the imagination be called sound art. No one, for example, would describe John T. Mc Cutcheon as a true artist, but who has not enjoyed his remarkable contributions to the pictorial literature of American life in all its prominent phases?

It would be easy to name others who are doing good work. On the whole, the average is very high, and certainly an irreparable loss would be suffered by journalism if the services of the cartoonist were to be dropped. The cartoon has come to be an effort to editorialize in a picture the current daily feature of the news or of public thought. The old cartoon—the Nast picture —was a complex affair, always with a central theme, but with many figures and contributing or incidental suggestions. Now it is different. The modern cartoon is a simple thing, with one idea. It requires no study to understand its meaning or to comprehend its scope. It can be absorbed at a glance. It may not be art, but it is something even better. It is the symbol of a truth.

KING'S UNCLE SAM AGAIN
A Rev. M.R. Todd, of Elvaston, Ill., writes to the Chicago Tribune complaining about Frank King's “insipid, unpatriotic, unmanly cartoons.” Mr. King, specimens of whose work are reproduced elsewhere in this magazine, has created a “new” Uncle Sam, flabby and corpulent and rich. Says the Tribune in reply to Mr. Todd:

“The cartoons of Mr. King are correct representations of Uncle Sam as he really is. They might possibly indicate a little more amiability and moral quality, both of which the spirit of this nation possesses. They could not possibly exaggerate the fact that our idealized Uncle Sam requires more tape to measure his waist than his chest.

“It is in a way immoral for this nation to continue to regard itself as typified by a gaunt, muscular, forgiving, but powerful figure, slow to wrath but dreadful in it; able, when aroused in just cause, to admonish and punish the lesser and brawling nations of the earth.

“That is the favorite Uncle Sam of the American imagination, and he is in truth a dreadful figure—but dreadful to the persons who believe and trust in him.

“The lovers of a defiant Uncle Sam are the persons who never think of themselves as sustaining a bullet wound in the abdomen. That bullet is to rip open some other abdomen, and they are to live in the gratification of a pleased dignity.

“The Rev. Mr. Todd's subscription does not expire for nearly a year. If he will continue that long we promise him that the cartoons of Uncle Sam will record any improvement made in the shape and disposition of Uncle Sam. We hope, knowing what new spirit is filling the American people, that by August, 1916, Uncle Sam will be not a bit less just and peaceable, but a terrific lot more able to make his righteous indignation effective.”

To which the Milwaukee Sentinel adds:

“Cartoonist King has invented an 'Uncle Sam,' new style; a figure of Falstaffian girth and obese unfitness for anything in the way of a physical encounter, to take the place of the lean, powerful and sinewy 'Sam' and ‘Jonathan' of the stock cartoon, slow to anger, but terrible as Achilles and fit to whip his weight in wildcats, when roused.

“Mr. Todd considers it 'unmanly and unpatriotic' to portray Uncle Sam as fat and helpless.

“But what about the fact, Mr. Todd? Would 'twere otherwise. The thing to do is to make it otherwise; and to impress it on this nation that it must be made otherwise, and that is the end and purpose of the offending cartoons. Mr. King is telling some hard truths in a galling and rather ribald but effective way.”

THE CASE OF THE CARTOONIST
From the Chicago Tribune
Cartoons in newspapers are reasonably faithful indices of the political thought of the nation. They are theoretically directed in their appeal toward the entire circulations of newspapers, and they are designed to influence thought quickly.

But newspaper cartoons point out more than favorite policies; they indicate more than the specific opinions of the groups which make up the nation; they offer a clew to more than passing squabbles over immigration and neutrality, over national defense and extra-national trade. By their manner, their technique, they go to the bedrock of our democracy.

The cartoonist touches subjects which everyone talks of. But he assumes nothing as to the intelligence of the person he addresses. Out of the far west comes a graphic treatment of the desolate situation of national defense. Mr. Wilson, labeled, is standing in a gymnasium. In his hands is a medicine ball, labeled “preparedness.” He is about to throw it to Uncle Sam, labeled, who is extending his two arms, labeled “army” and “navy,” respectively. In the gallery is Bryan, labeled. On the wall in the form of the rules of the gymnasium is the phrase, “An ounce of prevention,” etc. On the floor is a book which by its label concerns self-defense.

