Stripper's Guide

Being over a hundred years old, Muggsy could certainly qualify as an Obscurity of the Day, but I think he is a better fit for Under The Radar since the strip had an incredibly long run for those days,  two whole decades. 

You may be thinking to yourself, if the strip ran that long, and I've never heard of it, was it some local thing? Nope, it ran in lots of higher profile papers. What makes it utterly forgotten is the fact that it was pretty literally the SAME DARN GAG for its whole long run. The question, then, is why it lasted so long, and for that question I have no answer, but I'd sure like to know why myself. 

Muggsy, as you'll see when you peruse the samples above, is not only the same gag over and over, but the art is clunky to boot. The cartoonist, Frank Crane, came onto the comic stripping scene in 1900 with this full-fledged style of his, and it never grew or changed appreciably over his entire career. 

Muggsy may have only had one joke, but he didn't have only one syndicate. He debuted in the Philadelphia North American on December 1 1901* and ran there until April 20 1902. Crane was actually a much more important player at the New York Herald at this time, and apparently decided Muggsy was too good for the less auspicious comic section of the North American. He moved the strip to the Herald starting there on May 18 1902.

Whether the Herald tired of the strip, or the North American balked at the loss, it remained there only a short period. It ended in the Herald on August 24 1902, and reappeared in the North American on October 12. 

From then on the strip ran consistently, 99% of the time as an interior half-pager, in the North American section, except for one long hiatus from April 15 1906 to August 25 1907, coinciding with Crane taking on some extra work for the Boston Herald with Val the Ventriloquist. 

Muggsy kept up his ultra-repetitive shenanigans until the Philadelphia North American's Sunday comic section ended on July 4 1915**. At this point Crane went back to the New York Herald, where he tried out several new strips. None of them caught on though, and Crane seems to have retired from newspaper cartooning in 1916, and he died in 1917. 

But even that couldn't keep Muggsy down; World Color Printing bought the backlog of quite a few North American strips and ran Muggsy in reruns from 1916 to 1920, rounding out the total run for this strip to a nice even twenty years.

* Sources: All dates from Philadelphia North American, except New York Herald dates from Ken Barker's Herald index, and World Color Printing info from various papers in my collection.

** A comic section I'd dearly love for my collection -- the North American strip characters all get blown to kingdom come by fireworks.

Labels: Under The Radar

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Here's an example of what may be Albert Carmichael's scarcest series, Taylor & Pratt Series #669. These cards all featured fish and they're usually worth a bit of a grin, so I don't know why they didn't sell. The series seems to have been produced in 1910, or at least that's how Carmichael dated them. 

Postcards related to hunting and fishing were quite popular, a quick and convenient way for a fellow on a sporting expedition to let the family at home know he was still alive.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

May 15 1910 -- Another Fight of the Century strip, this one featuring Johnson as a huckster, showing off his prize possession.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Clarence Rigby seemed to be trying to prove himself at the New York Herald, putting out some of his best work there in a short stint 1900-02. During this time he was also producing work for others, but I get the feeling he really wanted to secure his position at the Herald. It's too bad that his series for them, while very well drawn, didn't have much of a spark to make them long-term series. 

Jungle Jingles, a series which consisted of a square of individual panels for each installment, featured  impressionistically drawn animals and a bit of verse for each one. The concept had already been done to death, so despite the lovely drawings (that zebra in particular blows me away) it was doomed to a short run -- not to mention there aren't all that many iconic jungle animals to cover. 

Jungle Jingles ran from July 21 to September 1 1901*.

* Source: Ken Barker's New York Herald index.

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

I love baseball, and my favorite baseball strip, hands down, is Ozark Ike. Ray Gotto's art completely blows my mind, and the stories are entertainingly ridiculous. I even forgive the hillbilly motif, which you just couldn't escape in the 1940s when everyone who could hold a brush was trying to steal even a small taste of the juggernaut that was  Li'l Abner.

Ozark Ike began as a daily in 1945, and it found enough editors who appreciated it that a Sunday was added on July 27 1947. When the Sunday debuted, though, it didn't fold itself in on the daily stories, nor did it start a separate storyline of its own. Instead Gotto had the idea to make it a totally self-supporting feature in which his characters would act out a famous event in sports history, with a gag thrown in for good measure. The feature was titled Ozark Ike's Whodunits. 

