Monday, January 30, 2006

 

The Great Gluyas Williams




Nothing really obscure about Gluyas Williams, just thought I'd share a few of his great cartoons. In the trinity of the most popular untitled comic panels (H.T. Webster, Clare Briggs, and our man Gluyas) I'd put him as number one for cartooning ability, number two (after Webster) for humor. He certainly was a distant third in popularity in his day, owing, I imagine, more to the strength of his syndicate (Bell for most of the run) compared to the other two.

The earliest Gluyas Williams newspaper panels I've found are from November 1922, and the feature ended sometime in 1947. Williams was also well-known for his New Yorker cartoons and book illustrations (most notably for Robert Benchley's works).

In perusing some Gluyas Williams source material, I find no reference to the proper pronunciation of his name. Anyone know? (perhaps "will-yums"?)

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 9:22 AM
Comments:
Say it like you see it...
GLOO-YES WILL-YAMS
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 3/13/2007 10:58 PM
 
WE pronounce it with long u short a, Williams is your basic common pronounciation, which varies based on the part of the country you are in. My late father got into a disagreement with a bookstore clerk, as to the proper pronounciation of Gluyas, the clerk kept saying Glu-I-as, and was quite adamant about it. My father wrote out a check for his purchase and signed his full name David Gluyas Williams.
# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 12/26/2007 10:17 AM
 
Is my attempt at humor really that bad? I do, of course, know how to pronounce the man's last name.

Hmmmph.

--Allan
# posted by Blogger Allan Holtz : 12/26/2007 2:58 PM
 
Gluyas Williams is one of my all time favorites, too bad you don;t see it anywhere very often.
# posted by Anonymous Todd : 9/07/2010 4:32 PM
 
Howdy, Allan,

During a search for Williams' drawings at google books, I happened across a reference that says "Gluyas is pronounced Glue-yas , being an old Cornish name. This is from a 1937 publication call "The Quill". If you search for Gluyas at https://books.google.com/books?id=rNYDehDFUCIC It will give you a snippet view of the article, but you might not see the text I mention.

Bob Harris

# posted by Anonymous Anonymous : 2/05/2024 8:38 PM
 
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