Stripper's Guide

Byrnes, Loy.* 7287-7289 Buzz Sawyer: Accepts an assignment, 2.— One chosen, 1. — Receives his secret code card, 3. © 1 c. each July 26, 1940 ; G 36210-36212.

Meet Punchy and Judy, a Comic ‘Comic’ Strip

For 10 years Loy Byrnes collected notes and ideas and drew sketches for a comic strip. He had already found the appropriate title, “Punchy and Judy.” At last he decided he had hammered out enough work of the pay-dirt variety.

The result is a comic “comic” strip, minus blood, thunder and gunfire, destined for laughs instead of sobs.

Punchy is a sparring partner in a gymnasium; Judy is a chocolate-dipper who excels at applying curlycues to the iced tops of bon-bons. Together they form a romantic comedy team whose adventures start in The Post Monday June 4.

A little man with a sardonic wit, Loy Byrnes at 39 has had almost 20 years of cartoon experience. There was no preliminary period of hesitation when he chose a career. Decorating school blackboards led with unswerving logic to a job in the art department of the old New York World. He was just 14 when he hit the Sunday section with a children’s feature that ran for almost three years.

Under pressure Byrnes admits that he once studied briefly at the Art Students League, has turned out a number of successful features, is a bachelor, belongs to the Society of Illustrators and is a member of the Museum of Modern Art. 

Probe him on the origin of his idea and he shudders. “Ask me something simple,” he begs, “like maybe explaining the Theory of Relativity. All I can tell you is that a guy takes a piece of paper and pencil and then beats his brains out until he gets ideas—that’s all.”

His characters were not patterned after any one in particular but are a composite drawn from the “strata of humanity that editorial writers fondly refer to as ‘the backbone of the nation.’”

When at work Byrnes whistles softly to himself. The harder the thinking, the more intricate the tune. In the groove he can, he boasts, rip off hot licks that are the everlasting envy of his less musically gifted contemporaries.

He is deliberately vague when questioned about his past activities and accomplishments. “Everything I’ve done until now,” he insists, “was strictly warming up for ‘Punchy and Judy.’”

At the Shor shindig a book of beautiful woodland scenes contributed by the assembled artists was presented to Bugs after some salty speeches by E. Sims Campbell, Stan McGovern, Loy Byrnes, Milt Caniff and Cas Adams.

Loy Byrnes, Post Cartoonist, Dies—Drew Punchy and Judy 

Loy Byrnes, cartoonist of the Punch and Judy strip in The Post, died today in Mt. Sinai Hospital at the age of 40.

Funeral services will be held tomorrow at 10 a.m. at the Joseph McAllister Funeral Parlor, 202 E. 39th St., followed by a mass of requiem at St. Agnes Church, 141 E. 43d St. Burial will be in Holy Name Cemetery, Jersey City.

Byrnes is survived by an aunt, Mrs. Nellie Mitchell, of Teaneck.

Harvester World 2/1918

During 1918, Cartoons Magazine published several of McGill’s cartoons about Camp Grant here, here and here, and noted his prize.

Editor & Publisher, August 21, 1919, reported McGill’s new job.

Ray McGill, of Dawson, Ga., has been appointed local Cartoonist on The Atlanta Georgian. He has just returned from service overseas. Mr. McGill was formerly with the International Harvester Co., Chicago; also free lanced in Chicago.

Atlanta, Feb. 4.—Ray McGill, cartoonist of the Georgian, has started a feature in the Sunday American that bids fair to become popular. Every Sunday one sees most of the good things there are to see in Atlanta, in McGill’s “Atlanta Over the Top” car.

Creator of “Journalisms”

A comic artist with a keen sense of news! He draws a daily strip for Evening Journal readers giving them a humorous view of current happenings. McGill has created something NEW in cartoons—no comic strip in American newspapers is comparable to it. Evening Journal readers get a “big kick” out of McGill’s “Journalisms” because each drawing is up to the last minute in news interest.

Mr. McGill, 71, of 22 NE 7th Ave., Delray Beach, who was associated with Chic Young, creator of the comic strip “Blondie,” of King Features Syndicate, died Friday night [September 20] at Bethesda Memorial Hospital following a short illness.

He was the cartoonist of two [sic; it was one strip] other comic strips carried by the syndicate, “Colonel Potterby” and “The Duchess.”

He was the editorial cartoonist for the Atlanta Journal many years ago and also current events cartoonist for the New York Journal American.

He is survived by his 97-year-old mother, Mrs. Edna McGill, of Dawson, Ga.; one brother Edward McGill, former society photographer with the Chicago Tribune, at Morton Grove, Ill.; one nephew, Fulford McGill, Fort Lauderdale; two cousins, Miss Bess Fouche, McDonough, Ga., and Alfred Fouche, of Atlanta.

Funeral services will be held at the Scobee Funeral Home at 11 am Monday, with Rev. J. Marvin Sweat officiating.