Saturday, December 05, 2015

 

Herriman Saturday


Sunday, October 25 1908 -- The corruption problems in L.A.'s government are shaking up the politicos in unexpected ways. District attorney Fredericks, who previously seemed an enemy to prosecutor Woolwine, is in the process of a realignment. After testifying before the grand jury, Fredericks has reinstated him as a deputy D.A. My guess is that Herriman drew his cartoon before that happened, or perhaps I'm not really getting all the subtleties of the situation.

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Friday, December 04, 2015

 

Walt McDougall's This is the Life: Chapter 5 Part 2



This is the Life!

by 

Walt McDougall

Chapter Five (Part 2) - ONCE ABOARD THE LUGGER


The other papers soon imitated the World, but they employed better artists than myself and my youthful confreres; they got men like C. J. Taylor, Baron de Grimm, Thulstrup, C. G. Bush, John Hyde and Eddie Kemble. But these were far too artistic and high-hat for the class to which newspapers appeal, and they rarely made news pictures. They produced clever, well-drawn sketches of life at the race track or the sea beach, but they were geared too low for the fast-moving stuff that hopped circulations up.


For about two years I had, indeed, practically a monopoly of the cartoon field not only in town, but in many out-of-town newspapers. This continued until cartoonists grew up to meet the demand. The Tribune was the first to follow, with Barrett's cartoons; then, long after, the Herald engaged C. G. Bush of Harper's; Dan McCarthy and Rigby, the only newspaper artist who ever wore a silk hat, and Van Sant became well known. There appeared in Chicago after a while a whole flock of restive and able cartooners, Charlie Lederer, Tom Powers, Art Young and Hy. Mayer (see cartoon above), who all finally drifted to New York, but it was a long while before a cartoonist became so commonplace that conscience-stricken politicians could remain at ease in their presence.

Such events as the opening of the Brooklyn Bridge, Odlum's fatal dive from the same, Grant's funeral, the Park Place and the Buddensiek disasters, the electrocution of Gibbs, the first man killed by an electric wire, right before my window, the first try-out by Edison of his gramophone, the first yacht races, the Charleston earthquake, the blowing-up of Hell Gate, and dozens of like happenings all had to be sketched, because the "instantaneous camera," as it was called, was not yet perfected for fast work, and all photographs had to be converted by the artist into pen-and-ink line drawings before being engraved. The half-tone process was not as yet applicable to newspaper print. I therefore led a busy life, no question.

Mr. Pulitzer presented me, in 1885, I think, with one of the first of these "instantaneous" cameras. It was in a case resembling those carried by physicians, about a foot long. It was elegant, but as a practicable camera almost a total loss. It cost sixty dollars, but it could not do the work of an eighty-cent "Brownie" of to-day's vintage. As soon as I had mastered its intricacies—no difficult task, as I had been brought up in a photograph gallery—I loaded a holder with two plates from a fresh box of a specially fast quality—with a speed, perhaps, of a twenty-fifth of a second, which was called rapid—and hurried forth. My first shot was at an antique horse and buggy hitched to a post at the curb in front of the International Hotel, with the Post Office in the background. Then I rushed back to my improvised dark room, a closet in my office.

The developed negative revealed a double exposure, one of the earliest and most startling of its kind. The old horse showed up plainly with a distinct Post Office in the rear, but in place of the buggy there was revealed a bare-legged woman seated on a short columnar pedestal! The resulting print caused great excitement in the World office and in that of the Photographic Times. It seemed to have a flavor of the miraculous and supernatural—in truth, these double exposures later became the basis of many spiritualistic swindles—and it permanently ruined my reputation for morality and veracity.


I was then one of those pink-cheeked, easy-blushing, timid souls looking many years younger than my age and incredibly innocent and unsophisticated, as anybody who can remember that far back will attest, but I was surrounded by tough, hard-boiled vultures of forty, such as Col. Cockerill, Sam Moffett, Nym Crinkle, John Dillon, Joseph Howard, Jr., Capt. Roland Coffin, Dud Levigne and Jeremiah Curtin, and these sin-seared veterans were only too glad to make the vilest, most shocking insinuations in order to bring the blush of innocence to my dimpled cheek.


