Wednesday, December 07, 2011
Obscurity of the Day: Mudd Center Folks
This excellent feature didn't immediately catch on as a replacement to The Old Home Town. Many NEA clients chose to continue the original feature through its new syndicate, and just how many folksy panels does a newspaper need? Even though Mudd Center Folks came free as part of the NEA package service, it ran in few papers. A shame really.
After Mudd Center Folks, Small continued to pick up where other cartoonists left off. There was Bugs, the radio panel, and then the long-running Salesman Sam, in which Small did such a perfect impersonation of George Swanson that you can't tell one from the other without looking for the signature.
Mudd Center Folks ran from July 6 1925 to April 20 1926.
Tomorrow: an Ink-Slinger Portrait of C.D. Small
Labels: Obscurities
Tuesday, December 06, 2011
Ink-Slinger Profiles: Jack Smith
A New York Times obituary, published October 13, 1935, said Jack H. Smith was 66 when he died; his birth was around 1870. He has not been found in the 1870, 1880 and 1900 U.S. Federal Censuses. In Indiana's Laughmakers (1990), Ray Banta profiled Smith. His source was The Sunday Journal (Indianapolis, Indiana) article, "Newspaper Artists and Their Work the Public Seldom Sees," published on December 13, 1903. Banta wrote, "Jack's father, Samuel R. Smith, died when Jack was about five years old. Later, the family moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where Jack and his brothers, Charles and John, entered Indiana University. Jack majored in mathematics, but…switched to philosophy under Dr. William Lowe Bryan. It was at the suggestion of his professor of philosophy that he first submitted his drawings to papers at home and abroad. He achieved almost immediate success.…Smith was 'editor, manager, illustrator, and staff, all in one' for the I.U. Illustrator, which was launched in November, 1897.…After five years in the university, he came to Indianapolis and became illustrator and cartoonist for The Indianapolis Press.…When the Press discontinued publication, Smith went to the Nashville News as head of its cartoonists and artists. He returned to Indianapolis around 1901 and resumed his career with The Indianapolis Journal."
In the 1900 census, his mother, Hilda, and brothers lived in Indianapolis at 1024 Virginia Avenue. Smith gradually moved to the east. His strip Uncle Billy was a Philadelphia product. According to the 1910 census, he and his mother, 65, lived in Manhattan, New York City at 348 West 45 Street. An Illinois native, he was a newspaper artist. Smith produced illustrations and The Motion Picture Boy for Motion Picture Magazine; apparently his work appeared every other month. When the Motion Picture Boy began and ended has not been determined. Ads for his cartoon school appeared in the magazine, and other periodicals such as Boy's Life and Popular Electricity and Modern Mechanics.
Motion Picture Magazine, August 1915
Motion Picture Magazine, October 1915
Motion Picture Magazine, December 1915
Smith has not been found in the 1920 census. He produced the strip Daddy Dusk, The Sandman in 1927. He has not been found in the 1930 census. Smith passed away on October 11, 1935. The New York Times reported his death two days later.
Jack H. Smith, who had been a cartoonist for the old New York Herald and other newspapers, died on Friday, in the Fordham Hospital, Bronx, after an illness of several weeks at the age of 66. Of late years Mr. Smith had conducted a correspondence school for cartoonists at his home, 2122 Bryant Avenue, Bronx. A brother, Charles, survives.
Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles
Monday, December 05, 2011
Obscurity of the Day: Musical Mose
His first continuing series for the World was Musical Mose, a raucous strip about a black musician who desperately tries to get a good gig with little success. The strip ran for just three wacky episodes, in the first of which the star wasn't even named Mose, but rather Sam. Oh well, details, details. The strip ran on January 19, February 16 and 23 1902.
Thanks to Cole Johnson for the scans!
Labels: Obscurities
Comments:
wasn't there one further episode of Mose, that somehow appeared the North American?
# posted by 
: 12/05/2011 10:11 AM
: 12/05/2011 10:11 AM
Hi Mark --
According to my North American index notes, Herriman's contributions were limited to one episode each of "Broncho Pete" and "Tattered Tim".
--Allan
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According to my North American index notes, Herriman's contributions were limited to one episode each of "Broncho Pete" and "Tattered Tim".
--Allan
Sunday, December 04, 2011
Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics
Comments:
I'm usually awake between 4:30 and 5:30 am and Jim already has at least an hour on me. Although I do catch him since I stay up later. LOL.
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Saturday, December 03, 2011
Herriman Saturday
Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons
Friday, December 02, 2011
Ink-Slinger Profiles: Calvin Fader
Calvin A. Fader was born in Massachusetts on September 18, 1905, according to the Social Security Death Index and the censuses. In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census he was the second of three children born to Alexander and Carrie. They lived in Somerville, Massachusetts at 19 Ash Avenue. His father was a window decorator in the millinery industry. The date of Fader's move to Washington, D.C. is not known.
In 1920 the Faders lived in Washington, D.C. at 1434 Perry Place. The United States Forest Service publication, Forest Service Bulletin, Volume 13, 1929, reported on a new strip.
American Tree and Its Uses
This is the title of an educational features "Strip" sponsored by the National Lumber Manufacturers Association. The sketches will be drawn by Calvin A. Fader who is now featuring "American History by Motor." The sketches will appear in the newspapers for a period of one year beginning next September.
Fifty-two "commercial" trees have been selected to be featured—one tree each week for one year. Each strip will contain five panels in which will be told how each tree serves mankind. For example: In the hickory tree strip Panel No. 1 will hold a drawing of the tree in the upper half; in the lower half a map of the United States, a shaded area showing where hickory trees are to be found. Panel No. 2, drawings of hickory leaves, buds, nuts, blossoms, and bark. A study of these pictures will enable one to identify a hickory tree in the forest. Panel 3 will feature some of the principle products of hickory wood—golf clubs, axe handles, wheel spokes, etc. In Panel No. 4 pictures and text will tell the annual cut of hickory; its value, etc. In Panel No. 5 will be pictured something that will forcibly center the mind of the reader on the subject.
Ten years later most of the Fader family remained at the same address. His occupation was newspaper artist. One of the strips he worked on, in the early 1930s, was George Washington's Travels. The Springfield Daily Republican (Massachusetts) reported his upcoming wedding on June 21, 1935.
Dorothy E. M'Cray Will Wed Tomorrow
Will Become Bride of Calvin A. Fader at Home of Her Parents
Among tomorrow's weddings will be that of Miss Dorothy Elizabeth McCray, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Walter F. McCray of 223 White street, and Calvin A. Fader, son of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander G. Fader of Washington, D.C. The ceremony will take place at 11 at the McCray home and will be followed by a wedding breakfast.….
...Following a stay at Groton Long Point, Ct., the couple will make their home at Washington, D.C., where they will receive friends after July 15.
The bride-elect is a graduate of Classical high school and Mount Holyoke college. She has been a teacher at Norwich Free academy at Norwich, Ct. The groom is a graduate of the Meyer Beth College of Commercial Art at Chicago, and is a commercial artist….
The Editor: The Journal of Information for Literary Workers, 1936, published a listing for Parade of Youth, based at 1727 K Street, NW, in Washington, D.C., "Parade of Youth is a weekly newspaper for boys and girls appearing in daily and Sunday papers all over the country." Fader contributed illustrations for many of the serialized stories, such as, "A Man's Job" (December 5 and 12, 1937), and the panel, Now I Know.
Parade of Youth, 2/23/1936
The Springfield Union and Republican (Massachusetts) published his Sunday strip, Doggy Dramas, beginning on March 20, 1938, on "The Boys and Girls Page".
Debut Strip, 3/20/1938
The Springfield Union reported his in-laws 64th wedding anniversary on July 6, 1963; a brief excerpt:
…They have one daughter, Mrs. Calvin A. Fader of Silver Springs, Md., and one grandson. Their son-in-law was formerly a commercial artist for The Union. Their grandson, a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, is doing research work for the government in Italy.
Fader passed away in September 1978 in Silver Spring, Maryland, according to the Social Security Death Index.
Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles
Thursday, December 01, 2011
Obscurity of the Day: Doggy Dramas Present
Ed Wheelan's Minute Movies, with its unusual approach of telling short stories using a regular cast of 'actors' who acted in 'films', running in two tiers of small panels, was a hit in the 20s but old hat by the 1930s. In fact the feature was cancelled and pretty well forgotten before the end of the decade.
That seemingly obvious hint that the approach was out of favor with readers didn't slow down Calvin Fader. He must have been a fan of the series, because he stole all those elements from the defunct Minute Movies in 1938 to create Doggy Dramas Present. His nod to originality was that all his 'actors' were dogs. The dog angle gave Fader the excuse to make lots of really awful puns (we're talking 'pooched eggs and pupperoni' level). With so many awful puns to wade through, it was perhaps a blessing that the strip ran only once a week.
It was syndicated by Associated Editors as an element of their weekly children's activity page, and replaced the long-running Adventures of Peter Pen, the previous weekly strip, on March 20 1938. Stories usually ran for six to ten episodes, with occasional one-shots in between, and covered the gamut of Saturday matinee movie genres -- comedies, adventures, mysteries, westerns, short subjects and so on.
Fader apparently wasn't all that proud of his work on the feature, because I don't believe he ever once signed the strip. He did get a byline starting in 1940, and was credited in Editor & Publisher, but never a signature. And that's a slight problem because I have a note in my research database saying that Al Fagaly did the strip in 1938-39. Unfortunately I failed to make note of the source of that information. Looking at the art from 1938 and 1940, though, I see no difference and think the Fagaly citation is a red herring.
Associated Editors dropped the strip from their children's page on March 14 1943.
Tomorrow: an Ink-Slinger Profile of Calvin Fader
Labels: Obscurities
