Stripper's Guide

[Cartoons Magazine, debuting in 1912, was a monthly magazine devoted primarily to reprinting editorial cartoons from U.S. and foreign newspapers. Articles about cartooning and cartoonists often supplemented the discussion of current events.

In November 1913 the magazine began to offer a monthly round-up of news about cartoonists and cartooning, eventually titled "What The Cartoonist Are Doing." There are lots of interesting historical nuggets in these sections, and this Stripper's Guide feature will  reprint one issue's worth each week.

Illustrations used here did not necessarily appear with the original articles.]

CULT OF THE UGLY
European artists have reproached American illustrators with inane prettiness and there has been some grounds for criticism. But we are sure that prettiness is better than the American imitation of the prevalent French and German cult of the ugly. Following one of the monthlies, one of the weeklies, which has changed hands without abandoning its claim to be a journal of civilization, has become so repulsive in the sheer brutality of its illustrations that families which have a care for the artistic taste of their members will probably dispense with it altogether.

Prize fights, which used to be relegated to pink weeklies of the levee bar room and barber shop, tough cabarets and other scenes offensive to taste, if not to morals, seem to be establishing themselves as regular features. A new cartoon style seems also to be impending. Instead of the kindliness which has been the prevailing trait of American satire, excepting the political work of a certain string of journals, hideous caricatures, not merely of individuals, but of humanity, have found their way into print here and there, as examples of the European manner. We shall be fortunate if we escape imitations of the madhouse productions of futurist pen and brush.

George McManus, 1908

First we are asked to satisfy curiosity by viewing reproductions of European fashions; then American artists here and there are tempted to try their hands in the same genre; and at last satire loses dignity, and force in abandoning measured restraint. It will not have to come to this, but it may come, unless readers revolt in the beginning.—Knoxville (Tenn.) Sentinel.

THE COUGH QUARTETTE
George McManus, cartoon author of “The Newlyweds,” returned from a motoring vacation in the back woods, with the following story which he tells in the Buffalo Enquirer:

“We were driving near the Berkshire Hills, and stopped off to fix a tire on one of the roads. While the chauffeur was busy at his work, and Sheehan was admiring the blue sky, I took a stroll. I came across four chaps that were as amusing as they were pathetic. They were four consumptives, in the hills for their health. Each one had a fierce cough, but each one was trying to look at the bright side of life, even if it had a gloomy outlook for him. Each believed he was a good singer, so when they told me they had a quartette I asked them to sing. Well, I hate to admit that I laughed, but one couldn't keep his sides from aching as they ripped off a few bars of their vocal music. They even had to laugh themselves.

“You see they were all coughing at some time or other. So one would sing a line of the song and then cough. The other fellow would sing the second line and cough, and so on, till the four had sung the song, and with a good breath and an extra effort they would wind up in a barber-shop 'cough'. I never saw fellows as good-natured and as happy as they were under such circumstances. Why, one of them was a tombstone carver, and the others were afraid he would cash in before he finished the design for their tombstones.”

AGAINST DEGRADING CARTOONS
Dr. F. M. Wood, in the Chicago Daily News, protests against cartoons of a low order and writes:

“Many of the trashy cartoons are of the character which teach disrespect to those who are older. Some even teach disrespect to parents. This is the surest way to breed lawlessness in the young, and lies as one of the most potent causes of juvenile delinquency and crime. Here is surely one of the causes of the “fresh” young fellow of the rising generation who takes no advice from any one.

"Many cartoons are of a very fine humor and distinctly educational in character. Such cartoons we praise and advocate. But there is great room for improvement, and we therefore need a crusade to wipe out these wicked cartoons.

“Cartoons which lampoon a great man of high character, showing him to be what he is not, will be suppressed by editors who discriminate. Cartoons which teach unnatural life will die. Cartoons which teach truth, and righteousness are alone fit for the eyes of a virtuous nation.”

PERSONAL GOSSIP OF THE CARTOONISTS
* Clare Briggs has issued a volume of humorous cartoons including the popular “Skin-nay” series. Wilbur D. Nesbit supplied appropriate verse to accompany each picture.