I quite like the idea since it sidesteps the whole knotty problem of setting up separate or blended contiuities with the dailies. And boy is that a major problem. If you run shared continuities, Sundays either become a boring recap of the week's events, or if they advance the plot, you force editors who bought your daily to either add the Sunday, or if they have no room for it, to drop the daily. 

If you go with the separate continuity option, you can be less likely to sell a newspaper on both the Sunday and daily because readers can be confused by the multiple stories they are supposed to follow. Sure, if you're Steve Canyon you can get away with it, but if your strip is struggling to get newspaper sign-ups, adding a Sunday can be a sort of zero-sum game while leaving you with a lot more work. 

So Ray Gotto and I both think his solution is genius, but evidently we are adding up this marketing equation and coming up with the wrong answer. Ozark Ike's Whodunits lasted only about six months, and on February 1 1948 the Sunday was retitled simply Ozark Ike and began running a separate continuity from the daily. 

Did that work out for it? Well, Ozark Ike was never a huge success, but it did garner a pretty decent roster of clients, so hard to say. What do you think is the ideal way to handle a continuity strip on Sundays and dailies? 

PS: If you don't know the answer to the sample Whodunit above, I'm not telling you. It's only one of the most famous events (if it really happened!) in baseball history. So either you're a baseball fan and you know it already, or you couldn't care less.

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 5 comments

Ashleigh Brilliant, who in my opinion quite handily lives up to his family name, began coming up with witty and wise epigrams in the 1960s, and sold them on illustrated postcards. The postcards sold well, and Brilliant went on to put what eventually became known as his Pot-Shots on other products, and to publish book collections of the material. He also recognized that these would make for a fine daily newspaper feature. The Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate agreed, and began syndicating them sometime in 1975. The partnership was dissolved around 1984, and by 1987 or perhaps earlier (they are really hard to track) Brilliant was self-syndicating Pot-Shots. Although Brilliant says on his website that the feature continues to be available, I haven't seen any papers running it in a long while.

An interesting aspect of Pot-Shots is that the cartoons/illustrations are drawn in many styles, everything from classic detailed illustrations to the simplest stick figures. Despite checking several of his books and reading considerable online  material about him, I can't find a single word that mentions whether the illustrations are all clip art or if some are drawn by Brilliant, or by collaborators. 

If many of these drawings are re-used art, as seems pretty certain given the wide variety of styles, this becomes more interesting. Brilliant is an ardent and ferocious defender of his copyrights, which courts have ruled can cover epigrams. (Which reminds me to say that all the Pot-Shot examples above are copyrighted by Ashley Brilliant, the Pot-Shots name is a registered trademark, and the examples shown above are used in the context of a review) So with Brilliant's presumed use of a huge amount of artwork by and presumably copyrighted by others, has he never violated the intellectual property laws of artists himself?

Brilliant decided to stop publishing new Pot-Shots postcards after he hit #10,000 (each postcard is numbered). That means that if a paper had started running the feature in 1975 they could have had a new Pot-Shot every day for over 32 years, and would have had to start offering recycled wisdom around 2007. 

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 4 comments

Here's another card from the Little Nemo series, copyrighted to the New York Herald and issued by Raphael Tuck as their series #6. The shame is that this series does not feature art by Winsor McCay, but by some lesser artist who apparently copied the scenes from various Little Nemo strips. I've only had one other of these cards on the blog so far, and D.D. Degg identified the original strip from which the scene was adapted. Can someone find this scene in a Little Nemo strip?

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 2 comments

May 14 1910 -- Herriman runs the prejudice gauntlet here, calling Jack Johnson -- if I get this right -- a womanizer, a glutton, a scofflaw, a dandy, a money-grubber, a laughingstock, and a pretender to wisdom. All of which, in this cartoon, are looked upon as positive character traits by black mothers. 

Nice job George, hope you slept well after drawing this one.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 1 comments

United Feature Syndicate, the big brother of NEA, took the strip on despite finding very few clients, evidently feeling that the popularity might build over time. It didn't, but you have to give them points for giving it a try. Howie is a quasi-autobiographical daily only comic strip about a cartoonist interacting with family and friends, or just waxing philosophical. The strip was very well-drawn, using a more detailed, less cartoony version of Schneider's normal style. Theoretically the strip followed his life day by day (the strip was sometimes subtitled A Comic Journal), so not too surpringly it often portrayed him sitting at his drawing board trying to come up with ideas for his comic strip.

