Stripper's Guide

T.E. Powers was one of the mainstays in the Hearst bullpen in the first quarter of the 20th century. His weekday cartoons, which graced the New York Evening Journal from 1903 until at least 1924, was one of those untitled affairs that had about a bajillion different running subtitles during its long life.

One of Powers' continuing series concerned a beautiful and sophisticated widow named Mrs. Trubble. Powers couldn't really draw attractive women all that convincingly, so you'll have to take my word for it that Mrs. Trubble was supposed to be quite the bit of eye candy.

In the weekday cartoons her role was generally to show how men react very differently to the gorgeous Mrs. Trubble compared to their wives. The typical cartoon has a wife begging her husband to take her out to dinner, say, and him spurning her. Then Mrs. Trubble arrives and suggests they all go out to dinner, and hubby all of a sudden thinks its the grandest idea in the world. This sort of scenario was played out in dozens, maybe hundreds, of different ways over the years.

In 1922 when the New York Journal's Sunday section expanded, Powers was put on the hook to fill up a page. From among his many characters and series, Powers chose Mrs. Trubble to get the color treatment. In the Sunday version, Mrs. Trubble was given a couple of steady suitors, as you can see above, but the plot pretty much remained the same -- men will consistently make asses out of themselves around a curvaceous belle like Mrs. Trubble. The series lasted from March 18 to December 2 1922.

Samples above courtesy of Cole Johnson.

Labels: Obscurities

We've covered a lot of Fish's great American Weekly cover series, and here's yet another. Guests We Never Invite Again ran from May 21 1937 to at least July 4 of that year (I have a long gap in my American Weekly records, so it could have run until as late as September).

Clifford David Vormelker was born in Cleveland, Ohio on July, 22, 1906, according to the Ohio, Births and Christenings Index at Ancestry.com. His parents were Julius Vormelker and Amy Hippler.

In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Vormelker was the youngest of four children whose parents were German emigrants. The father was a machine operator. The family lived at 1449 East 92nd Street NE in Cleveland.

The 1920 census recorded Vormelker at 1517 80 Place in Cleveland. He attended East High School. The 1922 school yearbook, Mnemonic, said he was a member of the Wistgoma Club. In September 1924, he was the secretary-treasurer of the YMCA Hi-Y Club. Vormelker was in the cast of the school’s musical comedy, College Days, which was presented January 1925. Vormelker graduated February 1925.




A 1926 city directory said Vormelker lived with his parents and worked as a clerk. According to Who's Who in Library Service (1943), Vormelker won the First Rupert Hughes Poetry Prize in 1929.

In 1930 the Vormelker family remained at the same address. Vormelker's sister, Rosa, was a librarian at the public library. The household included a lodger, Milfred Moor, also a librarian at the public library. Vormelker, who was unemployed at the time, would become a librarian, too.

According to Who’s Who in Library Service, Vormelker received his BA at Western Reserve University (WRU) in Cleveland. In 1933, he obtained his BS in Library Science WRU. He found work as a script man at the United Electrical Recording Company in Hollywood, California, from June to October 1933. He returned to Cleveland and found work as a sales manager at Arco Shuffleboard through 1934. In 1935 Vormelker was the librarian and a staff writer at Central Press Association. The same year he was assistant at Hatch Library, WRU. Along the way he married Helen Elinor Brown. The couple made their home at 1385 West 84th Street in Cleveland.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

In the heyday of vaudeville there were quite a few blackface comedy acts making the circuit. One of the most popular was Moran and Mack, also known as the Two Black Crows. The act began in the 1910s and was popular enough to make records that sold very well (at least I often see them in collections of 78s that I come across).

The Two Black Crows became even more well-known when they signed on to do a weekly radio show in 1928. It is unclear to me whether they debuted in that medium before or after Amos 'n' Andy, but the duos both got on the airwaves within months of each other. Oddly, both shows were marketed with the aid of a comic strip. The Amos 'n' Andy comic strip is quite rare, but the Two Black Crows strip really takes the crown, as it seems to have possibly appeared for most if not all of its run only in Hearst's New York Daily Mirror.

Jeffrey Lindenblatt reports that the strip debuted in the Mirror on October 29 1928, and if the samples above (provided by Cole Johnson) are representative, the strip told an ongoing story, perhaps related to the radio show's story or maybe not. Obviously the crows' faces were provided by photos, and the rest was drawn by an uncredited cartoonist. Granted these two samples don't exactly give us a lot of meat to work with, but the style does look rather familiar. Anyone care to hazard a guess at the Hearst bullpenner who might be at the controls?