* Dennis McCarthy and Harold E. Smith, two Denver, cartoonists, were held up by a gun man and robbed. A policeman had his thumb shot off in a furious struggle with the thug, who was finally landed in jail.

* Sir John Tenniel, the greatest of English cartoonists, is now in his 94th year, and despite his great age is in good health. He joined the staff of Punch in 1851, retiring in 1901. Though probably most widely known for his political cartoons, he won undying fame by illustrating the “Alice” books and “Lalla Rookh.”

* The summer colony at Twin Lakes, Wash., gave a fleet parade in honor of cartoonist W. C. Morris.

* Harold. Heaton, cartoonist on the Inter Ocean, Chicago, has written a vaudeville sketch, which will be produced this winter. It is entitled “Dressing for Dinner.”

* Mrs. Battling Nelson (Fay King), recently cartoonist on the Denver Post, has been drawing and giving monologue at Pacific Coast vaudeville houses.

* Ross Cane is doing cartooning and clay modeling for a lyceum bureau.

* D. R. Fitzpatrick has left the Chicago News and gone to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, where he succeeds Minor, who goes to the New York World.

* K. K. Knecht, the cartoonist for the Evansville, Ind., Courier, took a ride in the air with aviator Roy N. Francis. The trip was made at Evansville, on the Ohio River. The flying boat used by Francis is the one he used in the Great Lakes cruise a month or so ago. A height of 1,200 feet was reached during the trip and it gave Knecht plenty of good material for a bunch of cartoon sketches and a chance to write a yarn of how it feels and how Evansville looked from the clouds.

* Tom Thurlby, who for the past two years has been secretary to Mayor Hartley, Everett, Wash., has returned to the fold and joined the Post-Intelligencer staff. Previously he was on the St. Paul Globe and Everett Tribune for several years.

* Don Marquis, in the New York Sun, takes a fling at various writers and asks cartoonists “why not occasionally, after a disaster, do something original, like a death's head?” What would he suggest as more appropriate, a jack-o'-lantern?

* Princess Patricia, daughter of the Duke of Connaught, is a very clever cartoonist. She delights to cartoon the nobility. “Pat” cartoons are all the rage.

OBITUARY
Howard Macon, of Denver, connected with the daily papers there, died recently. He had been in poor health for some time.

Miss Maria Stockton Bullit, a popular member of the younger set in New York society, was one of the victims of the recent New Haven road wreck. Not content to be a mere social butterfly, she was rapidly gaining attention for her clever cartoons of society folk which were published in the New York Evening Times.

Roscoe Semmel, cartoonist on the staff of the Rochester, N. Y., Herald, died at Tucson, Ariz., where he had gone in the hope of prolonging his life.

WHY CARTOONISTS GET BRAIN FEVER
Compiled by the gentleman who borrowed our shears and forgot to return them:

"What sort of a pen do you use?”

“Say, you ought to know a friend of mine. He can’t draw, but he's just full of ideas.”

“Gee, you’ve got an awful cinch. Getting a day's pay for doing one or two little pictures. Why I bet I could do that in an hour.”

“I used to could draw pretty good myself, but I sorter got out of the way of it after I quit school."

“Say'll you draw me a little picture to send to a friend of mine? Make a man, going across the street leading a dog and an automobile coming around the corner and hitting him, and a brass band going by on the other side and a crowd looking on. It'll only take you about 10 minutes and my friend is just crazy about your pictures.”

“I've got a little nephew and he's some, punkins on drawing. Why he's got Gibson and Flagg and the rest of them big guns lashed to the mast.”— Milwaukee Journal.

WHEN THE CARTOON WAS BORN
Do you remember the days in school when you showed your contempt for Bill Simpson by “making pictures” of him on your slate, holding the slate so that he and a few choice cronies of your own could see? It didn’t matter whether you could draw or not. You could make something that looked like Bill by drawing a particularly big mouth that turned down at the corners, seven hairs that stood up straight on his head, freckles that looked like polka dots, teeth like tombstones, no body and two sticks for legs. That was when the cartoon was born.