Perhaps newspaper editors couldn't see readers identifying with a cartoonist, or maybe they just saw it as a too-egocentric exercise. In any case, Schneider and UFS gave it a year to catch on, and it didn't. The strip began on November 12 1984 and ended on December 2 1985*.

* Source: United Feature Syndicate internal records

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 1 comments

Well Known Fort Worth Cartoonist to California.

Fort Worth, Texas, Feb. 3.—Announcement was made tonight that Heppner Blackman, cartoonist of the Star-Telegram and editor of the “Sunday Sandwich,” a Sunday feature of that paper, would leave shortly for California, where he will enter the moving picture business. He has been with the local paper for several years and enjoyed the distinction of being one of the leading cartoonists of the State.

He has considered entering the moving picture field for several months, but only announced his final decision today.

 

One Time Oregonian Joins Fox Publicity Staff.

Heppner Blackman Signs Up for Position in Hollywood.

Heppner Blackman, New York city newspaper man and former Oregonian, has joined the publicity staff at William Fox’s west coast studios, Hollywood.

Blackman was a member of the editorial staff of the New York Daily News for more than three years, serving in the capacity of reporter, labor editor and night city editor. For eight years he acted as current event cartoonist and columnist on the Fort Worth, Tex., Star-Telegram, and has worked at various times on the staffs of the New York American, International News service and on San Antonio, San Francisco and Los Angeles newspapers.

He is a son of the Henry Blackman, internal revenue collector of Oregon, Washington and Alaska during one of the Cleveland administrations.

Former Resident Passes

A short note from Abe Blackman in Portland informed this paper that his brother, Heppner Blackman, passed away in San Francisco March 13 at the age of 68 years. Hep will be remembered by the older residents hereabouts as the family resided in Heppner many years. His father, the late Henry Blackman, was associated in the mercantile business with Henry Heppner, the town’s founder. Hep took up cartooning as a career, working on papers in Texas and other southern states, later engaging in commercial art work in Los Angeles and San Francisco. He was a cousin of Harold Cohn of Heppner.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

# posted by Alex Jay @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Heppner Blackman seems to have only pursued newspaper cartooning in New York City for a short period, but he penned one quite interesting feature in his short foray there, plus a few that are less memorable. Epitaphs For Live Ones was a series of cartoons in which we see famous peoples' final resting places along with a humorous take on what might be chiselled thereon.

The weekday series was done for the New York Herald, but only one episode was printed in that morning paper, on September 7 1906. After that the series was moved to their evening paper, the Telegram, where it ran from November 10 1906  to August 5 1907. 

If you're wondering who the bewhiskered chap above is, James Bryce was appointed Britain's ambassador to the United States in 1907 at the time of this cartoon. He was also a noted historian, and had earlier written a very influential book about the U.S. titled The American Commonwealth. The epitaph Blackman came up with seeks to wring humour out of all these aspects of this accomplished fellow, and succeeds for an audience more than a century removed in producing mostly head-scratching. 

Come on back on Wednesday when Alex Jay will enlighten us more about Mr. Blackman's life story.

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

 

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 1 comments

May 13 1910 -- If you have been following Herriman's work lately, you only need to read the first panel; you can easily fill in the rest yourself.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

 Charles Barsotti was a well-respected, inventive and prolific magazine gag cartoonist, best known for his regular appearances in The New Yorker and Playboy. But Barsotti obviously pined for a dependable and ongoing gig, so he tried to break into the ranks of the newspaper cartoonists a number of times. 

The last attempt I know of is with the strip P.J. McFey, which was picked up for syndication by the LA Times Syndicate. This strip was a gag-a-day affair starring a put-upon corporate drone who has to deal with the strange behavior of the executives, the tech people and the marketing folk. It sort of sounds like Dilbert, but what was missing were the consistent and strong personalities, as opposed to basically generic gags that happen to use a few of the same weakly defined characters. 