In 1929 things get a little murky. According to Lindenblatt's index of the Mirror, a Bell Syndicate stamp began to appear on the strip sometime in early 1929, and then the strip changed to a text feature on March 6. Well, I can certainly vouch for Bell Syndicate selling that text feature, as it can be found in a good selection of papers. But I have that text feature showing up elsewhere well before March 6, in fact it has been found as early as October 29 1928, the exact same date the strip began:




which makes me wonder whether Bell actually had anything to do with the comic strip version, or if the terms of their contract with Two Black Crows stated that they would be the copyright holder of all newspaper material related to the radio show. Perhaps by contractual obligation the strip had to bear their copyright, even though it was produced by and ran only in the Mirror. Until we find the comic strip running somewhere besides the Mirror, that's the story that I'm going with.

Labels: Obscurities

Labels: Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

Tuesday, October 27 1908 -- Herriman makes a weak start at a new comic strip series today, to be titled "It Happens Every Day". Neither Herriman or his readers seem to have thought it particularly worthwhile, as the series concluded after only a second installment three days later. Since there are no continuing characters or a real unifying theme, I didn't even consider it worth including in my book. So if you and your buds are real Herriman fanatics, amaze them by being able to name this, his shortest and most obscure series.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

Stripper's Guide 

wishes you and yours 

a very Merry Christmas 

and a Happy New Year

Labels: Christmas Strips

Labels: Christmas Strips

Labels: Christmas Strips

Labels: Christmas Strips

Labels: Christmas Strips

Labels: Christmas Strips

Labels: Christmas Strips

Labels: Christmas Strips

This year's Stripper's Guide Christmas strip is a really delightful one. It was originally offered to client newspapers by the Associated Press in 1938. It's on the short side, just 18 strips, and the story is therefore quite simplistic and straightforward, but the lively storytelling and the delightful art make this one a real yule feast. Unlike some of these Christmas strips, which bear the marks of having been dashed off in between coffee breaks (see the awful A Christmas Fantasy for the absolute nadir of Christmas story writing), Peter's Christmas Adventure is a strip that I think you'll really enjoy. We'll be running it at the rate of two strips per day from now until you-know-when.

The odd thing about Peter's Christmas Adventure is that the creator(s) aren't credited. While the art and lettering immediately make Fred G. Cooper pop into my mind, I can't imagine him taking on this job when he didn't otherwise work for AP to my knowledge, and this project would have been a pretty low-paying job to boot. As a more likely suspect, I'd nominate the great Hank Barrow, who was in the AP bullpen. This isn't his typical style, but  he was very adept and comfortable with taking on varying styles for his different projects. Anyone care to nominate someone else?

Labels: Christmas Strips

So let's say you're a cartoonist, and you've landed your first big gig at a newspaper (obviously we aren't talking today, when that scenario is laughably improbable). You must decide on how you are going to sign yourself, for the accolades are surely going to come your way, and you want them to properly spell your name in so doing. You could just sign your work Joe Smith (assuming that's your name), or you might want to be a little more colorful. If you are saddled with a weird name like Elzie Crisler Segar, you might opt to go with your initials, or if you are boring old Harry Fisher, you might choose to go by the more colorful 'Bud' instead.

One thing you sure as shootin' don't want to do is use the name OF ANOTHER MORE FAMOUS CARTOONIST! If your name inconveniently matches up to, say, George McManus, take a deep breath, swallow your family pride, and work out a nome de plume. Howzabout George Mack?

As good a cartoonist as Donald Crassous Bartholomew eventually became, it is really a shame that he stupidly decided to sign himself simply "Bart", when there was already a pretty darn famous "Bart" doing editorial cartoons in Minneapolis, and reprinted in newspapers all over the country. D.C. Bartholomew's obscurity stems not only from his work appearing only in Boston during most his career, but by presumably being mistaken for the more famous Minneapolis "Bart" whenever he did get any recognition. (Granted, the two Bart's styles are widely divergent, but people aren't generally too quick on the uptake in that regard). I would have boldly signed myself "Crassous" -- now there's a unique moniker!

Anyhow, as I said, D.C. Bartholomew worked mostly for Boston papers, and in his early years I have to say he didn't show all that much promise (see The Extraordinary Adventures of Joseph, James and John, for instance). However, practice certainly had the right effect on him, and by the time he got his final series, an untitled almost-daily strip for the New York Globe, syndicated through Associated Newspapers, his writing was sharply hilarious and his cartooning was a joy to behold.

The D.C. Bartholomew Weekday Comic Strip (it carried no running title, so this is how I have ever so colorfully dubbed it) ran for about one year, appearing in the Chicago Daily News regularly from January 22 1912 to January 18 1913. The New York Globe itself used the cartoons less often, where the running dates are January 8 - November 1 1912, but apparently they had Bart produce strips for the syndicate even when they chose not to run them. So let's call the running dates a semi-official January 8 1912 to January 18 1913. 