Some of those that are being used today by grown-ups who want to “make faces” at one another have about as much raison d'etre, as little art and humor as the pictures that were drawn on slates in the little red schoolhouse. A good cartoon is a delight as well as an effective weapon. Some of the strong ones do as much damage as cannon balls. The more clever ones linger in the memory like the rapier thrusts of a keen satirist.—Stockton (Cal.) Record.

RUBBER-STAMP CARTOONISTS
“Then the whining school-boy, with his satchel and shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school.”

One sentence of Shakespeare has made all cartoonists akin. We have come upon in our exchanges, it seems, some hundreds of cartoons, all of which show the schoolboy going to school with the heaviness with which a man goes to the county treasurer's to pay up delinquent taxes. They show him taking a last regretful look at the old swimmin' hole, pleading a sudden illness, expressing a hope that the schoolhouse will be struck by lightning, rebelling against soap that blinds and tastes like sin, making a face over an irksome collar and putting on the air of the chief mourner at the funeral when the teacher remarks that she is glad to see so many bright and shining faces, eager for the year's studies.

Cartoonists are like poets in that they are constitutionally timid about beating down new paths. What one does they all do; what one did a half century ago, so will the pack of them be found doing today. Yet there will be a break some day when one of them, instead of leaning on Shakespeare and the rubber-stamp of the craft, goes forth and watches the children the first morning of school.-Toledo (O.) Blade.

Labels: What The Cartoonists Are Doing

Dave Breger sold quite a few Private Breger cartoons off to postcard manufacturers during World War II, so why stop after the war? Here's a much later card; no copyright year is given and the card is unused but I'm going to say late 1950s?  This one was part of a series published by Nyack Art Pictures.

Labels: Wish You Were Here

Walter Archibald Sinclair was born on January 6, 1882, in Chicago, Illinois, according to his World War II draft card. However, the Parsons Family: Descendants of Cornet Joseph Parsons; Springfield, 1636–Northampton, 1655 (1912) said Sinclair was born in December 1881.

The 1900 U.S. Federal Census recorded Sinclair, his widower father, Hector, and older sister, Harriet, and a servant in Chicago at 5513 to 5525 Monroe Avenue. Sinclair’s birth was recorded as January 1882. He was a newspaper artist. Information about his art training has not been found.

The Chicago Ledger published his stories, “The Lieutenant of Engine Ten” on November 7, 1903 and “The Nitro Handlers” on January 26, 1907 (see page 12).



At some point Sinclair moved to New York City. His earliest work appeared in the New York Evening World starting in 1904 and ending in 1907. Most of his material was writing verse but he did illustrate some of his work such as Glad Rags on September 23, 1904. 



A photograph of Sinclair accompanied his piece, Santa Claus’s Understudy, in the December 25, 1905 Evening World.

Sinclair’s provided serialized material for the Evening World. American Newspaper Comics (2012) said The Two Cons ran from July 9 to October 18, 1904.

In 1908 Sinclair moved to the New York Evening Telegram where he produced a number of “versitorial” cartoons and illustrated his columns Dottie Dialogues, The Tired Businessman, Mrs. Gadd, the Restorer, and The Innocent Bystander. American Newspaper Comics said Sinclair produced two series, Neighborly Miss Nosey (September 5, 1908 to March 6, 1909) and Sentimental Sidney—He Imagines (March 13 to October 23, 1909). He also drew the final strip of J.E. Cosgriff’s The Visit of Caesar and Antony on September 9, 1908.

Parsons Family said Sinclair married Enid Kerr in 1905 but did not identify the location.

In 1910 newspaper cartoonist Sinclair, his wife, two children, Milton and Elaine, and a servant resided in the Bronx at 843 Manida Street. His occupation in the 1911 New York City directory was reporter and his address was unchanged.

Sinclair was found in the 1915 New York state census in Hollis, Queens County, New York on Villard Avenue. The newspaper writer had a third child, Lois.

On September 12, 1918 Sinclair signed his World War I draft card. His address was the corner of Husson and Belleview in Hollis. Sinclair was a news writer for the “Y.M.C.A. War Work Council”. He was described as tall, medium build with blue eyes and brown hair.

Sinclair resided at the same location in the 1920 census. He was a publicity agent for a paper agency.