This is not the only cartoon of the kind. The country over these same intricate, explicit drawings go forth by the thousands every day. An English cartoonist would assume that the whiskers of Von Tirpitz would identify him. The American will label him, will label the kaiser, Wilson, Bryan, anyone, every detail. The practice is virtually universal, and it raises the query whether the cartoonist has the public wrong or right. If he has it right it is still in the nursery playing with blocks. The real power of the cartoon is that its symbolism does not require exposition. That is ignored.

One difficulty may be that this nation has few types. The cowboy is fast departing; the ward boss, and the Boston child, etc. The cartoonist is handicapped by his medium. There are few explicit symbols.
The labeling of the obvious may be justified by experience. If it is we must accept a disconcerting theory of American intelligence. It would be pleasanter to think that the lack was in the cartoonist. The obvious may appear mysterious to his timidity. Otherwise this is yet a nation of parishes in which even Mr. Wilson, Mr. Roosevelt, or Mr. Bryan cannot expect recognition unless they be labeled or announced.

MURPHY SEEKS PASTURES NEW
J. E. Murphy, for four years cartoonist of the Oregon Journal, of Portland, has left that position to become cartoonist of the The San Francisco Call and Post. The change was made October 1. Prior to his connection with the Oregonian Mr. Murphy was employed on Omaha and Spokane newspapers. He has recently issued a cartoon booklet entitled “Mr. Tourist in Portland and Oregon,” dedicated to the “See Portland First” idea, and devoted to the business and scenic advantages of the Rose City.

FRANK BOWERS RETIRES
Frank Bowers, one of the veterans of cartoondom, has given up his position on the Indianapolis Star, and gone back to his old home in Oregon to become a rancher. Mr. Bowers is a cousin of the late Homer Davenport.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Puck has added to its numerous attractions a weekly cartoon by W. Heath Robinson, the London artist, whose quaint and amusing drawings for the London Sketch have given him a world-wide reputation.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Robert Minor, cartoonist of the New York Call, was one of the speakers at the recent mass meeting in Elizabeth, N. J., for the organization of the Call Boosters’ Club. Mr. Minor illustrated his talk with a series of cartoons designed to promote the interests of socialism.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

James E. Maher has joined the staff of the Milford, (Conn.) Times as cartoonist.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Another lamentable change is noticed, still speaking of the Colonel. The cartoonists have taken to drawing him with those famous teeth concealed by a mustache.— Rome (N. Y.) Sentinel.

NAST'S GRANDDAUGHTER WED
Miss Muriel Nast Crawford, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. W. R. Crawford, of New Rochelle, New York, and granddaughter of the late Thomas Nast, was married September 16 to Donald E. Battey. The wedding took place in the new Crawford residence on Overlook Circle, Beechmont, New Rochelle. Miss Sallie Nast was one of the bride's attendants. Thomas Nast Crawford and Thomas Nast Hill were among the ushers. Mr. and Mrs. Battey will live in a colonial house in Beechmont recently built by the bridegroom for the bride.

“HANSI’S” CRUSADE RECALLED
The death on the firing line recently of Lieut. Baron von Forstner, who gained notoriety as the result of the Zabern incident, recalls “Hansi's" cartoon fight against Germany. It was the stabbing by von Forstner of a crippled shoemaker at Zabern, Alsace, that inspired the Alsatian cartoonist in his anti-German crusade. “Hansi,” it will be remembered, was sentenced by a German court to serve a year's imprisonment, but managed to escape into France, where he is now serving as a lieutenant in the army. The Zabern affair, which occurred in 1913, created much excitement throughout Germany.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hy Mayer, of Puck, has been visiting the Pacific coast fairs. He has cartooned his experiences for the movies.

“BRINK” JOINS NEW YORK MAIL
Robert M. Brinkerhoff, magazine illustrator and cartoonist, has joined the staff of the New York Evening Mail, and has been drawing the editorial-page cartoons.