As you can see in the samples above, the strip resembled in format and tone Rube Goldberg's comic strip, which was in the competing New York Evening Mail. Bart's loopy wackiness is closely patterned on Goldberg's lead, but he really seemed to have his own gift for it -- it's not just a carbon copy of Goldberg. And the cartooning! Wow, it certainly isn't that semi-professional stuff of a decade earlier. D.C.'s work on this strip reminds me quite a bit of the great British cartoonist Fougasse, whose clean-lined minimalism brought him well-deserved fame. (Just between you and me, I think D.C. enhances that style by spotting his blacks, though, which Fougasse eschewed for some reason.)

Sadly, D.C. Bartholomew, who by this time was a cartoonist and writer of true greatness, didn't get any more time to practice his craft. His last year on this earth was apparently spent in trying to write a play, and he died of pneumonia in December 1913.

Thanks to Cole Johnson for the sample scans.

Labels: Obscurities

Jay Paul was born in Oberlin, Ohio, on September 10, 1905, according to Who’s Who in Colored America, Volume 7 (1950). Jackson’s parents were Franklin R. Jackson and Nellie Curry.

In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Jackson was the fourth of five children whose father was a photographer. The family resided in Delaware, Ohio at 41 Ohio Street.

According to the 1920 census, Jackson and his younger sister lived with their parents in Delaware at 119 David Street.

Who’s Who said Jackson married Adeline C. Smith in 1925. Jackson attended Ohio Wesleyan University from 1925 to 1926. Beginning in 1926 Jackson was a feature artist with the Pittsburgh Courier newspaper. American Newspaper Comics (2012) said Jackson produced two weekly panels, Seeing Ourselves As Others See Us and The Jingle Belles, for the Courier in 1928. That same year Jackson began studies at the Chicago Art Institute. Jackson was a poster artist for the Warner Brothers’ theaters from 1928 to 1933. Jackson also contributed illustrations to the digest, Abbott’s Monthly, in 1928 and 1929. Abbott’s publisher was Robert S. Abbott who also published the weekly newspaper, Chicago Defender, which printed editorial cartoons by Jackson. In MELUS, Summer 2014, Amy M. Mooney said Jackson formally joined the Defender staff in 1933. The short-lived Abbott’s Weekly was another periodical with Jackson’s art.

The 1930 census recorded Jackson, a widower, as a lodger in Chicago at 465 Oakwood Boulevard. His occupation was commercial artist for theaters.

According to Who’s Who, Jackson painted the mural, Old Mexico, for the 1933 Chicago World’s Fair. In 1934, Jackson began a fourteen year relationship with the New York Amsterdam News newspaper. Jackson’s second marriage was to Eleanor K. Poston of Republican, Nebraska, in 1935.

According to American Newspaper Comics, Jackson produced several comics strips, panels and advertising strips throughout the 1930s: As Others See Us (1933); The Adventures of Bill (1934); Bungleton Green (1934; the third artist on Leslie M. Rogers’ creation); Fan Tan Anne (1935); Society Sue (1935); Bibsy (1935); Between Us (1936); Memphis Blue (1936); Cream Puff (1936); Tish Mingo (1937); Ben Franklin (1938); So What? (1939); and Billy Ken (1939).

Some of Jackson’s commercial work was featured recently at the Chicago Cultural Center.

In 1940, cartoonist Jackson, his wife and thirteen-year-old daughter, Carrie, resided at 6011 South May Street in Chicago. The census record said Jackson earned $1,800 in 1939. Who’s Who said Jackson did fashion art, layout, and catalog design or the National Clothing Company throughout the 1940s. During World War II Jackson produced cartoons for the Office of War Information and The Sergeant for Office of Price Administration in 1945. Jackson received a citation from Henry Morgenthau, Secretary of the U.S. Treasury, for the cartoons and posters backing the war bond campaign.

American Newspaper Comics said Jackson drew Exposition Follies (1940); Speed Jaxon (1942–1947); Ravings of Professor Doodle (1947); and Glamour Town (1948).

The Real Pepsi Challenge: The Inspirational Story of Breaking the Color Barrier (2008) explains Jackson’s role in the company’s 1948 advertising campaign which ran in Ebony magazine. Who’s Who said Jackson was art director at Negro Digest and Ebony.

Some time in the late 1940s, Jackson moved to Los Angeles, California. In 1949, Norman Rockwell lectured at Art Center College of Design. Who’s Who said Jackson studied with Rockwell that year.

The Arkansas State Press, September 8, 1950, reported Jackson’s two-page illustration for the latest edition of Who’s Who in Colored America.

The montage represents the manifold callings and interests of the over 3,000 persons whose biographical sketches will be carried in the publication—from Army officers to United Nations officials. The layout, printed in sepia, will decorate the inside covers…

The article went on to say that Jackson “also did special work, summers, under Rockwell Kent and at the Los Angeles Art Institute….He now conducts a national art service for advertisers from his Los Angeles studios (2306 West 23rd Street). In 1951 Jackson provided artwork for Who’s Who in the United Nations.