Sinclair’s home in the 1940 census was 110 Lincoln Avenue in Mineola, Nassau County, New York. He was director of public information at the American Red Cross. He and his wife were empty-nesters.

Sinclair signed his World War II draft card on April 26, 1942. He lived in Mineola but at 100 Bradley Place, and continued working at the New York Chapter of the American Red Cross. His description was five feet six inches, 160 pounds with blue eyes and gray hair.

Sinclair passed away April 10, 1979, in West Bend, Wisconsin according to the Wisconsin Death Index at Ancestry.com.


—Alex Jay

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

Walter Sinclair was primarily a writer of humorous prose and verse when he was employed by Pulitzer in the early years of the century, and he wasn't bad at it. But he also fancied himself a cartoonist, a belief to which I do not subscribe. Sinclair's cartoons were generally rather amateurish, but much worse, when he applied his talent to comic strips they were obviously slapdash, with no real effort expended. Sinclair was not totally inept, as can occasionally be seen in his work, he just didn't seem to care for drawing strips. The lettering was especially awful, in fact it was sometimes almost totally illegible. So why was it that editors at Pulitzer and then at the New York Herald allowed the fellow's cartoons to appear in print?

That's not a question I can answer, but I can show you samples to back up my claim. Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I commend to you the Neighborly Miss Nosey strips above as proof. I rest my case.

Neighborly Miss Nosey ran as a weekdays strip in the New York Evening Telegram from September 5 1908 to March 6 1909.

Labels: Obscurities

Don C. Wilson was born around 1881 in Lincoln, Nebraska. His birth date is based a census record and the birthplace was identified in magazine and newspaper profiles. Wilson has not yet been found in the 1900 and 1910 U.S. Federal Censuses.

A profile said Wilson was self-taught. Here is a rough timeline of his career.

Late 1890s
Wilson was hired by Colonel D. R. Anthony to work at the Nebraska State Journal and, later, the Leavenworth Times (Kansas).

1901
Wilson resided at 1939 N Street, in Lincoln, Nebraska, when his cartoons were published in The Inland Printer’s October and November issues. 

Late 1901 or early 1902
After the The Inland Printer magazine exposure, Wilson was hired by Mr. H. H. Fish of the Western Newspaper Union and employed for about eight years.

1902
Wilson’s cartoon appeared in the October issue of the Satellite published by Hal Bixby from Chicago.

1904
Wilson illustrated the newspaper serialization of Mary Devereux’s 1902 novel Lafitte of Louisiana. 

1908
William Schmedtgen hired Wilson to be sports cartoonist at the Chicago Record-Herald. Wilson was mentioned as a Record-Herald cartoonist in the Marion Daily Mirror
(Ohio), September 11, 1908.

1910
Wilson was employed at the Chicago Daily Tribune, where American Newspaper Comics (2012) said Wilson drew Let the Little Tribune Wan-Tads Get It for You.

1911
The January issue of The Inland Printer featured Wilson again. 

The “Tip” and “Pull” Man of the Chicago Tribune.

There are cartoonists and cartoonists — cartoonists who command the most conspicuous space on the first page of the metropolitan daily newspaper; cartoonists who cover topical events of the day; cartoonists who go in for sporting events; cartoonists who both deride and encourage the dramatic arts. All these cartoonists have long been recognized as necessary to the make-up of the city newspaper, but who ever heard of a want-ad. cartoonist who could shine in his own line?

Don Wilson, the Chicago Daily Tribune’s own special want-ad. cartoonist, has evolved a pair of most engaging and persuasive twins, called “Tip” and “Pull,” who work together persistently and satisfactorily; and, despite the fact that the “stunt” is an advertising one, the quaint gnomes are droll and really humorous. There is a weirdness in their prompt execution of orders; the man or woman who happens to cross their path has no chance of escaping a good job. They cover every field of endeavor — sell things, buy things, get you a job, get you an employee — “put you wise” to every good thing you may desire.

Don Wilson, when spoken to on the subject of his creation, said: “This interview stuff gets my goat. Every time I read an ‘interview’ I feel sorry for the boob who has to stand for it — unless he’s an actor. Actors feed on such fodder, you know — but the personal note in an article of this sort sounds too much like bunk.

“Yes, The Inland Printer was kind enough to give me a boost some nine or ten years ago. I was fooling with the dangerous art of cartooning in the old chalk-plate days on the Nebraska State Journal. Old Colonel [D. R.] Anthony (who is about the last of the old-time ‘fighting’ editors) used me afterward on the Leavenworth Times. One day I sent you a bunch of really funny pen-and-ink drawings (funny because they were rotten), and you told the world about me and showed me up with my stuff. Mr. H. H. Fish, of the Western Newspaper Union, sent for and got me. Some eight years in his service put me all to the good. Afterward, Mr. William Schmedtgen, of the Record-Herald, took me on as sporting cartoonist. Following this momentous period, while the whole United States held its breath, I did a lot of good bum stuff. Anyway, to cut a long story short, the Chicago Tribune, recognizing my supernal gifts and the excessive merits of my ‘Tip’ and ‘Pull,’ grabbed me up.

“Speaking seriously, I really think I have created something positively new in ‘Tip’ and ‘Pull.’ There never were two characters in all comic art so dissimilar, yet so cooperative, so original, or unprecedented. To myself I hug the unction that no one can find their individual or collective doubles in any publication of any date, in Europe or America. They stand alone.

“There are curious coincidences in my connection with the great Chicago Tribune. Not to mention Mr. Bryan, of perennial president fame, who hails loudly from Lincoln, Nebraska, U. S. A., there are quite a few who have attained equal, or less, distinction in other lines, who come from the same old town. Herbert Johnson, of the Philadelphia North American, is another; Claire Briggs, of the Chicago Tribune, is another; Don Wilson is another. It must be understood, however, that no blame is laid to Mr. Bryan.

“I can’t say enough about The Inland Printer. I really got my first start in the art game through its columns. Not only am I grateful, but I am always impatient to see the next number. It represents the art preservative as the Bible represents all religion. You will find The Inland Printer in nearly every office in the Chicago Tribune building. You will find it in my fifteen-year collection of art works. I am quite glad that you have paid attention to me.”

Mr. Wilson was born and reared in a printing-office, and is thoroughly imbued with the newspaper instinct. His rise was inevitable, and more will be heard from him later. To be employed jealously by so great a newspaper as the Chicago Tribune is an honor coveted by many another ambitious newspaper worker.

The accompanying pictures disclose Mr. Wilson’s peculiar views of humor and will particularly amuse The Inland Printer’s readers.

Wilson was featured prominently in the State Journal, September 24, 1911 article about Lincoln, Nebraska cartoonists.


1915
The New York state census counted thirty-four year old artist, Wilson, at 1947 Broadway in Manhattan, New York City.

1917
The New York Sun, October 31, 1917, reported the death of six men, including Wilson, from drinking wood alcohol.

Six Dead from “War Whiskey” Sold as Drink
One Other Dying and Bleecker Street Saloon Keeper in Custody.

Labelled as Bourbon

Symptoms Indicate Wood Alcohol Sold in Bar as “Kentucky’s Best.”

Six men died yesterday as the result of drinking “war whiskey” and another is in a serious condition from the same cause. Six of the victims lived in the Mills Hotel in Bleecker street and the seventh lodges in that vicinity.

The “war whiskey” is believed to have been made of wood alcohol or some other inexpensive poison to substitute for the liquor which saloon keepers were able to dispense for ten cents a drink previous to the increase in taxes. An autopsy will be performed on one or more of the men to establish the exact poison that is being sold, but there !s enough evidence from the condition of the victims to warrant strong suspicion of wood alcohol. Those of the victims who were attended by physicians before death or lapsing into a coma were found to have suffered complete paralysis of the optic nerves.

There is no bar at the Mills Hotel. Furthermore, it was pointed out at the hotel that two or three of the men were found not in their rooms, but on the street.

Saloon Keeper Arrested

The first case that came to the attention of the police was that of Charles Collins, who early Monday morning was found lying in Bleecker street, near Macdougal. He was taken to Bellevue Hospital suffering apparently from alcoholic coma. He died early yesterday morning. Collins, it is said, was a porter in a saloon at 155 Bleecker street Late last night Antonio Dealfanso, the proprietor, was locked up pending an investigation. In the saloon were found bottles labelled “Kentucky’s Best Whiskey.”

A bottle of whacky bearing that label was found in the room at the Mills Hotel. Clinton Arnold, a salesman, who died shortly after 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon, a few hours after being taken to a hospital. One victim, according to the police, said last night in St. Vincent’s Hospital he had purchased the liquor which caused his illness at the Bleecker street saloon. Dealfanso told the police he had purchased his stock from an express man.

Charles K. Jones, found on the street near the saloon at 5 o’clock yesterday afternoon, died a few minutes later at St. Vincent’s. Patrick Cahill, found in his room ill with alcoholic poisoning earlier in the day, died late last night.

Two other lodgers at the hotel were taken to St. Vincent’s in serious condition. They are Harry Burke and Elmer Smith. Smith died early this morning.

Was Soon to Be Married.

Don C. Wilson registered at a rooming house at 510 Broadway at 1 A. M. yesterday. Apparently he was intoxicated. When an attendant went into his room at 6 o’clock last evening he was lying dead. Wilson, shortly before his death, had written a letter to a friend in which he indicated that until recently his address had been at 1959 Broadway. Several letters in his possession were from a brother who is traveling with a circus.

One letter which Wilson evidently had just written was signed “Uncle Don,” and was inscribed to “Ruth.” It told of his coming marriage to the actress, who, said the letter, was beautiful and charming and talented” and “such as you will be proud of and like.” She had been at various times engaged in productions by leading film companies, had posed for one or two artists and had appeared in the spoken drama. Wilson wrote that his fiancee was accomplished in music. He met her, he said, at the Art Students’ League in 1915.

At the boarding house it was said that the man had spoken of having been a cartoonist and portrait painter, but that he had had recent reverses in his finances. On the police register he is down as a waiter. At the Broadway address, which is a building of many studios, among other forms of apartments, no one could be found last night who knew Wilson.

Societies which have in recent years endeavored to obtain legislation prohibiting the manufacture in the United States of wood alcohol have pointed out that several countries of Europe, notably Great Britain, now have such laws. The drug is one of the most deadly poisons known. Swallowed in exceedingly small quantities it causes blindness and internal disorders. It may cause paralysis of the optic nerves even if only inhaled.

In most cases where deaths have resulted in New York through the drinking of wood alcohol the trouble largely has been through ignorance of druggists or saloon keepers that the liquid was poisonous. It is for that reason that steps have been taken to limit its sale and to prohibit entirely its manufacture.

—Alex Jay

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

There have been a lot of comic strips created to help pull readers into the newspaper classified section, and one of the earlier ones is from the Chicago Tribune. In 1910 they put on a marketing effort that initially placed a strip on one page of the classifieds. The strip starred Tip and Pull, a pair of flying sprites who gave a new lease on life to some poor hapless schmuck in each episode. How did they do that? Why, by directing said schmuck to the classified ads in the Tribune, of course.

The rather loquacious title was originally Tip and Pull - Let The Little Tribune Wan-Tads Get It For You when it debuted on October 17, but it wasn't long before the tads' names were left off in a nod to overworked typesetters.

The strip wasn't terribly interesting, frankly, but then someone in the Trib marketing department had a truly brilliant idea.  They changed it so that each panel of the strip ran on a different page of the classified section. Result: readers had to look through the whole section to read the comic strip. It would only be by the time they got to the final panel that they'd realize they'd been had and there was no real gag waiting for them. Despite the brilliant idea, the strip didn't have a long run, last appearing on December 2 1910.

The strip was created by Don Wilson, who left few footprints I could find. I don't have any other listings for him. He was doing some serviceable cartoon cuts for Chicago's Suburban Economist in the 00s, but his common name makes him too hard for me to track. But fear not, the intrepid Alex Jay has uncovered his story. And it's a sad one, too. Be here tomorrow for Don Wilson's Ink-Slinger Profile.

Labels: Obscurities