“Brink” went from the Cincinnati Post to New York to try his hand at free-lancing, and won recognition by his drawings for Collier's, St. Nicholas, and other magazines. Before coming to Cincinnati he had been on the art staff of the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

“Am trying hard,” he writes, “to get a human note in serious stuff.” Samples of his work reproduced in this issue of Cartoons Magazine will show to what extent he has succeeded.

 

Brangwyn Poster Stamps

BRANGWYN’S WAR POSTERS
The Avenue Press of London has issued a series of poster stamps designed by Frank Brangwyn, the British artist, whose work for the Panama-Pacific Exposition has increased his popularity in America. The stamps will be sold for the benefit of certain war charities.

ORR RENEWS CONTRACT
Carey C. Orr, cartoonist of the Nashville Tennessean, has signed a contract agreeing to remain with the Tennessean two years more. Several rival publishers, it is said, were negotiating for his services at the time, including the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

Mr. Orr was born in Ada, Ohio, 25 years ago. For the first 13 years of his life he lived on a farm, then went to Spokane, Wash., where he received his high-school education. After finishing school he took a position in his father's lumber plant. By playing professional baseball on a Canadian team he earned enough money for a course at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. He joined the art staff of the Chicago Examiner in 1911, and from there went to the Tennessean. His first cartoon for that newspaper had President Wilson as its subject. He was married recently to Miss Cherry Maude Kindel. Mr. and Mrs. Orr live in a pretty bungalow in Belmont Heights. Mr. Orr's cartoons, especially on political subjects, are deservedly popular at Washington, where he is almost as well-known as in Nashville. He is a Mason, and a member of the Rotary Club.

BERRYMAN AS GOLFER
Clifford K. Berryman, cartoonist of the Washington Star, is learning to play golf. A few days ago, according to a writer on the Star, after he thought he was capable of swinging at a ball without breaking his own neck, he stepped out on the green of the Columbia Country Club, all dressed up, with eighteen new clubs and a dozen and a half of brand-new balls.

He swung his driver at a dandelion and nipped its head; then he neatly drove a cigarette butt about thirty feet in the air and seemed to have every chance of making a 200-yard drive from the tee.
He built a fine little sand pile, placed one of those fine new balls upon it and then grabbed his club for business. He had the correct back swing and his eye was on the ball, but when he swooped downward the club head was scarcely within eighteen inches of the ball.

Then he drew back again and made another attempt. He did considerably better, as the distance between club head and ball was reduced to a mere matter of six inches.

However, that did not satisfy him. He next delivered a terrific swipe at the ball, which toppled from its tee and rolled about a foot.

Cliff looked up in dismay. As his face became visible to the occupant of a bench near at hand a voice was heard to say:

“Why, Berryman, is that you? I thought it must be Dr. Grayson.”

The audience was President Wilson. He had gone quietly to the bench to sit down and await his turn to drive.

THE ABUSED POLITICIAN
Cartoonists are too apt to use the rubber stamp. Thus the average politician, as portrayed in the cartoons, is supposed to dress loudly (usually in checks), wear a gold watch chain, smoke black cigars, and be interested in the material things of life.

Now comes David H. Lane, republican city chairman of Philadelphia, who says: “In all my experience [Mr. Lane is 76 years old] I have never seen the politician that the newspaper cartoonist's picture. Take any thousand politicians, and you will find them an honester, straighter body of men than a thousand in any other profession.”

Unfortunately for the politician, his past associations with gang rule and bossism have identified him with those institutions. Cartoonists must make their figures recognizable without labels. The laboring man must have the biceps of a blacksmith, and must wear a box cap. Similarly the politician must smoke strong cigars and wear check suits. Otherwise, how would the public know him?

PREFER SENTIMENT TO HATRED
Picture postcards of the war, which probably reflect popular feeling fairly well, are not quite so merry as in the early days. A year ago caricatures of the kaiser were in great demand, but now the cards that sell best are of a sentimental or domestic type. The kaiser still appears in various characters—as a dachshund on crutches, a guy, a Zeppelin gasbag, a burglar, and, in company with the crown prince, as a bad pear— but such cards are no longer in conspicuous positions in shop windows. The kaiser, it seems, can no longer be relied on as the chief stock-in-trade of the picture postcard artist. The British public—always eager for change—is apparently losing interest in him.