American Newspaper Comics said the Jay Jackson Features Syndicate produced Girligags and Home Folks in the 1950s.

According to Who’s Who, Jackson received two Guild awards for newspaper cartoons. He was a member of the American Newspaper Guild and the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Jackson passed away May 16, 1954 in Los Angeles, according to the California Death Index at Ancestry.com. His death was reported in Jet, May 27, 1954.

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

In the heyday of the black newspapers, there were a lot of journeyman cartoonists, but very few real  cartooning stars. Ollie Harrington, of course, would become something of an icon, but mostly forgotten today is the great Jay Jackson.

While Jackson's drawings didn't betray a great deal of academic study, his subject matter was sure to please. He loved to draw beautiful girls, at which he excelled, and he never shied away from suggestive, and sometimes downright blue material. The black papers were more permissive of this sort of stuff, and male readers apparently were greatly appreciative, if Jackson's constant presence in those papers was an indication.

One of Jackson's series was actually an advertising strip. Titled Fan Tan Anne, it was a series of ads for Fan Tan Bleach Creme. The series ran in the Philadelphia Tribune, where I indexed it, from February 21 to July 4 1935 in weekly installments. Other black papers ran it as well, though their running dates will likely differ.

Fan Tan was one of the concoctions marketed to blacks that was claimed to not only clear up any zits and other facial blemishes you might have, but lighten the tone of your skin as well. As light-skinned blacks were generally considered to be more attractive, customers flocked to these products just as white folk were buying self-tanners to do the opposite fifty years later.

Every week Anne would find a wretched lonely heart who had a face full of zits, or just felt they could get a leg up in the love match game if their skin was a tad lighter. Applying whatever was in these jars, the ugly duckling quickly became the belle of the ball. Whether the product did anything that it claimed to I don't know, but I can only cringe at the idea of putting anything on your face that boldly advertises that it contains bleach!

Here are a few more of Jay Jackson's Fan Tan Anne ads on Google Newspapers:

Baltimore Afro-American April 27 1935
Baltimore Afro-American April 6 1935

Labels: Advertising Strips

Sunday, October 25 1908 -- Herriman illustrates another in the weekly series of articles by former heavyweight champ Jim Jeffries. This week, Jeffries offers his formula for good health and long life. While Jeffries didn't live to be a hundred as he claimed you could if you followed his regimen --  he died at age 77 -- one must factor in the hard life of a prizefighter and say he did fairly well with his system.

PS -- I believe the odd looking fellow in the boxed cartoon above might be Herriman starting to try drawing a 'man-duck', and then running out of time before deadline.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

Chapter Six (Part 1) - WHEN THE WORLD WAS YOUNG


Not very long after Joseph Pulitzer had been elected to Congress from a Tammany District, I went to Washington with him. It must be mentioned here that one or two man's-size drinks had the effect of bringing out in him a boyish, noisy boisterousness, a boastful garrulity quite unlike the testiness, asperity and impatience of his later days as recorded by his biographers. On a certain night, when we were leaving the Capitol grounds, he was lit up to the seventh magnitude by a few cocktails—so few that I was actually ashamed of him and embarrassed to painful silence when a policeman appeared and arrested him. J. P. haughtily announced that he was a Member of Congress and bade the cop begone. The officer curtly replied that Congressmen cut no ice whatever with him, and proceeded to hustle his prisoner stationward with considerable rudeness.

I touched his arm and murmured: "Say, old man, you don't want to jug this gent! He is Joseph Pulitzer, the owner of the New York World."

"Holy Cheesus!" exclaimed the cop. "Why didn't he say so at first? I'll get you a carriage and you can take him home without anybody seeing him."


As a Representative, J. P. proved a flivver, for he soon perceived that the owner of the World was far more important than the most eminent statesman, and so he loafed on the job for a space and then abandoned it.

He was a competent judge of human nature as a general thing, but he frequently fell a victim to cocky, assertive and flowery conversationalists of the Brisbane, Harvey and Ballard Smith sort. Such men as Col. Jones of St. Louis managed to sell themselves to him by their eloquence alone, and until they failed at their jobs he never seemed to see through their shallow eloquence. After a few years he evolved a scheme of double responsibility for many of his business and editorial heads, with the idea that one would watch the other. They did almost nothing else! The plan was as unproductive as it was mean and clumsy.

It produced in time a condition of suspicion, jealousy and hatred, a maelstrom of office politics that drove at least two editors to drink, one into suicide, a fourth into insanity, and another into banking. Even those of his employees who were naturally kindly and of generous instincts were compelled in self-protection to resort to unseemly tricks. Brisbane, who hated me cordially, frequently took occasion to protest that my pictures were coarse and vulgar and to insinuate that I could not draw. J. P., who loved to have his staff at actual enmity, laughed and retorted: "He draws circulation, and that's enough!"