The daily and Sunday strip debuted on January 12 1986*, and within six months Barsotti wasn't even sticking with his initial direction, now sometimes having McFey appear as just a generic 'everyman' figure, sometimes abandoned to being a background object in a gag having nothing to do with him. Barsotti even started dropping him altogether from the Sunday strip, as can be seen in the samples above. 

P.J. McFey didn't make it to the first anniversary mark, killed by mutual consent between syndicate and creator on December 13 1986. The day after that, a major profile article about Barsotti appeared in the Kansas City Star, and the strip was discussed:

“Mickey Mouse is kind of an icon,” [Barsotti] says. “It shows you these things can work.” The “things” are cartoon characters. One of Barsotti’s that won't is PJ McFey. “I just hate to say it,” Barsotti said one evening not long ago. If he wouldn't, then Lou Schwartz of the Los Angeles Times Syndicate would. “In the wonderful world of comic strips, ‘PJ McFey’ has had his run.” Officially, the last of the strips died yesterday but Barsotti had stopped drawing about two months before. The strip, in which McFey, a middle-aged, middle-class office worker, wrestled with life's demons, never hit stride. At the end it ran in about 30 papers, including The Star, “Doonesbury” appears in about 750. “I'm very upset about it,” says Barsotti, kneading a blackened eraser between his fingers. “It was obvious to everyone else I had too much to do, although I don’t think I sloughed off.” Work was winging out of his house via Federal Express sometimes seven days a week. He was doing drawings for the magazines, plus cartoons for his daily and weekend spaces in USA Today and USA Weekend, plus seven McFeys in 2 to three days. In coming up with the name, Barsotti pulled the PJ from PJ Clarke's, a watering hole in New York. The Mc was an add-on but the “fey” derived from the more positive meanings of that word, such as being clairvoyant. In the end, it fit the preferred use of the word: “Fated to die soon.”

* Source: Editor & Publisher article, November 23 1985.

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 5 comments

When Hearst strips began carrying toppers, Felix was unusual in that it didn't go through a few different test run top strips before settling on one for the long run. Felix added the strip Laura as its first topper on June 6 1926* and stuck with it for nine years, finally changing to a new strip after the Sunday of June 16 1935**. 

While many toppers reused old characters from the creator's oeuvre, Laura seems to have been a brand new creation. The strip starred a parrot who quickly learns bits of speech from her owners and repeats them at inopportune moments. The strip was pretty much a one-joke affair for its entire existence, but the gag was pulled off with originality and playfulness that kept it from getting too stale. 

According to some online sources, Laura, or a parrot that resembles her, was later incorporated  into some of Felix's film shorts.

* Source: Philadelphia Record

** Source: Washington Star

Labels: Topper Features

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 1 comments

Hard to believe that King Features would offer a third-rate strip like Switchboard Sally*, the theoretically humorous tale of a hotsy-totsy, smart-mouthed hotel telephone operator. In the 1920s the Hearst organization had the Premier Syndicate imprint in which to throw this sort of junk up against the wall to see if it might stick, and why this did not get flung there I dunno. 

Even junk like this can be interesting, though, and in this instance it is the creators who are memorable. The author of Switchboard Sally was H.C. Witwer, who must have been dashing off this tripe purely for the quick buck. Witwer was a popular and prolific writer who made a name for himself with humorous novels, magazine stories and movie screenplays. He was obviously engaged to write the strip purely for the name recognition. Apparently Witwer didn't care much about the potential damage to his reputation. 

The artist is the notorious Wesley Morse, who would later win everlasting infamy as the king of the Tijuana Bibles, those x-rated eight-pagers sold under the counter at the corner store in the 1930s-50s. Switchboard Sally gives him ample opportunity to work on his female figure drawing, for which I must admit he had a knack. It's everything else in the strip that he seems to not have an interest in fleshing out; the strip mainly features blank backgrounds and the most minimal props necessary. 

Switchboard Sally seems to have debuted on June 15 1925**, and was pretty much a gag-a-day affair. Since the gags weren't very good, there were also some half-baked storylines that went nowhere, so if you disliked the gags you could also be annoyed by the ill-conceived continuity. The latest I can find the strip running is January 2 1926 in the San Francisco Examiner, where daily strips came and went as quickly as mayflies -- can anyone supply a later end date?