Even several years afterward, on my turning in to Col. Cockerill, a man of parts if there ever was one, a snappy picture of some famous actress with six or seven inches of shapely leg exposed to view, he made a pencil mark on the drawing and, in a sanctimonious voice, protested: "That could not be published in a respectable journal, boy! Pull her skirts down to her shoe tops! We don't want another double-exposure scandal in this office. We'd have all the Goddam ministers in town down on us!"


Pulitzer and Cockerill were the most profane men I have ever encountered. I learned much from them, for their joint vocabulary was extensive and, in some respects, unique. When J. P. was dictating an editorial upon some favorite topic, such as Collis P. Huntington's extremely ill-gotten wealth, Jay Gould's infamous railroad-wrecking or Cyrus Field's income, his speech was so interlarded with sulphurous and searing phrases that the whole staff shuddered. He was the first man I ever heard who split a word to insert an oath. He did it often. His favorite was "indegoddampendent." When the stenographer—a he-one—took down every word he uttered, his editorials had to be sifted, as it were, at the conclusion of the dictation.


At this time he apparently actually felt all the red-hot indignation he daily voiced against all the wrongs he so constantly assailed on his editorial page. The famous "Belshazzar Feast" cartoon was a pictorial expression of his hatred of easily gotten wealth. It was really merely a Rogue's Gallery of millionaires. A million dollars was to J. P. a symbol of double damnation—in the year of our Lord 1884.


The misty clouds of myth are already dimming the outlines of the man who made the World. The writings of some of his former employees are creating a demigod out of a highly commercial gentleman who knew exactly what every cent in a dollar was worth and what sort of printed matter would at the least expense extract pennies from the lower classes. That was his job, and he went to it with enthusiasm and haste.


In the first years of the World's endeavors he was very approachable, and even companionable, when not irritated by fear of disaster or the increase of expense. He was almost absolutely devoid of any sense of humor, save of a certain banal sort, and the stings of that human wasp, Dana of the Sun, drove him almost frantic. He was so obsessed by the dread of libel suits that he read almost every paragraph in the paper nightly. This practice eventually cost him his sight. He was also haunted by a perpetual fear of dishonesty among his employees, and detected or even suspected commissions received by his buying agents drove him to extremes of passionate indignation.


Sometimes, in his depressed and harassed moods, he would come down to my quiet room and lie on the old mohair sofa. I had the big roll-top desk used by Manton Marble when he was editor of the World—still preserved in the Sunday World rooms—and in cleaning out the drawers I had come upon a bundle of letters hidden in a rear cavity, written to Marble by various persons years before. There were some famous signatures among them. I used to amuse J. P. by reading some of them, and he would in turn tell me his troubles and narrate his adventures. I wish I had made notes of these talks, but I was always a poor newspaper man. I doubt if he ever was, in later years, as communicative.


I early gathered that he had little or none of the personal courage of Cockerill, but as a writer he was as rashly bold and reckless as a rhinoceros. He narrated episodes of dealings with St. Louis gamblers, but there was nothing of the heroic in them, and he once told me that the fact that Cockerill had so coolly killed Slayback had at one moment the effect of kindling his admiration and at another filling him with a chilly repulsion. When I confessed to him that I had also killed a man, a Chinese, in self-defense, he regarded me with the dazed expression of a shocked boy, although he was eleven years older than I.


On one occasion the owner of a prize-winning dog whose picture happened to be printed with another canine's name beneath it, came into my room and began to vent his ire by denouncing the rascally World, Pulitzer and all newspaper men generally, in the presence of Charley Stone, afterward editor of the Chicago Herald, who then occupied a desk in my room and who was some years my elder. I did not want to hit the irate dog-owner for fear of injuring him, and I listened to his diatribe in patience until I caught sight of Stone's face, expressive of contempt for my seeming cowardice. Then I rose, seized the intruder by the collar and the rotunda of his trousers, burst the door open with his wriggling form, ran him down the hall, and threw him down the stairs encircling our four-passenger elevator. I heard his footsteps patter all the way to the ground floor, went back to receive Stone's hearty congratulations, and then, still being rather unversed in newspaper methods and not knowing how far I would be backed by my employer, I hastened to tell J. P. what had happened. When I told him that I had thrown my visitor down the stairs he simply said: "Hell! Why didn't you throw him down the elevator shaft?"