I earned Brisbane's enmity by pure frankness and kindness of heart, for I admired his ungodly nerve and flippant audacity. He had brought to me a Paris paper with the suggestion that I borrow an idea and Americanize it. Rather impatiently, I counseled him to pretend to have an original idea occasionally. He had recently been fired from the Sun and had not yet completely grown a new hide, and my friendly criticism galled him, but, quite characteristically, he did not openly resent it.

It was one of his duties to write daily reports to J. P. concerning the conduct, opinions and general usefulness of members of the staff; whenever he aspersed my value to the World, J. P. would promptly send them to me in order to keep my tropic New Jersey blood in circulation. I imagine he took a keen enjoyment in this, for he rarely neglected it. Arthur and I had but one open break. That was in the foyer of the new World Building, and everybody deserted his post on the ground floor in order not to be a witness to the shedding of blood between two hard-riding, hard-hitting, hard-bluffing semi-professionals who had worked with John L. Sullivan, Arthur Chambers, Jim Corbett, Billy Muldoon and Bob Fitzsimmons. There were hard words in plenty, but no actual blows.

Another fight long before this had become traditional in Newspaper Row. This was the famous mill between Pulitzer and Joseph Howard, Jr., and I was the innocent cause of it. Howard was then, as Brisbane is now, the most spectacular and highest-salaried newspaper man of the time, an indispensable figure at all first nights at the theater, a tall, handsome, jaunty fellow of perhaps forty-five, who always wore a low-cut waistcoat displaying an immaculate shirt bosom, and whose assertive and independent manner, with its total lack of veneration for wealth and position, was a continual protest against the disesteem under which all newspaper men labored in those days. He once introduced me to the eminent impresario Henry E. Abbey, and upon Abbey very patronizingly nodding and saying: "Aw, glad to meet yah," Howard snorted and exploded: "'Glad to meet yah!' Why, you big stiff," he echoed, "that kid has more brains in his little finger than you have in all your big fat body!" and Abbey then looked at me as if I were human.

Howard employed two stenographers, a blonde and a brunette, in his office somewhere below Fulton Street, and was under a large retainer from a great insurance company, it was said, owing to the fact that he possessed most damaging information concerning its methods. Pulitzer had engaged him at the incredible salary of seventy dollars a week to write about what he pleased. He was the progenitor of the modern eight-cylindered publicity agent. On first nights he never entered the theater until all were seated, and then his entrance was as important—and as conspicuous—as the rise of the curtain.

In the Winter of 1885 Erastus Wiman, a rising financier of Canada who was just then hypnotizing New York, invited a number of prominent citizens to be his guests at the Montreal Ice Carnival. Among them I remember Elihu Root, then Pulitzer's attorney, District Attorney John R. Fellows, Charles A. Dana, William J. Arkell of Judge, Keppler of Puck, Thomas Nast of Harper's and many others—there was actually a trainload—and, among them, myself. On my receipt of the invitation, I informed Pulitzer of it and he instantly told me to go, also to draw a hundred dollars of expense money from Mr. Shaw, the cashier, and, if possible, send on a story about the trip. Elated at the prospect, I hustled with my daily work in order to be ready for a preliminary dinner to be given by Wiman that evening at the Metropolitan Hotel, then the best hostelry on the continent.

Two hours later Howard sauntered into the editorial rooms, where J. P. happened to be, and informed him that he was going to Montreal with Wiman next morning. J. P. said: "No! McDougall is going with that crowd, and we can't afford to have two high-priced men off on one job of that sort."

Joe instantly flared up, and in a minute the office was fogged with recrimination, insinuation and damnation. In another minute the two tall black-attired figures were past words and their long arms were flailing the air. Neither of them had the least knowledge of the fistic art, and the spectacle resembled a combat between two sandhill cranes. Both lost their eyeglasses and were practically helpless and harmless, but each did his best until the bystanders, fearing that the ancient and tottering building could not long withstand such unusual strains, interfered and separated them. Howard left the office and never returned. No decision.



Edward S. Van Zile and myself are probably the only surviving witnesses of that memorable and ludicrous battle of the Titans. It was a fiasco, but it was far more uplifting than the ignoble horsewhippings and the like to which many an editor of the previous decades, such as James Gordon Bennett, had to submit occasionally. It was, at least, in the line of that elevation of our craft which in time led to our sitting at the guests' table at banquets and addressing the Chamber of Commerce and the Rotary Club on a level with ambassadors, chewing-gum dealers, movie magnates and owners of department stores.