One minor footnote is that the strip was advertised as being by Russ Westover in the 1925 E&P listings; obviously this was a typo.

* At least one paper ran it as "Sally of the Switchboard"

** Source: Philadelphia Daily News

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 2 comments

Here's a card from Charles Lederer, dated 1906, but presumably published in 1907 since it is a divided back. No maker is credited but it is likely to be the Monarch Book Company, which published his other cards of this same style. 

These Lederer cards all offer gags using wordplay and slang. This one, I have to admit, mystifies me. If there's some slang meaning to "king full" I don't know what it is; in poker it would be a full house with kings high, but what that would have to do with a gag about drinking I dunno. Little help?

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 2 comments

May 12 1910 -- Herriman adds a little colour to this article about the worldwide reactions to the appearance of Halley's Comet.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Hy Gage produced a lot of comic strips over a long career, primarily for the Philadelphia papers. He worked most closely with the Philadelphia Press from 1906-1913, where his headline strip was Mrs. Rummage the Bargain Fiend. His secondary strip was this obscurity, Mr. Grouch. 

Mr. Grouch is just that, a pruny old fussbudget who is certain he knows best, and flies into a tantrum at the drop of a hat. Inexplicably, he has a gorgeous young wife who puts up with his anything but loveable antics. 

As with all of Hy Gage's work, the cartooning seems quite basic and flat yet shows a command of action and expression that really amps up the humour. Gage could take a tired old gag and make it worth seeing anew purely for the treatment he gives it. 

Mr. Grouch ran in the Philadelphia Press weekday editions from May 24 1906 to August 30 1907, then was graduated to the Sunday funnies section and ran there from September 22 1907 to February 26 1911. 

The Philadelphia Press also apparently had an agreement with the McClure Syndicate to share material with them in 1908-09. While McClure chose from the Press lineup mostly Gage's #1 strip, Mrs. Rummage, and Hugh Doyle's John Poor John to pad their sections, Mr. Grouch also made occasional appearances. 

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

The Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate was a johnny-come-lately to the world of toppers, but when they finally caved in to peer pressre in late 1930, their cartoonists behaved much as those at other syndicates and many just revived one of their old strips as the new bonus attraction. 

Before Sidney Smith became one of the most widely known and richest cartoonists in the world for his huge smash hit The Gumps, he had already been a mainstay in the Tribune Sunday section for years with, among other features, Old Doc Yak. The strip starred ... yes ... a yak. But Doc had very few yak-like properties; his schtick was mainly speeding around in his jalopy, Old Number 348, trying to collect on his doctoring bills, coming up with money-making schemes, or jousting with his son, Yutch.

Despite Old Doc Yak being a Tribune reader favorite, in 1917 Smith came up with the idea for The Gumps, and he felt so strongly that it would be a big success that he actually had Old Doc Yak lose his house to The Gumps when they took over the daily strip. In 1919, with The Gumps obviously the wave of the future, Yak sold his Old Number 348 to them in his final Sunday. The virtual handshake to turn over the reins to the new kids in town was completed.

 So when Smith was called on in 1930 to add a topper, Old Doc Yak was taken out of the mothballs Starting with the Sunday of December 7 1930, half-hearted strips like that above were grudgingly added. They certainly didn't have the magic of the original Doc Yak strips, and Smith used his clout with the syndicate to finally dump the topper a little over three years later. The last Old Doc Yak topper ran on February 25 1934. Until long after Smith's death The Gumps Sundays were never again saddled with toppers. 

If Old Doc Yak sounds intriguing to you (the original, not the topper), head on over to Barnacle Press, where they have a substantial collection of Old Doc Yak strips, including the dailies which are (IMO) the most fun.

Labels: Topper Features

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 3 comments

Today we feature Taylor's The Pranks of Pantomime Pete, a strip that he did while on a stint with the Chicago Tribune (though you can bet he was submitting material elsewhere at the same time). Walter Bradford pretty much dominated the Trib's funnies section in the first half of the 1900s, but Taylor, in his short stints there in 1901-02 and 1905-06, gave him a run for his money. Unfortunately they both kinda got the bum's rush in 1906 when the Tribune decided to have a bunch of German cartoonists produce the majority of the section. 