The sentimental cards are growing in number daily. Pictures of the soldier saying good-bye, and of his return home, are in every window, and there is a great number of cards based on what may be called cinema emotion. A young soldier stands on guard outside a tent, and in the sky, among the clouds, apparently no more than 200 feet up, is the face of a girl. The soldier is charged with saying: “I wonder if you miss me sometimes.”

There are several pathetic series, chiefly concerned with good-byes. Probably they are not very true to life, but they sell very well—not among soldiers, but among elderly non-combatants. “Good-bye, mother darling,” says the soldier to his weeping mother. But do such farewells happen except on picture post cards?—London News and Leader.

 

Albert Bloch, "Still Life" (1914)

THE BIZARRERIES OF ALBERT BLOCH
Albert Bloch, once cartoonist and caricaturist of Reedy's Mirror, of St. Louis, now of Munich, has 25 of his most recent paintings on exhibition at the City Art Museum of St. Louis. Among them is a portrait of Robert Minor, the cartoonist of the New York Call. Speaking of the paintings, Reedy's Mirror says: “They are to the Greeks foolishness. They are not after-impressionist, but before-impressionist and beyond. The exhibit is an escape from the conventional into a realm of almost, if not quite, pure art—wherein painting enters as does music.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

H. M. Waddell, a New York cartoonist, accompanied by his wife and children, has been making a trip from New York to San Francisco in a “house car.” An automobile equipped with all the comforts of home was used, and Mr. Waddell and his family traveled prairie-schooner  style, camping by night wherever the setting sun found them.

BUSHNELL, DOC & CO.
E. A. Bushnell, recently cartoonist of the Central Press Association, of Cleveland, announces from New York that he has gone into business for himself. And, what is more, he has taken “Doc,” that melancholy hound of his, back into the firm. “Doc,” it will be remembered, was banished recently after having appeared in more than 3,000 cartoons.

O. O. McIntyre, who is a silent partner in the enterprise, and who was at one time associated with Bushnell in the west, writes the following appreciation of the cartoonist:

“Bushnell has a more serious mien now but beneath his shy, reserved exterior one feels instinctively that he is a confirmed optimist. He can laugh while going over the bumps better than any man I ever saw.

“One day our freckled-faced office boy was missing. We called him Rags and that described him. He drifted into our midst on the crest of an Ohio blizzard to keep warm and he became an office fixture as well as an office joy. No one teased Rags more than Bushnell. He would send him after wallpaper stretchers and once had the lad perspiring profusely when he sent him after a bucket of editorials and an unfeeling linotype operator filled his bucket with slabs of lead.

“No one knew where Rags had gone. Later we learned from others—not from Bushnell—that the lad had, from an accident on the street, become crippled. He was a Horatio Alger type in real life, for three were dependent upon him—a mother, father and sister. Bushnell after the first week went out on a still hunt for Rags. He found him in the most squalid shack on the river front.

“The next day Rags and his family were transported to a modest little farm house near the city and during the day a wagon backed up with loads of provisions. Rags today is a college graduate. They say he too admires Bushnell's cartoons.”

THE WOODWORTH EXHIBITION
An exhibition of war cartoons from the collection of Mr. Newell B. Woodworth, of Syracuse, N. Y., was held at the Syracuse Museum of Fine Arts from September 15 to October 15. Hundreds of cartoons were shown, representing the United States, England, France, Belgium, Holland, Germany, Austria, Italy, Spain, the Latin American countries, and the British colonies. A fine exhibit of Raemaekers' work, many originals by American cartoonists, and the latest war posters from England were the principal attractions.

CARTOONIST HANNY MARRIED
William Hanny, cartoonist of the St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press, was married September 23 to Miss Alida Wycoff, daughter of Mrs. C. F. Wycoff, of Chillicothe. The wedding took place at the bride's home. Mr. and Mrs. Hanny will reside in St. Joseph.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Uncle Sam in a monocle is one of the queerest of spectacles. A French cartoonist so represents him. Of the three parts of gall, the Parisian artists have two at least and an interest in what remains.—Brooklyn Eagle.

Labels: What The Cartoonists Are Doing