Such exhibitions are rare indeed, and hence long treasured in newspaper offices. They do much to cheer and encourage the hard-working toilers. Newspaper Row cherishes a short list of such sudden and brief slave-risings, most of them occurring in the remote age when city editors were Simon Legrees. In the days when Thomas Lamont, Frank Vanderlip, George Harvey, Morrell Goddard, Augustus Thomas, Willis Holley, Don Seitz, George Ade, W. O. Inglis, Roger Farnham and Finley Peter Dunne were mere reporters, the tribe doubtless required stern and strict treatment to keep it within bounds and out of jail. The present-day newspaper men, apart from the unregenerate columnists, seem to have no vices at all.

Another grotesque episode was long talked of in the World office. Nym Crinkle, the wittiest writer of his day and then the World's dramatic critic, had written a clever article on Jem Mace, the famous pugilist, in which Mace was referred to several times as a savant. Harry Hill, to whom the pleased fighter showed the story, informed him that the word meant all that was unprintable, unpopular and abhorrent, whereupon Mace started downtown.

Entering the room of the city editor, Dave Sutton, he produced the paper, laid it on the table, and placing an enormous distorted thumb upon the offending article, he rumbled:

"I want to see the ——— that wrote that!"

Sutton informed him that Nym Crinkle (Andrew C. Wheeler) had written it and that he would not be down until the afternoon.

"All right. I'll wait for him!" growled Mace, taking a chair.

Man by man, the office staff sneaked out silently until only Sutton and the heroic elevator boy remained on duty. The latter would tip off all newcomers and they would immediately descend to the ground floor without disturbing the graveyard peace of the city room. After a time, Mace began to manifest impatience by sundry grunts and wriggles, and fixing Sutton with a sarcastic leer, he demanded:

"Say, does this Wheeler bloke ever lose any of his bloody wheels? You tell me where he lives, and I'll go git him!"

Before Sutton could answer, there darted from the elevator the sporting editor, Eddie Plummer, a short, fat, jolly sport, whose red face registered intense annoyance and disgust. He hastened to Mace, took him by a cauliflower ear, and as he lifted him from his chair, he shouted:

"You big bum! Whadya mean by raisin' hell round a swell joint like this? Who've ya been beatin' up, you dirty plug?"

"I ain't been beatin' up nobody!" protested the pugilist. "I'm a-waitin' fer a Dutchman named Bimskinkle, or somethin' like that. He's been writin' me up in the paper . . . . Here it is . . . . Called me a sayvant . . . . See, here's his name signed to it —"

Eddie glanced at the story, and then, seizing Mace's arm, led him toward the elevator.

"You big tub o' guts, somebody's been goosin' ya!" he roared. "That sayvant thing means pachydermatous, and that means about as high-toned as they make 'em. You never had as fine a send-off in your life, you blitherin' ape! Get outa here before you get ashamed of yourself!"

Then he pushed Mace into the elevator, pulled the rickety door shut, and added:

"If you come up here beefiin' about anything again, I'll lam your bloody conk off ya!"

Mace's heavy tones boomed from the descending cage:

"Hi, Eddie, tell that Dutchie I thought it was a good piece, all but that sayvant part —"

Those were happy days! Nothing to do save a daily cartoon, some illustrations for Bill Nye's stuff, some more for an article by Jim Townsend or Gil Van Tassel Sutphen on Mrs. Astor's ivory carvings, then luncheon with kindred indolent souls at Mouquin's in Fulton Street, where a battle of Pommard or Beaunne cost but a dollar, then the launching of a new battleship by Secretary Whitney over at the Navy Yard, then a sketching jaunt to Coney Island, an unfailing bonanza, then a test of Paul Boyton's swimming suit off the Battery, then the Horse or Dog Show, the quest for a fabulous wild man at Far Rockaway, a juicy murder up in the wilds beyond Goshen, a trip with Nellie Bly to the insane asylum at Blackwell's Island, a society wedding, an hour in Recorder Smythe's or Judge Goff's court with the astonishing Bill Howe pleading, and finally, after dinner, a boxing bout at Coney Island or Pain's Fireworks at Manhattan Beach.


Pains Showreel from Pains Fireworks on Vimeo.

First (?) Daily Hint from McDougall

After the Evening World was established, I had an additional cartoon to make every day, the "Daily Hint from McDougall." Often enough it would take me hours to find an idea for it and twenty minutes to make the drawing. Of course, these drawings were all atrocious. This was the Neolithic Period of newspaper art, and we were Cro-Magnon draftsmen. Nevertheless, although forty years have passed, newspaper illustration in general remains almost as crude. The high-hat artists of Harper's, Frank Leslie's and Puck looked down at us as beneath contempt; this was when an Academician still scorned to do an advertising picture, but in time even these fell for the lure of regular meals and sure rent-money, and we inscribed on our rolls many names of distinguished members of the Palette, Kit Kat and Salmagundi Clubs.