Very early in my experience I brought upon the paper a libel suit that threatened to turn J. P.'s dark locks a silvery gray. I had depicted two low dives at Coney Island, and the pictures were printed. Their proprietors at once brought suit for fifty thousand dollars, a sum so enormous that the "Kennedy Case" attracted nation-wide attention. It is, I believe, a sort of test case as regards pictures, at least, to this day. The World won the case, but no human being ever knew, during the trial or afterward, that it need never have gone to trial because the titles under the cuts had been transposed. I was saving this fact in case we were beaten but, as it was, I never mentioned it.

** END OF CHAPTER 5 PART 2 **

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Thursday, December 03, 2015

 

Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: A.E. Hayward



A. E. “Alfred Earle” Hayward was the cartoonist name of artist Alfred Mark Hayward, who was born in Camden, New Jersey, on February 14, 1885. The birth date was on Hayward’s World War I draft card which had the name “Alfred Earle”. The birthplace was reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania), July 27, 1939. The Encyclopedia of American Biography, Volume XI (1940) had the same birth information and an explanation of Hayward’s two names.
It was a notable fact that Mr. Hayward used two names professionally: “A. E. Hayward” on the comic strips, and “Alfred Hayward” on his serious work. He thus maintained two artistic personalities, separate and distinct from each other. It was his belief, stated in so many words, that “there is no such animal as a comic artist. He said that “humorous newspaper stuff...is purely literary in conception and has nothing to do with art.”
The Encyclopedia noted Hayward’s artistic family.
Mr. Hayward was born February 14, 1885, in Camden, New Jersey, son of Albert Joseph and Elizabeth (Henley) Hayward, both natives of England. his father was an artist, noted for his paintings in his native land. The Haywards are a family of artists, Mr. Hayward’s grandfather having also been a painter and his uncle a sculptor.
Hayward’s father was listed in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania city directories for the years 1896, 1897 and 1899, which were found at Ancestry.com. The address was 5334 Suplee in 1897 then 5334 Poplar in 1899.

The 1900 U.S. Federal Census recorded Hayward (as Alfred M.), his mother and older sister, Bertha, in Philadelphia at 949 North Twelfth Street. Hayward‘s occupation was clerk The Encyclopedia said he was “a receiving clerk in a locomotive works, and he learned to do this work well.”

A 1901 Philadelphia city directory listed Hayward as “Alfred M.” and his occupation as salesman. The home address for Hayward and his mother was “N Warnock n Nedro.”The Inquirer, August 4, 1901, printed the death notice for Hayward’s mother.

Hayward—On August 3, 1901. Elizabeth Hanlon Hayward of Leamington, England, and widow of Alfred J. Hayward, in her 59th year. Due notice of the funeral will be given from her late residence, Fern Rock, Pa.
According to the Encyclopedia, Hayward, who had a public school education, found a job as a special writer for the Philadelphia Bulletin, writing and illustrating his human interest stories for several years. He went on to study at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia. His first academy show was in 1915, and in 1919, the Dana medal was awarded him for his watercolors at the academy’s annual exhibition. Hayward eventually joined the academy faculty.

Hayward married Stella Kelly on August 28, 1907, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Their marriage was found in the Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, Marriage Index at Ancestry.com.

Hayward has not yet been found in the 1910 census. The 1910 Philadelphia city directory listed “Alfred E Hayward” as a cartoonist whose home was at 1205 Belmont Avenue. Hayward had two listings in the 1912 directory:

Hayward Albert E cartoonist h 4603 Pulaski av Gtn 
—Alfred artist h 3635 N 21st
The 1916 directory had these two listings:
Hayward Alfred h 4741 Leiper Fkd 
—Alfred E artist h 659 E Penn Gtn
According to American Newspaper Comics (2012), Hayward’s earliest comic strip was Some Day (Maybe) in 1912 for Press Publishing. Hayward drew Great Caesar’s Ghost and Great Caesar’s Goat (1913–1914), Pinheadus (Great Caesar’s new title; 1914–1915) and Colonel Corn (1915–1918) for the New York Herald. For the Public Ledger Syndicate Hayward produced Padded Cell (1915–1918) and Somebody’s Stenog, which began December 16, 1918. Somebody’s Stenog was drawn by Hayward for a number of years. His assistants Sam Nichols and Ray Thompson ghosted the strip in later years. Hayward also drew cartoons for the Public Ledger.

On September 12, 1918, Hayward signed his World War I draft card. His address was 659 E Penn, Philadelphia. His occupations were cartoonist and painter. The New York Herald was his employer. Hayward named his wife as his nearest relative. His description was tall and slender with blue eyes and brown hair.