The Pranks of Pantomime Pete ran from December 3 1905 to April 29 1906; in the latter part of the run the strip only appeared sporadically (... darn Germans). If you have a hankering for the whole run of Pete, albeit in living black and white, head on over to Barnacle Press for the full monty.

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Here's another postcard from J.R. Williams, this one featuring two city slickers (I think) debating the better way to mount a horse. Why the second fellow speaks broken English is a mystery to me -- it seems to have nothing to do with the gag. 

This card is W-530 of the second series of Standley-May Out Our Way cards.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 2 comments

May 12 1910 -- May is a good time for Herriman to be dreaming about a pennant run fot the local Pacific Coast League teams. Once the season gets rolling all thoughts of glory will be filed away as "just wait 'til next year!"

In fairness the Vernons did have a decent season, coming in with a positive win-loss record, they were just way outclassed by other powerhouse teams. The Angels, though, stunk up the joint. They did manage to not to end up as the worst team in the league; the laughably bad Sacramento team saved them from that dishonour.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 0 comments

Here's a panel that seems like it should have succeeded, if only because it offered a different perspective than just about all the other stuff editors could buy in the mid-50s. The panel Mommy was about a stay-at-home mom, and unlike glamourpusses like Alice Mitchell and Blondie Bumstead, she seemed pretty real -- she was overworked, overtired, not at all amused by her kids' 'cute' antics, and never wore high heels and pearls to do the vacuuming. In short, here was a panel that would appeal to all the newspaper readers who fit that mould, which was most of the middle-aged women of the developed world. 

So what could go wrong? It certainly wasn't the art, which was by Arnie Mossler who offered up a more than competent 1950s modern and vibrant style. And it wasn't the gags by his wife Ann Mossler, which hit more often than not, and came across as real, not manufactured by some cigar-smoking gag-writer. At this point I'd be giving the stink-eye to the syndicate, which being the New York Herald-Tribune, with the most infamously inept sales force of all the majors, would seem like the obvious place to point the finger. But to my surprise when I look around on newspapers.com, I see that the panel started with what appears to be a healthy enough client list, and those clients didn't all get shed early on. In fact, it isn't until a good year and a half into the run before the clients start dropping like flies. Why? I just don't know. It's a head-scratcher. 

Mommy began on March 21 1955* and ended just about exactly two years later, on March 30 1957**. Arnie Mossler had several syndicated features before and after this, but Mommy was the only occasion on which he teamed up (or at least credited) his wife Ann.

* Source: San Fernando Valley Times

** Source: Tampa Times

Labels: Obscurities

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 2 comments

The Stripper must be getting old and addle-pated, because I feel like I should know who this is. This sports cartoon ran in the February 6 1928 edition of the Atlanta Georgian, a paper that I just clipped up for its cartooning content. As I was clipping this cartoon out, I was just assuming it would be by Feg Murray. But then I looked at the scrawl of a signature, and that sig sure isn't his. 

The style seems sort of familiar, in a generic sorta way, and this was no minor local cartoonist since he was syndicated by King Features, but my neurons refuse to fire properly. Help!

Labels: Mystery Cartoonists

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 7:00 AM 6 comments

Henry William Reusswig Jr. was born on July 22, 1902, in Somerville, New Jersey, according to his World War II draft card. 

The 1905 New Jersey state census said Reusswig, his parents and older brother were residents of Bridgewater Township of Somerville, New Jersey at 154 Cliff Street. His father was a druggist. 

The 1910 United States Census recorded Reusswig, his widow mother and brother in Utica, New York at 371 Genesee Street. His mother was a vocal teacher. 

According to the 1915 New York state census, Reusswig’s mother had remarried to Norton J. Griffith who owned a canning company. The family of four were Utica residents at 8 Greenwood Court.

In the 1920 census, Reusswig was at the same address and had a half-sister. 

Reusswig graduated from Amherst College in Massachusetts. He was in the class of 1924. 

The 1925 New York state census recorded the family of five in Utica at 1102 Parkway. Reusswig’s occupation was “art league school”, probably in New York City. 

The Central New Jersey Home News (New Brunswick, New Jersey), November 8, 1927, reported Ruesswig’s upcoming marriage. 

Reusswig to Wed in New York Church

New York, Nov. 8.—St. Agnes’ Church in New York City will be the scene of the wedding on November 15 of Henry William Reusswig, twenty-five, an artist, a native of Somerville, the son of Henry and Edith Norton Reusswig, and Miss Martha Louise Sawyers, twenty-two, also an artist, who has a studio at 360 West Twenty-second street, New York City. The couple obtained their marring license here yesterday. Mr. Reusswig’s present address is 215 West Thirteenth street, New York City. Miss Sawyers was born in Corsicanna, Texas, the daughter of Alie and Inez Sawyers.

On November 16, 1927, Reusswig married Martha L. Sayers in Manhattan, New York City. Evidently they honeymooned in Europe. On December 30, 1927, the newlyweds were aboard the steamship American Banker when it departed London. They arrived in the port of New York on January 9, 1928. The passenger list said their address was 360 West 22nd Street, New York City. 

Reusswig was a self-employed artist in the 1930 census. His address was 110 East 84th Street. 

Reusswig painted many pulp magazine covers. Redbook, January 1934, published a photograph of Reusswig at work. His illustrations for “We’re All a Year Older” begin here. 

On August 26, 1937, Reusswig and his wife arrived in San Pedro, California from Yokohama, Japan. 

The 1940 census enumeration counted Reusswig and his wife in Manhattan, New York City at 71 East 77th Street. 

On February 15, 1942, Reusswig signed his World War II draft card. His address was 434 East 52nd Street in Manhattan. Reusswig was described as five feet nine inches, 172 pounds, with brown eyes and hair. He enlisted in the New York Guard Service on June 24, 1943 and was assigned to Company B, Seventh Regiment. 

American Newspaper Comics (2012) said Reusswig, in 1944, drew the Book-of-the-Month adaptation of Paris Underground by Etta Shiber. He started Book-of-the-Month’s Tarawa by Robert Sherrod and completed just six strips. The remaining eighteen were by John Mayo. Both series were from the King Features Syndicate which offered Reusswig the opportunity to document the war in Europe. So, Reusswig left Tarawa and packed his bags for Europe. Apparently Reusswig’s full-page drawings began on August 13, 1944 in the Pictorial Review of several newspapers. During the series, Printers’ Ink, June 29, 1945, published an advertisement with a photograph of Reusswig.

Reusswig was mentioned in The Greenwood Library of American War Reporting Volume 5 (2005).  Reusswig returned to the U.S. on December 25, 1944 at Washington, D.C. He flew on an Air Transport Command plane. 

In early 1945, Reusswig went to the Pacific Theater to continue documenting the war for King Features. Apparently his first set of drawing appeared August 5, 1945 and last set November 11, 1945 (below). 

On September 22, 1945, Reusswig and his wife, Martha Sawyers, were aboard the S.S. Topa Topa when they departed Calcutta, India. They arrived in New York on October 20, 1945. She was a WAC captain and war correspondent for Colliers in India. 

The 1950 census said Reusswig and his wife lived in Manhattan, New York City at 434 East 52nd Street. He was a freelance magazine illustrator.

Reusswig passed away on June 22, 1978, in San Antonio, Texas. An obituary appeared in the Victoria Advocate (Texas), June 23, 1978. 

Graveside services for Henry V. Reusswig, 76, San Antonio artist and writer, will be conducted in Hillside Cemetery at 3 p.m. Friday. The Rev. John II. Bert, pastor of Grace Episcopal Church, will officiate. Burial will be under the direction of Freund Funeral Home. 

Mr. Reusswig died at a San Antonio nursing home Thursday. He was a member of the Illustrators Club and the Artists and Writers Club of New York City, the National Academy of Fine Arts and Phi Delta Theta. 

Mr. Reusswig, a graduate of Amherst College, was born in New Jersey, July 22, 1902, son of Ernest and Edith Reusswig. He married Martha Sawyers in New York City in 1927. Survivors are the wife; a sister, Mrs. Aurelia Batty of Arlington, Va., and a brother, Norton Reusswig of New York. 

Reusswig was laid to rest at Hillside Cemetery. 

Further Reading and Viewing

Field Guide to Wild American Pulp Artists

Internet Archive, Reusswig credits and illustrations

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

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