Glorious days in vast untrodden, unexplored fields, just like airplaning ten years ago—the days before the Partition had been invented to give the editorial head the permanent "waive" and part him from eager contributors—when any man or woman with an idea was welcome as the flowers of May in an editor's room and his suggestion was considered, when Inspiration dwelt after dark in Andy Horn's cave, Tom Gould's grotto, Theiss's Palm Garden or Billy McGlory's hectic hell.

Despite the fact that the whirring presses threatened hourly to bring the shuddering building down upon our heads, that predatory rats of monstrous size infested the moldy structure in such hordes that I have shot a half-dozen with a Flobert rifle in a forenoon, that a famous apple girl of wondrous charm and unbounded sex-allure tormented and distracted the entire staff until at last she married the head of a Brazilian steamship line, and that the paper was barred from the public libraries about every six months, we worked like Rum Row sailors fifteen hours a day for six days of the week, and on Sundays thought up special features. My brother Harry published in his paper, the Newark Sunday Call, a story to the effect that my wife found my little son crying one day, and that when she asked the reason for his grief, he sobbed: "That man who comes here Sundays licked me!”

[END OF CHAPTER 6, PART 1]

Labels: McDougall's This Is The Life

Clare Victor "Dwig" Dwiggins' comic strip career began in earnest in 1900 at the Philadelphia Inquirer, where he created a number of features for their recently born color comic section. One of the longer lasting was Gallant Cholly (or often just Cholly), in which our hapless hero tries to impress a young lovely with his chivalry, only to be rebuffed, and often beat up, arrested, or both, for his trouble. Dwig's great facility with slapstick made the strip, I imagine, work of very little effort for him.

Gallant Cholly ran from March 17 to November 17 1901. The above sample, which is from the collection of Cole Johnson, was the last installment of the series. Sorry about the condition, but this is the sort of thing you must occasionally expect for such rare early material.

After his stint at the Inquirer, Dwig switched most of his attention to book illustration and postcard work, and didn't return full time to newspaper strips for close to a decade.

PS: won't someone please fix Wikipedia and Lambiek's lame Dwig entries, both of which make the ridiculous statement that his first comic strip was School Days? Sheesh!

Labels: Obscurities

 

A Day With a Cartoonist

 by W. K. Starrett of the Albany Knickerbocker Press

(reprinted from Cartoons magazine, February 1913)

Why not be a car­toonist ? Easy work and good pay—we teach you in ten easy lessons. Anyone who can draw can earn from three to five hundred dollars a minute drawing cartoons. Easy as rolling off a log. Write for particulars — that's the way the ad reads, so why not ?

To make a cartoonist, take one good editorial writer and mix with two barrels of nerve, one bushel of talent for drawing, a ton of humor, and an equal proportion of patience. Shake thoroughly before using.


After hanging over a drawing-board for about seven years and wasting a number of gallons of good ink and several thousand sheets of bristol board, go out and separate some gullible editor from a few frog-skins per week in exchange for your masterpieces.

And then read the criticisms on your own editorial page from "Constant Reader."

After you get the job you hie yourself to the office at 7 a. m., grab all of the morning papers, and proceed to dig up an idea. Possibly the boss has requested something very funny for that day, and after scanning the columns telling of murders, suicides, divorces, hold-ups, accidents, and tales of woe, you wonder if there is really anything funny to draw about.

After finishing the papers, you proceed to walk some ten or twenty miles up and down and around your sanctum— all the while looking for that funny idea. It's a great indoor sport, this idea chasing. Chew up several cigars. That helps sometimes. Pull a little hair out, too—if you are a real artist you can spare some. Then, when the boss shows up, put on a brave front, grin as though you thought this particular idea was the best ever, and walk into his office, walk around and look at the books and pictures with a nonchalant air. Then suddenly you are nearly startled out of your skin by a roar: "Get something NEW for a change, can't you ?"

After that go back and chew up some more cigars and walk a little—a cartoonist's life is an active life. Oh, dear me, yes!

Later on in the day—if you are doing general stuff— you will have several callers, each with about two days work, and each telling you that "It will take a few minutes, and please rush it."

After that you get your cartoon roughly sketched. About the time when you are ready to "ink in," one of the engravers will come over and sit on your table and ask "How soon?"

Then he will immediately start to tell you a better idea — oh, much better — that he thought of "this morning in the saloon around the corner." If you happen to be drawing for a certain pink sporting weekly found in barber shops and saloons, you might be able to use the idea—after a little toning down.

Then spill the ink onto your cartoon for about fifteen minutes, and tell the boy to take it to the engraver and to be careful not to step on it, and not (shout this) NOT to attempt to cut his initials in it or change the spelling.

Then you are through—with the cartoon — and after that you go to work.