The Evening Public Ledger, December 4, 1919, reported Hayward receiving the Dana medal award for his watercolors; Looking Down on the Pools was published in the paper. The Public Ledger said his studio address was 200 South Fifteenth Street. Three days later the Inquirer identified Hayward as a local cartoonist who was awarded the medal.

Hayward has not yet been found in the 1920 census. Hayward, his wife and daughter, Joyce, returned from Europe on September 26, 1926. He used the Public Ledger newspaper as his U.S. address.

In 1930, newspaper artist Hayward and family resided in the household of Joseph Ryan who was his brother-in-law. The address was 6642 18th Street in Philadelphia. Shortly after the census enumeration, Hayward traveled west. The Ogden Standard-Examiner (Utah), October 24, 1930, published this item:

Making Utah VisitSalt Lake City, Oct. 24.—From locomotives to cartoons has been the working experience of A. E. Hayward, New York, syndicate cartoonist, a visitor here for a few days. In [illegible] Mr. Hayward was a receiving clerk in a locomotive works at Philadelphia. Hayward draws the strip, “Somebody’s Stenog.” When he is not cartooning Mr. Hayward is painting landscapes to the Indian regions of Arizona and New Mexico.
A 1932 Santa Fe, New Mexico city directory said Hayward resided at 1014 Canon Road. The Encyclopedia noted Hayward’s interest in mountains.
…Mr. Hayward was fond of nature, particularly of mountains. He did a great deal of climbing on the tortuous mountain roads in France and in the American Rockies, delighting especially in the magnificent and almost unending views across the New Mexican mountain country. His adventurous and explorative soul sought also the mountains of Newfoundland and Labrador, New England, Pennsylvania, Colorado, Wyoming and Montana.
At some point, Hayward moved to New York City where he passed away July 25, 1939. The Inquirer, July 27, 1939, published the Associated Press obituary:
Alfred E. Hayward, Cartoonist, DeadCreated Character ‘Somebody’s Stenog’; Noted as Painter 
New York, July 26 (A. P.).—Alfred E. Hayward, 54, painter, cartoonist and humorist, is dead at his W. 73d st. home after a 10-day illness. 
He created the comic strip “Somebody’s Stenog,’ which has been running for 21 years. 
(“Somebody's Stenog” has appeared in the Sunday edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer.) 
Hayward’s water-color painting, “Aqueduct of St. Jeannet,” attracted world-wide attention and his paintings of Pennsylvania mountain streams won, many prizes. 
Native of Camden
A native of Camden, N. J., Hayward was the son of the late Alfred Joseph Hayward, famous English painter. His wife, Stella, and a daughter, Joyce, an actress, survive. 
Hayward was a former faculty member of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts and a member of the Philadelphia Sketch Club. Among his better known humorous writings were “Great Caesar’s Ghost” and “Kernel Korn.” 
Organized Art Week
In 1924 he organized Art Week in Philadelphia, a movement to interest the man on the street in fine arts. 
He also was an experienced mountain climber. 
The family announced there would be no funeral services. Cremation will take place tomorrow.

—Alex Jay

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Wednesday, December 02, 2015

 

Obscurity of the Day: Colonel Corn


Before A.E. Hayward settled down into his long-running comic strip Somebody's Stenog, which began in 1918, he popped up at several syndicates with good strips. Here we have Colonel Corn, which he produced for the New York Herald syndicate from October 24 1915 to November 3 1918.

Although mostly forgotten today, as you plainly can see above Hayward was one helluva cartoonist. I love his wispy, sketchy lines, full of fun and vigor, and his snappy dialogue is like listening to a jazzy song emanating from the printed page. Hayward had a habit of writing so many long dialogue balloons in his strips that he didn't have much room left for the drawings. But when the writing is of this caliber, who are we to complain?

The late Cole Johnson was probably Hayward's biggest fan, and definitely the most knowledgeable about him, so I greatly regret that I never twisted his arm long and hard enough to have him write an appreciation of this great cartoonist.

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Hello Allan-
Yes, Cole was quite a fan, In fact he had acquired a rare photo of Mr. Hayward which still hangs on my wall. Alfred E. Hayward was an accomplished artist in several mediums, as a painter he won the Dana watercolor award and as a cartoonist, in addition to his print career, he taught caricature at the Pennsylvania Academy of fine arts. Cole searched for any of his paintings, but outside of a terribly indistinct newspaper photo, never could find one, maybe they no longer exist. Tempus fugit.
 
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Tuesday, December 01, 2015

 

News of Yore: Perry Carter Profiled


Carter of the Minneapolis Tribune 

(originally printed in Cartoons magazine, February 1913)

The experience of years has gained for Perry J. Carter, of the Minneapolis Tribune, a place among the best known cartoonists of the United States. For years his cartoons have been extensively copied in other newspapers and period­icals and as a result his work is known in all parts of the country.

''A very smart craftsman" is the terse but complimentary characterization of Mr. Carter made by the late W. T. Stead, while Dr. Albert Shaw, in an issue of the Re­view of Reviews, termed Mr. Carter's cartoons for that month "of higher average merit than those of any other cartoonist at home or abroad."

Mr. Carter's home is in the great northwest, where his name is a household word in thousands of homes. He has traveled extensively throughout the country, but no one has as yet succeeded in convincing him that there is a better place to live than Minneapolis and he has, so far, refused to avail himself of good opportunities in larger cities.

Mr. Carter was born in Ohio and gained his first newspaper experience in the humble capacity of "devil" in the village print shop where he worked when not in school. Having started in the newspaper profession he progressed along the inky way of printer and reporter until he finally was able to go to Chicago to study in the classes of the Art Institute.

When he again took up newspaper work it was as a sketch artist, and it was at this stage of his career that he drifted to Minneapolis and joined the staff of the Minneapolis Times. Later he moved across the Mississippi river and became the cartoonist of the St. Paul Globe. He remained with the Globe for a year and then returned to the Minneapolis Times. He returned to the Times as its cartoonist and also provided the material for the comic supplement color pages for five years. He was induced to leave the Times and go to the Minneapolis Tribune, and he is now in his fifth year as cartoonist for the Tribune.

The keystone of his methods in cartoon making is that he combines an up-to-date quality of conception and treatment with the elements that made the cartoons of yesterday popular and effective. This happy combination is evident to even the most casual observer of his work, and, by his skillful blending of the old and the new he has maintained a popularity that is visibly increasing with each succeeding year.

Mr. Carter is a firm believer in the humorous style of cartoon being a medium for good. He delights in humorous drawing and while he is the author of some very pointed cartoons a malicious sting has never been found concealed in any one of them.

Mr. Carter is well known in the west, not alone as a cartoonist, but also as an en­tertainer. As the popularity of his cartoons grew there came an increasing demand from various parts of the northwest that he appear in the role of cartoonist-enter­tainer. He finally decided to attempt this, and for several years has been giving "chalk talks," using colored crayons in his work before a large easel.

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I came across an original drawing by Frank Wing And I was hoping you or someone could tell me more about it. I know the man in the drawing is H.C. Hotaling who was a Committeeman at the American Printer. Please let me know if this is a rare item because I can't seem to find any of Frank Wings original work at auction or anywhere.
I can email or post a picture of the drawing let me know where to send it to.
Thank you
Sean M.
 
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Monday, November 30, 2015

 

"Wrap Your Pretty Red Lips Around a Spud"


If you're going to try selling a cigarette with the just-plain-awful name of Spuds, the marketing department must get creative.

Step one, find yourself a niche market not currently being served. Since your cigarettes are menthols, how about selling them to people with colds, the flu or other congestion and breathing-impairing ailments. Hell, Vicks is making a mint off of Vap-o-Rub, right? Best part is that this audience will not even realize if your cigarettes smell and taste like a sewage treatment plant in July. Score!

Second, what are two of the most important two words in marketing? That's right, "Sex Sells". This product is pretty bad, so we have to really amp up that angle. Okay, here's what we do. We get renowned girlie artist E. Simms Campbell to draw up a couple of strippers, clad only in their working clothes, and have them refer obliquely to oral sex, and even (can we get away with this, J.B.?) give the more sophisticated male libido the impression that they might be *gasp* lesbos!

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When I was a kid I'd see Spuds ads in old magazines and, knowing nothing about cigarettes, figured they were made from potatoes.
 
Who knows? Maybe they actually were made of potatoes. You know, like Spudnuts, except they're not doughnuts, they're cigarettes. Maybe they should have called them Spudarettes, or Potatoettes.
 
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Sunday, November 29, 2015

 

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics


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Never say never, Jim.

 
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