Obscurity of the Day: Mrs. Brass

I know nothing about cartoonist Jack Rogers except that he worked for the World Color Printing shop from at least 1906 to 1909, and then as far as I can tell, fell off the face of the Earth. Barring a miracle, I'm guessing Alex Jay will have little luck tracking down a fellow who has such a common name.

Mr. Rogers was no great shakes as a cartoonist. As the sample above shows, his cartooning was rather wooden and his gags, at least for the Mrs. Brass series, weren't exactly going to keep Mark Twain up at night worrying about his place at the top of the humorist pantheon. Mrs. Brass was one of only two series which Rogers created himself; the other two he worked on were inherited from other cartoonists.

The one-note Mrs. Brass, who puts her doting hubby through the wringer with her unreasonable demands, ran in the WCP section from July 25 to October 17 1909*. It was Rogers' last new series, and apparently closed out his cartooning career.


* Source: Canton Repository