But with all the trials and tribulations, the life of a cartoonist isn't so bad — if you really have the "bug"—and when at the end of the day you slip into the editor's office and hear him dictating a letter to his secretary, in reply to an applicant for your job, to the effect that Mr. You "is our cartoonist and we are well satisfied with this same Mr. You," you can go home at 1 a. m., lugging a little package labeled "encouragement"— and the thought, "Nothing to do until to-morrow."

All in all, it's like any other work game of this busy world of ours. You have your happy days, your dull days, and the days when everything goes wrong, but still there is a lot of sunshine working in through the windows and you always turn out your cartoon, the general stuff wanted by the news department and the business office without trouble.

You find a lot of good in the world and it seems easy finding for the cartoonist, and you should feel pretty well satisfied. You generally discover that all of your troubles of the day are little troubles, and, as said before, if you really have the "bug" you'll find that it is a game worth while. There is something in the feeling that you are a part of the big world and are taking part in its daily work.

After a successful career in the music store business, Sharon Awrey decided she'd like to write for kids, and she chose newspapers as her outlet and self-syndication as her method. She is credited in her 2003 obituary with three series; Wojo and Penelope, Pling and Time Out for Kids Ages 5-105. Time Out for Kids (see below) is primarily text and photos, and seems to have been by far her longest-running feature.


On the other hand, I haven't yet come across any papers that ran Pling. It apparently ran in the Iron Mountain (MI) News, but I haven't found a way to access that paper's archives online.

What I do have access to is Wojo and Penelope, which was a daily comic strip about a group of kids, and featured simple gags that would primarily appeal to the under-10 year old crowd. Awrey enlisted the aid of veteran artist Harold Elder, who was nearing the 70-year mark, to draw the strip in a simple and accessible style.

Based on my files, the strip ran in the Milwaukee Sentinel from December 16 1982 until at least July 1983. However, an introductory story about the strip in the Sentinel claimed that it started a month earlier in the Iron Mountain News, so figure sometime in November 1982 as being the official start date.

I imagine that Awrey's connections in Michigan, and Harold Elder's connections at newspapers in the Milwaukee / Green Bay area, were instrumental at getting the strip in the papers it did. They evidently weren't enough to make the strip a paying proposition, though. If anyone has information on the end date of Wojo and Penelope, or hard evidence of Pling appearing in newspapers, do please let me know!

Labels: Obscurities

Edmund Waller “Ted” Gale Jr. was born in Corydon, Kentucky, on December 28, 1884, according to his World War II draft card.

In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, Gale was the third of six children born to Edmund, a post office clerk, and Sue. They resided in Los Angeles, California at 215 North Hope Street. According to Edan Hughes’ Artists in California, 1786–1940, Gale graduated from high school and “was a self-taught cartoonist for the Los Angeles Evening News and for the [Los Angeles] Times from 1907.”

In the 1910 census, Gale continued to live with his parents at the same address. Gale’s occupation was cartoonist with the Times. American Newspaper Comics (2012) said Gale’s strip, The Wad Family, began in the Times on January 22, 1911 and ended in 1919.

In 1914 Gale appeared as himself in a Mack Sennett production, The Morning Paper. Mack Sennett’s Fun Factory (2013) said:

A visit to the Los Angeles Times plant to look at how an illustrated daily newspaper is produced, including cutting and engraving, typesetting on linotype machines, printing presses, and a view of the cartoonist “Gale” at work.

Cartoons Magazine, March 1916, published Dudley Logan’s drawing of Gale with the caption: “E.W. Gale, Who Has Left the Los Angeles Times to Draw a Comic Strip Entitled ‘Mr. Wad and His Family’ for the Wheeler Syndicate of New York.”


Gale produced the weekday strip, On the Five-Fifteen, from January 2 to June 29, 1917.

On September 12, 1918, Times cartoonist Gale signed his World War I draft card. He and his wife, Helen, resided at 208 North Grand Avenue in Los Angeles. The description of Gale was tall, medium build with light gray eyes and light brown hair.

Gale’s occupation and address were unchanged in the 1920 census. Cartoons Magazine, March 1921, reprinted Gale’s George Washington cartoon.


According to the Michigan Alumnus, October 8, 1927, Gale’s father passed away June 3, 1927. A photograph of Gale Sr. is here.

The 1930 census recorded Gale, wife and eight-year-old daughter, Phoebe, in Los Angeles at 3828 Ingraham Street. The Los Angeles Times blog has a Gale Christmas cartoon from 1932 and said, “he quit in 1934 in a dispute over editorial policies and went to the Examiner.”

Gale’s residence was the same in the 1940 census and on his World War II draft card which he signed on April 25, 1942. Gale stood six-feet tall and wighted 174 pounds.

Gale passed away September 4, 1975, in Los Angeles, according to the California Death Index at Ancestry.com.

—Alex Jay

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

Labels: Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics