Stripper's Guide

Friday, March 20 1908 -- Just a few days until the Fireman Jim Flynn / Battling Johnson fight, and today Herriman spends some time in Flynn's training camp. He comes away impressed with  the fighter's extreme workout regimen, and Flynn assures Herriman and sports reporter H.M. Walker that he is ready for the European giant. "I'll give you my sacred word not to back up an inch. Now if this big foreigner will do the same there will be a hard quick fight and it will be over inside five rounds at the longest."

While being interviewed by the Examiner, Flynn also completes a side-bet with the Johnson camp, laying $500 of the gate receipts he would collect on his win.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

Gordon “Boody” Rogers was born in Hobart, Indian Territory, Oklahoma on September 8, 1904, according to Wikipedia; it and Who’s Who of American Comic Book Artists 1928–1999 have his name as “Gordon G. Rogers”. According to his autobiography, Homeless Bound, the Rogers family moved frequently, to wherever his father opened a cafe. In 1908 he lived in Mangum, Oklahoma. 

He has not been found in the 1910 U.S. Federal Census. In 1911, he lived in Dalhart, Texas. No dates mentioned but he moved on to Wichita Falls, Texas followed by Childress, Texas where his mother’s parents lived; next stop Kansas City then August Kansas; back in Oklahoma at Ringling then Dundee. In 1917 he was in Pitcher, Oklahoma where he joined the Boy Scouts. His next move was to Enid, Oklahoma. The end of World War I found him in Ranger, Texas, then Breckenridge followed by Mexia, Texas and Whizbang, Oklahoma.

Rogers has not been found in the 1920 U.S. Federal Census. In 1922 his mother died in Pioneer, Texas. His father decided he should stay in Childress, Texas and live with his maternal grandparents and attend high school. After graduating he moved to Chicago for art school. He said:

I paid my tuition for the summer course and asked the lady if she knew anyone I might split the rent with. She introduced me to another student from Texas, Buford Tune, who later was to draw the feature, “Dottie Dripple.” Tune and I found a room on the near north side, and each moved in his one suitcase.

Roger left Chicago in late fall, and spent Christmas and New Year’s in Texas. He and Fred Merritt drove to Tucson, Arizona to attend the University of Arizona. Rogers was the art editor of the university magazine, Kitty Kat, and “was in the first art class the University had.” For part of the summer, he was in California. He returned to Arizona and stayed in school until Christmas, then moved on. Back in Chicago, he shared a room with Sig Hilker. Rogers recalled: 

Carey Orr and john T. McCutcheon were the two editorial cartoonists for the Chicago Tribune. They had two of the three offices on the top floor of the Tribune tower. 

Mr. Orr had been one of our instructors the first summer I was at the Academy of Fine Arts, so I went up to see him quite often.

When Sig left Chicago, Rogers moved in with Zack Mosley and Frank Engli. The three of them and Jerry Bosch were invited by Orr to take lessons at his home, in Evanston, on Monday nights. They left art school and studied at Orr’s place through the winter.

In 1928, Rogers drove from Wink, Texas to Childress, Texas where he proposed and married his school sweetheart, Mary. He said:

Mary and I finally got $300 together and lit a shuck for New York City…we rode the train. We rented a room in a brownstone house on 49th Street, right where the side door of the Music Hall Theatre is now….

A friend had told me that Dell Publications was starting a comic book. The offices were at 100 Fifth Avenue. I thought I’d just walk over because we were only a block from the Fifth. I walked—and walked‚ and walked!…At last I came to their building. It was just before the arch in Greenwich Village.

I showed my one page of ”Rock Age Roy” to the editor. He bought it! There was nothing to this cartoon business—it was a cinch. Then I did some other things—“Deadwood Gulch,” “Campus Clowns,” “Sancho and the Don,” and some puzzle pages. Dell bought them all. We soon had enough money to eat three meals a day.

I didn’t realize it then, but I was working on the first comic book ever published. It was the right idea, but the wrong format. It was more like a tabloid paper than the small comic books of today. It only lasted a year, but, thank God, it got us started in New York City.

Rogers has not been found in the 1930 U.S. Federal Census. His Deadwood Gulch appeared in Dell Publishing’s The Funnies here and here.

In The Funnies: 100 Years of American Comic Strips (1995), Ron Goulart wrote:

…Helping [Zack] Mosley in the early years of the strip [Smiling’ Jack] (a daily was added in 1936) was Gordon “Boody” Rogers. Mosely became a licensed pilot himself and syndicate publicity often called him “the flying cartoonist.” While he was up in his plane, Rogers was manning the drawing board.

The Depression sent Mary back to Texas while Rogers looked for work. He roomed with Bil Dwyer in Greenwich Village, around the corner from Engli and his roommate. Soon, Rogers was on a bus to Texas. After a series of odd jobs, Rogers had seventy-five dollars and took a bus back to New York, where he ran into Mosley, who asked him to help on the daily Smilin’ Jack. (They collaborated on a comics page, as a wedding gift to an unidentified friend or colleague, which can be viewed at Heritage Auctions.)

In the 1940 census, his name was recorded as “R. Gordon Rogers”; he and wife, Mary, lived in Great Neck, New York at “13 & 25 Middle Neck Road and North Station Plaza”. According to the census, his occupation was newspaper cartoonist, and 1935 residence was in Childress, Texas. About a week after he was enumerated in the census, his strip, Sparky Watts, debuted on April 29, 1940, according to Don Markstein’s Toonopedia. On June 30, 1942, as “Boody Gordon Rogers”, he enlisted in the army at Fort Jay on Governors Island in New York City. He had one year of college. The Brooklyn Eagle (New York), May 31, 1942, explained what happened to Sparky.

Miss Sparky Watts? Here’s Why He’s GoneAlthough he’s been out of the paper nearly a month, people still write in to know what became of Sparky Watts. If you know your Eagle comics you know that Sparky was the wide-eyed young fellow who was so filled up with cosmic rays that he could fly without wings, or push over a brick house with a flick of his finger. When he last appeared in the Eagle he was in a sinking Nazi submarine he’d captured. 

A lot of people write in to ask if Sparky was drowned. We can’t answer that, for we don’t know. Sparky’s creator, Boody Rogers, probably knows, but Boody won’t tell. Boody just quit drawing Sparky because in Boody’s own words, “I’m exchanging my ink bottle for a pair of army shoes, because some one has to make the world safe for future cartoonists.” 

He’s Joined UpIn other words, Boody Rogers has joined the army. Maybe, while he’s in service, he’ll think of a way to get Sparky out of the predicament in which he left him—comic characters have a way of surviving fearful disasters, you know. 

By joining the army Boody is carrying on a not uneventful career since his birth in Indian Territory, now part of Oklahoma. He was educated in Texas and at the University of Arizona. He likes to look back on his university career like this: “Give me a girl, a model T, a full moon and two hours on the desert and those who still root for the Giants can have the Polo Grounds with the Yankee Stadium thrown in.” A sort of Arizona-Dodger fan, you see. 

He Sought GoldAfter an unsuccessful attempt to impress New York with his art work in 1928, Boody went to California to seek gold. All he found was hunger and callouses, so he spent the next few years at a lot of different jobs in a lot of different places. Then he created Sparky but the thought of Hitler bothered him. 

“There can be only one answer,” says Boody, “either people like Hitler must be erased or people like me can’t survive. So I’ve enlisted in the army. I’ve had my physical examination and my blood test showed 60 percent wild plum jelly, 30 percent watermelon juice and 10 percent India drawing ink—so they say I’m O.K. I’ll see you in Berlin—or deep in the heart of Tokio.” 

So now readers who’ve been worrying about Sparky know why he disappeared from the Eagle’s daily comic page.

According to Homeless Bound, Rogers, after five weeks in Camp Upton, in Yaphank, Long Island, New York, was sent by rail to Camp Croft, near Spartansburg, South Carolina. He recalled:

…Every week we would be marched to some building, and, one by one, be taken before a board of officers to be interviewed…. 

When I went in, I was set down in front of six officers. No one said anything for what seemed like an hour. They all just looked at me while a colonel read a sheet of paper…. 

Finally, the colonel looked up. “I see you drew ‘Sparky Watts’ and also worked on ‘Smilin’ Jack’—right?” 

“Yes, sir, that’s correct, sir.” 

Then they all started asking questions: “Do you know the guy who draws ‘Smoky Stover,’ ‘Gasoline Alley,’ ‘Terry and the Pirates’—how much money does Zack Mosley make?” We talked  about cartooning for half an hour—nothing about whether or not I thought I’d make a good officer.

He was sent to Fort Hood, Texas for Officer Candidate School to become a tank destroyer officer. Rogers said:

I was put on an instruction team at Ft. Hood. I taught camouflage, aircraft identification, and field sanitation to a complete regiment. We didn’t have many training charts then, so I painted a few for myself. I’d flip the charts to illustrate the subject I was teaching, and ever so often I’d flip a sheet and it would be a picture of a nude girl in full pink color. The troops would laugh and whistle. It kept them awake. 

Many years later, a big fellow walked into my store in Phoenix. He asked if I was the same Boody Rogers who had been at Ft. Hood. I said I was. 

“I thought so. You used to be my instructor.” 

“Don’t hit me!” I threw up my hands in mock horror. 

“Don’t worry,” he said. “When we read on the schedule that you were going to be our teacher, we knew we were going to have some fun.”

After his service, Rogers resumed work in comic books, including a Sparky Watts title. The Grand Comics Database has his credits.

In the early 1950s, Rogers moved to Phoenix, Arizona, where he operated an art supply store. The Prescott Evening Courier (Arizona), May 6, 1952, published a photo of hospital patient, Don C. Oka, a World War II veteran, who won a National Cartoonist Society prize. He was unable to accept it in New York, so four Arizona cartoonists, Reg Manning, Gus Arriola, Walt Ditzen and Rogers presented the prize to him at the hospital. The Pacific Stars and Stripes, July 27, 1952, published a photo of Oka and the cartoonists.


Ancestry.com has Phoenix directories. He was not listed in 1952; the directories from 1953 through 1955 are not available. His home address in 1956 was 2007 East Cypress, and his art store was at 207 East Van Buren. Directories from 1961 and beyond are not available. His advertisement (below) in the Arizona Republic, June 19, 1960, had his business address as 201 East Van Buren.

He Frames ArtistsBoody Rogers’s job is a frame-up! 

Rogers frames the darndest things. Recently it was 50 silver dollars, to help celebrate a 50th wedding anniversary. And not so long ago he framed a big boll of cotton on black velour paper in a French provincial-framed shadow box. Rogers never did find out why his customer thought the cotton boll deserved to be preserved for posterity. He can tell you exactly why a golf club went into a frame the following week, though. Its owner wasn’t reticent about explaining how he made the hole in one. 

Most of Rogers’s business, of course, is framing pictures. He used to be a well-known cartoonist around Phoenix, and his shop full of frames at Van Buren and 2nd Street is a gathering place for amateur and professional artists. 

Rogers is great on encouraging beginning artists. One elderly gentleman whose doctor ordered him to take up painting for recreational therapy, complied with the prescription, cussing all the way as he acquired paints, brushes and canvas. A week later he was back for a frame, happy as a pig in clover. 

“I was spending all my time worrying about ‘the blues,’ ” he said. “Now I’m worrying about ‘blues.” Great improvement, eh, Rogers?” 

Fashions in frames change, reports Rogers. For a long time severe, simple lines were in vogue. Now more ornate, carved frames are coming back in style, and the shop has added a good supply of more elaborate frames to meet the demand. 

“I just sell ’em,” says Rogers, calmly. “I don’t have to dust ’em.”

The Amarillo Globe-Times (Texas), October 29, 1970, reported his contribution of a drawing to his high school alma mater’s book, The Bobcats: A History of Childress High School Football. Columnist Putt Powell wrote: “…It has a clever sketch of a Bobcat on the cover. It was drawn by Boody Rogers. He was quarterback of the Bobcats from 1922–25. He’s now the cartoonist for the syndicated comic strip, ‘Sparky Watts.’ He lives in Phoenix.” Rogers was quoted in the Globe-Times, December 16, 1976, when his alma mater was in the Texas AA state title game at Texas Stadium.

...Perhaps the second-biggest fan of Childress football in town is “Boody” Rogers, who quarterbacked the 1922 through 1925 editions of the Bobcats. When Boody speaks, the Bobcat mania gets knew deep—and no interrupts. It’s as though the “Great Bobcat in the Sky” is beginning to speak. 

“For a high school kid to play in that (Texas) stadium is somethin’, ain’t it,” Boody said. “Right there where the Dallas Cowboys play.” 

…When Boody gets through with his analysis of the Bobcats 1976, he reverts to the past. 

“When I played for the Bobcats, I never carried the ball that everyone there wasn’t standing,“ he said with a sly grin. “But that’s because there wasn’t any damn chair anywhere. 

“Once I carried the ball for a touchdown and when I got to the goal line, the whole crowd was running faster than I was,” he added.

(Childress lost to Rockdale, 23–6; scroll down to number 3)

At some point he moved back to Childress where his address was 205 4th Street SE. His autobiography, Homeless Bound, was published in 1984. Upon the book’s release, the Associated Press profiled him. Rogers recalled his memories of Dick Tracy’s creator, Chester Gould, in the Bonham Daily Favorite (Texas), July 8, 1990.
Rogers passed away February 6, 1996, in Childress, Texas. His death was noted in papers including the Sarasota Herald-Tribune (Florida). In 2009, Fantagraphics Books published Boody. The Bizarre Comics of Boody Rogers. A free PDF of a Sparky Watts story is here.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

Here's another New York Daily News filler strip from the collection of Jay Maeder. We discussed another of his discoveries, Fun Fare, yesterday.

Jay has found two episodes of The Folks Upstairs, from 7/10 and 8/7/1955. So little thought seems to have been put into this series that we have the family practicing golf in their backyard -- usually the 'folks upstairs' would live in an apartment building, no? Maybe "The Folks Next Door" might have been a better title choice.

The series is signed by Ned Michael. Well, I've never heard of Ned Michael, but I have to wonder if this might actually be Ned Hilton. The style is similar, and the signature, with the first name in script and the last name in block, matches Hilton's. Any assenting or dissenting opinions out there?

Thanks to Jay Maeder for the info and the scans!

EDIT 12/31/2017: Just found a third example, 11/27/1955. 

EDIT 2/15/2019: Michael Vassallo reports running dates from 5/8/1955 to 8/25/1957.

Labels: Obscurities

We've discussed before how the New York Daily News had a penchant for running filler strips in their Sunday comics sections. Nailing down all the information about them is one of those seemingly simple research jobs, except that very, very few libraries have a decent run of the Daily News on microfilm. In fact as far as I'm aware, the New York Public Library may be the only one.

Luckily the Sunday News comic sections have survived in great numbers, since the paper was widely circulated, and bit by bit we fill in the blanks on these filler strips.Today and tomorrow it is our pal Jay Meader, longtime writer of Annie, the last readable adventure strip imho, who fills us in on fill-ins.

Today we have Fun Fare by someone signing themselves Jam. The rather basic cartooning looks a bit like the work of Ed Reed, but I'm sure that's not him -- he was gainfully employed elsewhere. So who is Jam? Ideas anyone?

Jay has found Fun Fare running on at least eight dates during a span from March to August 1955. Anyone have any examples from outside that range?

Thanks to Jay Maeder for the scans and the info!

EDIT 2/15/2019: Michael Vassallo reports running dates of 3/20/1955 to 7/15/1956.

Labels: Obscurities

Wilfred Rudolph Cyr was born in Amesbury, Massachusetts on September 27, 1889, according to his World War I and II draft cards at Ancestry.com. In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, he was the fourth of seven children born to Cyril and Laury, both French Canadian emigrants. They lived in Amesbury at 203 Elm Street. His father was a carriage painter.

The family remained at the same address in the following census. Cyr signed his World War I draft card on June 5, 1917. His description was medium height, slender build with brown eyes and black hair. On the disability line it said “distrophy” [sic].

His widow mother, Louise, was the head of the household in the 1920 census. Cyr, unemployed, and his younger brother, Cyril, an artist at an art company, lived with her. She was the proprietor of a grocery store. At some point, Cyr learned cartooning and produced work for the Boston Post. His feature, Exploits of Eve, began February 17, 1929.

The 1930 census recorded the trio at 217 Elm Street. Apparently his mother had remarried to someone named McCaffrey. Cyr was a Boston Post cartoonist and his brother had his own art studio. The Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 4, Works of Art, Etc., 1935 New Series, Volume 30, Number 1 had this entry:

Cyr–Dennett syndicate. 111–120
Cyr (Wilfred R.) Patsy:
Back to the village, 8.—Deep waters, 12.—Dynamite—beware, 1.—Explosion, 4.—Headed for trouble, 6.—Help needed, 9.—Last look, 3.—Patsy to the rescue, 10.—Rivers to cross, 11.—Smoke and flames, 5.—Trouble plenty, 7.—Unpleasant discovery, 2. © 1 c. each Jan. 16, 1935; G 18680–18691.

It appears he formed a syndicate with Dennett to sell a strip titled Patsy. He produced the Romance of Rhode Island from September to December 1936. [Allan butting in -- the copyright entry, which lists each illustration as 1 column (?), all appearing on January 16 1935, has the feel of an illustrated story based on the captions. Just my take.]

Cyr was the head of the household in the 1940 census; the cartoonist, with his own studio, had eight years of education. His brother had his art studio and one year of high school. Their housekeeper, Mae Greenwood, a widow, and her grandson resided with them. (I believe she was their sister.) On April 27, 1942, Cyr signed his World War II draft card. His description was five feet five-and-a-half inches, 140 pounds with brown eyes and gray hair, and partially paralyzed in legs and arms.

Cyr passed away January 13, 1953 in Amesbury. The Boston Herald noted his death the following day:

Amesbury, Jan. 13—Wilfred R. Cyr, 63, commercial artist and cartoonist, died today at his home, 217 Elm St. He leaves two brothers, Cyril and Albert, and two sisters, Mr. Simon Ouellette and Mrs. Charles Greenwood, all of this town.


The Herald, January 3, 1955, reported the passing of his brother, Cyril, who died the day before:

Cyril Cyr, 57, of 217 Elm St., an artist and illustrator whose work appeared in newspapers and magazines throughout New England, died today, after a heart attack.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

At the end of last week we discussed the strip Roger Williams Re-Discovers his Old Home Town, an uncommonly bright and unusual local feature, which rather than reverently intoning on local history, instead has some fun with it.

Just to remind you of the more typical local history feature, here is The Romance of Rhode Island, also starring Roger Williams of course, but taking a somber and respectful take on the history of the Ocean State. The strip was issued on the occasion of the 300th anniversary of the founding of the original colony. It tells the history of the state up to the present in the span of twelve weeks, beginning on September 14 and ending December 5 1936. The strip was distributed by Triton Syndicate, which may have been run by the Providence Evening Bulletin, where I found my run of the strip. I don't know if the strip was actually sold to any other newspapers.

The feature was written and drawn by Wilfred R. Cyr, who had by 1936 apparently taken to calling himself just plain Bill in his signature. Cyr's only other comic strip credit that I know of is Exploits of Eve, a potboiler adventure saga syndicated by the Boston Post. The Eve strip was rather clunkily drawn, but by the time Cyr was drawing the above strips he'd evolved a much more pleasing and polished style.

According to a number of websites which all seem to be cribbing off of each other, Cyr was quite severely handicapped, and had been an art teacher to Al Capp. Further, a strip titled "Cabin Boy" by Cyr was supposedly a major influence on Capp. Considering that I've looked over a lot of Capp's writing today looking for references to Cyr, and have come up dry, I am a little skeptical of the claims. I have also never seen any evidence of this "Cabin Boy" strip either. Does anyone know where these claims originated, or can vouch for their validity?

Labels: Obscurities

Labels: Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics