Saturday, February 22, 2020

 

What The Cartoonists Are Doing, January 1916 (Vol.9 No.1)

[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.]



BERRYMAN AND THE TEDDY BEAR
The following sketch of Clifford K. Berryman, cartoonist of the Washington Star, appeared recently in the Louisville Courier-Journal. The writer is Daisy Fitzhugh Ayres.

Everybody knows, of course, that Mr. Berryman is the originator of the immortal Teddy bear. The bear is his emblem and insignia. The saucy little beast that he has popularized all over the world peeps out irrelevantly in many of his bright cartoons. The little familiar bear upon his hind legs appears embossed on Mr. Berryman's stationery. It is incorporated in drawings that he sends his friends and often on the place cards that he is angelic enough to decorate for his wife's luncheons and dinners.

When the man that made the bear famous wants an engagement with his august oculist with whom other people find difficulty in securing an audience, he merely dashes off a little bear upon a post card with a question mark beside it, and the great man at once makes a date with the man as great.
The well-known cartoonist, philanthropically disposed, has drawn many thousands of little bears and drawn many audiences, too, in delivering delightful hundreds of "chalk talks" for charity. Mr. Berryman is as eloquent almost with tongue as with his pencil. The war sufferers have been constant beneficiaries of his talents at public entertainments.

Nor are the artistic and forensic abilities of the family confined to the older generation. Mr. Berryman has a little son, a boy of 12, who is following promptly in the foot prints and the finger marks of his distinguished sire.

Young James is a worthy chip off the ancestral block. He does Teddy bears and chalk talks, too.
Before school was out this summer Mr. and Mrs. Berryman, all "unbeknown" to their young hopeful, stepped into the Friday afternoon exercises of the grade, of which Berryman fils figured on the programme. Proud and amused were the intruding parents to see the confidence with which the youngster, in unconscious imitation of his father, walked to the blackboard and proceeded to illustrate a little running fire of apt comment on things in general, with swift sketches with his chalk. His admiring classmates howled with joy at the boy's clever portraiture of President Wilson, W. J. Bryan and Col. Roosevelt and others of the world's celebrities.

The older of the two children of the house of Berryman, Miss Florence, is a pretty girl in the early teens, with the sweet courtesy of manner of dead and gone generations, and as great a talent for music as her father and brother have for drawing things. She performed Mendelssohn's difficult Rondo Capriccioso with finished technique when she was only twelve.

Mrs. Berryman is president of the Cultus Club, that well-known organization of brainy women. She was a Washington girl.

Before Mr. Berryman's rise to fame he was the special protege of Senator Jo Blackburn, who admired the budding talents of the Woodford county boy,

CLUBB FORCES THE ISSUE
A cartoonist who did not wait for campaign issues, but who made the issues with his cartoons is John Scott Clubb, of the Rochester Herald. In the recent municipal elections in Rochester political leaders admitted freely the influence of his cartoons. Although his party lost, Clubb's work, it is said, will long be remembered.

He centered his drawings about two characters, "Uncle" George W. Aldridge, G. O. P. State Committeeman, and admitted "boss" of the city machine, and Mayor Edgerton, Republican candidate for reelection. So earnestly did Clubb lampoon these partners, and so effective was his satire, that the Democratic-Progressive committee printed 10,000 copies of a booklet containing the cartoons, the supply of which was soon exhausted.

The cartoonist is country-bred, and still retains his love of rustic ways. His home, which was designed by himself and artist friends, contains a unique workroom, a replica of a farmhouse kitchen, furnished to the minutest detail with fidelity to the original. With its rag rugs, rush-bottomed chairs, horn lanterns, and golden corn hung from the rafters, every corner of the room is redolent of old-fashioned country life and comfort.

Clubb is never so happy as when working in the garden with overalls and garden tools. His love of the bucolic is reflected in many of his drawings, which have won for him hundreds of country admirers. One day he drew a cartoon in which a milkman was seen seated on the wrong side of the cow. The flood of protests from his farmer friends amounted almost to a deluge.

USING A McCUTCHEON CARTOON
John T. McCutcheon's cartoon in the Chicago Tribune, picturing the lad whose mother did not raise her boy to be a soldier, has been used as a recruiting poster by the Seventy-First Infantry, New York National Guard. Under a reproduction of the cartoon is the following announcement:

SEVENTY-FIRST INFANTRY, N. G., N. Y.
wants a limited number of the other kind of young men;

the kind with red blood in their veins.
ARMORY, THIRTY-FOURTH ST. 8 PARK AVE.
Headquarters nights Tuesday and Friday.
Drop in and talk it over. 


Mr. McCutcheon is now in the Balkans for the Tribune.

CARTOONS AND CAPITALISTS

"Turning over the leaves of a socialist paper," writes Carolyn Vance, in the New Orleans State, "I came upon the caricature of a 'typical capitalist.' Some day I am going to the editor of that paper and tell him that his staff artist is slipping something over on him. It's all wrong . .  . You know the creature of the cartoons. He is usually pictured sitting, huge and unwieldy, glaring at an emaciated workman. He doesn't look as if he had the strength to deal a hand at cards."

Miss Vance, who is something of a cartoonist herself, to prove her point, looked up some "typical capitalists" on the New Orleans Cotton Exchange. She concludes: "A true picture of the capitalist would be hard to draw. He would have to be both fat and thin; both jovial and taciturn."

BRINK DROPS INTO VERSE
Friends of R. M. Brinkerhoff, the New York Evening Mail cartoonist, have learned not to be surprised at anything he does. Nature endowed him with a number of gifts, including a fine tenor voice, and the ability to write. It is not often, however, that Brink drops into poetry, but some verses over his signature that headed the "Mail Chute" column of the Mail the other day reveal him in an altogether new light. Rather gruesome verses — but here they are:

A GREAT LAKES BALLAD
Just out a ways from Sarnia —
A half a mile or more —
There's a little island lyin'
And the Minnie D is plyin'
Past the little pier
A-pointin' out from shore.

It's here my Island Mary lives
An' stands out on the pier,
Her dress all white and flyin'
A-lookin' out an' tryin'
To reco'nize and hail me
When I sails my cat up near.

I never liked her skipper,
An' swore I never would;
A fairly decent chap he was . . .
But I could never go him, 'cause
A-sailin' out he'd beat too close
To where my Mary stood.

Somehow I knowed he loved her;
I mighta known before;
He'd keep the kids a-sailin',
A-tendin' sheet and bailin'
An 'him just settin' watchin'
Somethin' white along the shore.

An' when I seen him landin'
The sweat come out on me.
'Twas then I swore I'd drown 'im
With his British flag around 'im
So there'd be no Union Jackie
On the schooner Minnie D.

I seen my chance an' done it —
I hope Gawd didn't see.
They found his body floatin'
All soft an' blue and bloatin'.
The papers called it accident —
That's near enough for me.

STATION MASTER CARTOONIST

A station master doubtless has many opportunities for observing human nature, but there are few station masters who can put their observations into concrete form. An exception is Charles Black, the "man in gray" at the Southern Pacific station at Sacramento, Cal. Mr. Black, who cherished boyhood ambitions to become a cartoonist, now occupies his spare time drawing caricatures of prominent persons of his city. Traveling men, policemen, and railroad men are among his favorite subjects.

EXHIBITS WAR CARTOONS
War cartoons from European papers were exhibited recently by Prof. Roland G. Usher in the Washington University auditorium, St. Louis. In the course of an address which accompanied the exhibit Professor Usher said that the cartoonist's art in Europe was a generation behind the same art in America. Many European cartoons, he declared, were drawn down to the comprehension of those who cannot read. War cartoons, the speaker argued, were intended by editors to please their readers by coinciding with the ideas the latter already had formed. Thus, all the cartoonist had to do, he said, was to cheer the people up by depicting to them the stupidity of their enemies, or to anger them by portraying the barbarism of the enemy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Harold Heaton, formerly cartoonist of the Chicago Inter Ocean, has been teaching dramatics to certain Chicago north-shore society persons. Mr. Heaton recently returned from an extended Chautauqua tour of Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky, which reminded him, he said, of his barnstorming days as an actor.



A BROOKLYN PRODIGY

A nine days' wonder just now in Brooklyn, N. Y., is Frank Martin, a 13-year-old cartoonist, who promises to become another Bud Fisher. The New York Herald, in appreciation of the lad's cleverness, publishes a sketch of his representing a reception to the Herald "funny folks."
Frank says that he would rather draw pictures than study. "The only hit I make at school," he says, "is at Christmas time, when I draw Santa Clauses and reindeers on the blackboard. At other times I am not popular with the teacher."

FITZ AS A MODELER
D. R. Fitzpatrick, whose cartoons for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch have placed him within so short a time in the cartoonist's Hall of Fame, has been experimenting in a new field. Fitz has ambitions to become a second Phidias, and to that end has modeled a group of figures which was among the attractions at the recent newspaper artists' exhibition at the St. Louis Press Club. Two rather mournful figures of a tramp, huddling for warmth against a brick wall, were conventionalized in a pair of book ends. Fitz's masterpiece, however, shown herewith, was a candlestick design in which a charming, semidraped female figure is seen. "They are my first attempts," writes the artist, "so go easy on them."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

An exhibition of English recruiting posters has been opened at the Hohenzollern Kunstgewerbehaus in Berlin. The proceeds will be given to the home for airmen established by the German aerial league.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Associated Illustrators and Central Art League of New York have opened studios in the McCarthy building in Syracuse.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Cartoons of the British Tommy by the artists of Kladderadatsch, and other German periodicals, are being used as targets in Bavaria for shooting practice.

WHERE WILDERNESS IS PARADISE

Writing from the New York Globe, H. T. Webster, cartoonist-in-chief for that palladium, says that he has returned safely from Raquette Lake in the Adirondacks, where he got a taste of millionaire camp life, and that he never expects to see such a fancy place again. There were electric lights, bowling alleys, billiard tables, a shooting gallery, a power boat, and a hydro plane. As for birds, Web says that he saw two, and managed to bag one. He also caught one bass. Deer were plentiful, though, he adds, and one of the party shot a fine buck.

While in the mountain camp, the author of "Boyhood Thrills" was introduced to a new kind of thrill — fantan, played not with cards, but with Chinese cash. Anyone, says Web, will become a fantan fan, once he has played the game. Herb Roth made several caricatures of the gamesters.

INFLUENCE OF CARTOONING
An illustrated lecture on "Caricature and Cartoons" was given recently before the Thursday Morning Club of Trenton, N. J., by Arthur M. Howe, editor of the Brooklyn Eagle. Mr. Howe sketched the history of political cartooning in its earlier stages in England and France, and traced the evolution of the art both in Europe and in the United States. He gave considerable attention to the achievements of Thomas Nast, particularly Nast's fight against the Tweed ring.



IN THE STONE-BRUISE AGE
One of Bushnell's. new "kid" cartoons. His series, "In The Stone-Bruise Age", is winning him new friends.




WINS POSTER PRIZE
Mrs. Harry Payne Whitney's $100 prize for the best poster on the subject of "The Immigrant in America," has been won by Adolph Triedler, of New York, who has made a name for himself by his remarkable poster designs. Mr. Triedler is a member of the Art Students' League.

FAMOUS SAYINGS
The New York Tribune has been depicting in cartoon American history as it would be if interpreted in terms of present-day currency in politics.

The first cartoon represented George Washington refusing command of the continental army because he was "too proud to fight;" and other subjects are:

Patrick Henry delivering his famous speech: "Give me liberty or give me 'strict accountability.'"

Benjamin Franklin informing George III that the Declaration of Independence was for home consumption only.

General Grant writing his memorable dispatch: "I intend to talk it out on this line if it takes all summer."

WEED IN A SMASHUP
Clive R. Weed, cartoonist of the Philadelphia Evening Ledger, and Mrs. Weed were painfully injured recently when the automobile in which they were riding collided with a telegraph pole near their home at Fox Chase. Mrs. Weed was thrown through the windshield, and badly cut and bruised. Mr. Weed managed to remain in the car. His injuries were less serious.

HARDING'S VERSES AND THEIR ANSWER
Nelson Harding, cartoonist of the Brooklyn Eagle, recently penned some verses in his newspaper that appear to have got under the skin of some of our good hyphenated Americans. "Issues and Events," a weekly newspaper dedicated to the task of explaining the German viewpoint, reprints Mr. Harding's verses, and then answers them. Thus:

KRUPPODILE TEARS by Nelson Harding
"I weep for France," the Kaiser said.
"I deeply sympathize."
With sobs and tears he sorted out
Shells of the largest size,
Holding his pocket handkerchief
Before his streaming eyes.

"HYPHENATED-NEUTRALITY" TEARS
"We pray for peace," some Yankees say.
"We deeply sympathize."
"With sobs and tears," they're sending out
Shells of the largest size
Direct, or via Canada,
To England, France and Russia;
To Russia, butcher of not few.
My dear "N. H.," what right have you
To hypocrit — i — c — i — z — e?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Philadelphia Evening Ledger has presented Billy Sunday, the evangelist, with a framed cartoon drawn by C. H. Sykes of that paper. The cartoon, entitled "Safety First," pictures Satan fleeing before the announcement of Sunday's revival.

ONLY A WOODEN BLOCK
IT was only a wooden block, and yet. if it had been the relic of a saint, it couldn't have attracted more ardent groups of devotees. It was the original block of Tom Nast's Tweed cartoon that marked the beginning of the famous fight against the New York ring. The block, its surface engraved with a figure of a heavy man, bowing obsequiously, with one hand between the folds ot his coat, formed part of the November exhibition held by the American Institute of Graphic Arts at the National Arts Club, New York.

In the same case was to be seen a small volume illustrated with woodcuts by Nast, and entitled ''The Fight in Miss Europea's School; Showing How the German Boy Thrashed the French Boy, and How the English Boy Looked On." The cartoons were inspired by the Franco-German war.

Another interesting Nast exhibit consisted of a wooden block bearing an unfinished cartoon. It was drawn at a time when there was much mystery as to whom Grant would pick for his cabinet. It shows Grant shaking seven cats out of a bag, each cat completely, drawn except for the head. The artist sent the block into Grant's private office, with a request that the president complete it. Grant laughed heartily, but he refused to identify the cats that were "out of the bag."

UNCOMMON CENSORSHIP
American cartoons on Russia's reverses evidently are not popular in the land of the Little Father. The Literary Digest prints in a recent issue censored portions of its pages from a July number that had the misfortune to reach the empire of Russia. Thus, a cartoon by Sykes, of the Philadelphia Evening Ledger, showing the Russian bear being ejected from the door of Austria, comes back completely blotted out, as does also one of Nelson Harding's Brooklyn Eagle cartoons, which represents Bruin as rather short of ammunition.

"It must be frankly admitted," says the editor, "that the cartoons are not altogether calculated to fill the heart of a tender-skinned censor with joy. . . . It is a bit disquieting, however, to feel that one's editorial efforts are of such a character that a great Empire of 175,000,000 must be protected from them."





DE BECK'S NEW COMICS
Will De Beck, formerly cartoonist of the Pittsburgh Gazette-Times, has removed from Pittsburgh to Chicago, where he is portraying for the Adams syndicate the adventures of two comic characters whom he has named "Finn an' Haddie." So favorable has been the reception of this feature that Mr. De Beck is looking forward to a life of luxury. During his spare time he intends to study at the Chicago Art Institute. He has furnished an apartment near the lake on the north side. One of Finn an' Haddie's adventures is por trayed herewith.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

H. H. Playford, cartoonist of the Johannesburg (South Africa) Post, is planning to make the United States his permanent home. Prior to his South African connection Mr. Playford lived in London, where his work appeared in many of the British illustrated newspapers and weeklies. He will leave soon for America.

NOT UNETHICAL
According to a decision recently rendered by the judiciary committee of the American Medical Association, it is not a violation of professional ethics for a physician to permit himself to be cartooned. This was the verdict given after hours of deliberation following charges preferred by certain Virginia physicians against Dr. George Ben Johnson, of Richmond.

THE SECRET'S OUT
H. Mitchell is one of New York's foremost artists and H. T. Webster is likewise a leading cartoonist. They spend their vacations together in the Adirondacks, borrow each other's cigars and show other traits of untrammeled friendship.

This period of chumminess has extended over several years and in that time neither has known the other's first name. When the subject is ever brought up they have shown such a natural skittishness that they quickly veered to other topics.

The other night, however, both attended a banquet. The toastmaster — an uncouth person with no regard for the finer sensibilities — called upon "Harold Mitchell" to speak. Webster almost fell off his seat with joy until a little later the toastmaster called upon "Harold Webster."

Neither refers to the incident for it seems that they had often discussed with great vehemence how they hated the name Harold. — Passaic (N. J.) News.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Hal Eyre, cartoonist of the Sydney (Australia) Telegraph, writes that he has been in the thick of a hot political campaign, and that cartoons on international subjects have been sidetracked.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The body of Phil Porter, the young Chicago cartoonist, who had been missing for several months, was found recently on the shore of Twin Island, near Morris. Ill., by two hunters. Identification was made by Miss Annette Styles, Mr. Porter's fiancee. The body had lain in the water for a long time, and was scarcely recognizable. How he met his death is a mystery.

THE FRAME WAS WORTH IT
Like most great artists, Frank Brangwyn, of London, whose recruiting posters have induced many a young Britisher to join the colors, and whose panels at the San Francisco exposition have won him thousands of American admirers, had hard sledding in his younger days. On one occasion he made an effort to raise the ridiculously small sum of ten pounds on one of his pictures. The dealer looked at it and made an offer of ten shillings. The artist replied indignantly that the frame alone was worth that much. "I am aware of that," replied the dealer; "that is what I'm buying."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Lewis C. Gregg, cartoonist of the Atlanta Constitution, has opened an art school in Atlanta where he will give special attention to newspaper and cartoon work. Mr. Gregg is a member of the Art Students' League of New York, and one of the leading cartoonists of the South.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Dayton (Ohio) friends of W. A. Rogers, the New York Herald cartoonist, recall that as a boy he worked in his brother's paper mill in the Ohio city.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Jack Casey, former New York and San Francisco newspaper cartoonist, who was reported missing after the fighting in the Champagne district, and believed to have been killed, has reached Chalons, where he has been sent to the hospital suffering from a foot wound.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Bert Levy
Bert Levy, creator of the "Samuel and Sylenz" series of comics, has voluntarily surrendered a salary of $12,000 a year, and paid $2,200 to be released from his contract, rather than continue the series which he found was offensive to his fellow Jews.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. and Mrs. Edgar A. Schilder announce the arrival of a baby girl. Mr. Schilder, formerly cartoonist of the Fort Wayne Journal-Gazette, is now with the International Syndicate of Baltimore.

NO TIME TO BOAST

Like the person who cried out ungrammatically, "I will drown! Nobody shall save me!" was the Kentuckian in Fontaine Fox's latest story. Fox says that he was swimming in the Ohio River near Louisville last summer when he saw a man leap from a skiff in midstream. He sank two or three times, and came up sputtering. "I can't swim!" he gasped. The companion of the victim, who had remained in the boat, watched the unfortunate with languid interest. "Well," he finally drawled, "if you can't swim, this is a fine time to be bragging about it."

FROM SPORTS TO BOOZE
Thomas Doere, formerly sports cartoonist for the Philadelphia Times and the Boston Traveler, and more recently associated with R. O. Evans in the publication of a cartoon book in Baltimore, is now drawing a daily cartoon for Dr. W. E. Biederwolf, the evangelist. He is at present in York, Pa., where he is waging a cartoon fight against the liquor traffic.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Keeping up with the Joneses," the comic series by Arthur G. Momand ("Pop") has been filmed by an eastern moving-picture concern. Mr. Momand was on the art staff of the New York World, and later of the New York Evening Telegram, before going abroad to study.

Labels:


Comments:
That McCutcheon cartoon of "Mama's Boy" is "of its time", so I will restrain my impulse to go back in time and punch out McCutcheon. This is a fine example of traditional American homophobia. There is actually quite a lot of it to be found in older animation and comics. This is what we now have to somehow extirpate, root and branch, from the American psyche. It will take time.
On a more pleasant note, I must say that I very much enjoy these weekly news bulletins about cartoonists, from 107 years ago. They're all men, of course, or nearly. But to have a little peek into the commonplace life of the cartoonists of the day is an uncommon joy.
 
Oops! Make that 104 years ago!
 
Post a Comment

Friday, February 21, 2020

 

Wish You Were Here, from Jimmy Swinnerton


Here's a Magic Slate card, given away by the New York American. Mr. Jack seems to be married in this card, though he was more typically portrayed as a bachelor in Swinnerton's cartoons.

Labels:


Comments:
It always seemed to me Jack was always married, it's just that he didn't care and chased the girls anyway. This usually provided a good reason to be belted by Mrs Jack, or anyone else for that matter.
 
Good point. I just assumed he was a lecher, not a philanderer.
 
Post a Comment

Thursday, February 20, 2020

 

Obscurity of the Day: Twinkling Stars



Ray Hoppman pops up mostly at lesser syndicates in the 1920s and 30s, but in 1927-28 he may have gone out on his own, figuring he couldn't do much worse at selling his wares than Readers Syndicate, CV Syndicate, Columbia Newspaper Service and the like. Apparently his first successful feature (and by successful I merely mean that it found a few takers) was the weekly panel cartoon, Twinkling Stars.

Twinkling Stars may not be just another one of those ho-hum movie star bio features -- it may well be the first of the breed. Seein' Stars, Closeup and Comedy, Star Dust, Screen Odditiies ... they all postdate it. Am I forgetting an earlier one?

Twinkling Stars was a weekly feature, and it's longest run so far found was in the Columbus Dispatch, where it appeared from January 30 to September 11 1927.

PS -- I'd never heard of Renee Adoree, and assumed she was just another foreign silent star who couldn't make the transition to talkies. The truth was much sadder.


Labels:


Comments:
Hello Allan-
I'm surprised you never heard of Miss Adoree, She was after all co-star in one of, if not THE highest grossing, most popular films of the 1920s, The Big Parade (1925). Not that I especially favor her, but I have (via Cole's collection) an autographed photo of her.
I guess She will be elusive to become familiar with, because like so many of the silent era stars, their works have literally vanished. Though she died so young, she did make two talkies, her last being "Call Of The Flesh" (1930), which was oddly cast like a silent, without regard for how the performers sounded. Lead Ramon Novarro is an Opera singer with a Mexican accent, his stage partner and former lover is Renée (thick French accent) his mentor is Ernest Torrence(thick Scots accent), his current squeeze is Dorothy Sebastian (thick Dixie accent), Yet they were all supposed to be Spaniards.
Do you remember the late Jud Hurd? At one time he did a strip called "Just Heard in Hollywood" in the same genre as today's entry. I knew him, and he'd tell me about when he worked for gossip columnist Jimmy Fidler. Jimmy tended to mispronounce names, and one he recalled in particular was Miss Adoree. Fidler also had a long running radio series where he would deliver studio press confections about star trivia. Now, though her name is pronounced "Ree-nay Adoor-ray", Fidler would always go with "Rainy Add-oray". Jud said that he'd correct him, hopefully in time for broadcast. Funny thing is, I was able to find some transcriptions of Fidler's programme, from the 1930s where he mentions Renée, and obviously he discounted Jud's advice!
 
Hi Mark --
I quite enjoy silent films, but 99% of the time I share a couch with people who have no interest. In service of domestic harmony I keep them out of the viewing queue. I have to twist arms even to get a b&w film in the player!

"Call of the Flesh" sounds like a hoot!

--Allan
 
I wonder why Ray Hoppman had such an unsuccessful career. Maybe he couldn't write. But his art seems really quite good. Hm!
— Katherine Collins
 
I wouldn't say he was unsuccessful. He had 2 other strips that, combined, ran for about 20 years. He was a newspaperman whose poetry and columns were widely syndicated in the teens. His real style, however, was nothing like the above. I'd describe his other strips, HANK AND PETE and DON'T BE LIKE THAT, as lesser Al Smith
 
Post a Comment

Wednesday, February 19, 2020

 

Obscurity of the Day, Revisited: A Perfect Gentleman



I'm not one to hide a Winsor McCay strip, even one we've already covered. Okay, truth is I worked on these images and only then realized that we'd already covered A Perfect Gentleman. So here we are once again, with a new sample and one that we've seen already, but this one is in a bit better condition.

These samples are from the San Francisco Examiner, which for some reason didn't bother printing the strip's running title.

Labels:


Comments:
It would seem the Hearst papers reserved the right to monkey around with the daily strip titles. Recall about two years ago you showed McCay's equally obscure weekday series, "The Man From Montclair", which the Chicago Examiner decided to rechristen "The Man From Evanston".
 
Post a Comment

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

 

Obscurity of the Day: Precocious Peter


Paul F. Brown is only known to have produced two newspaper strip series, both for the Boston Globe. His second, Sawdust Sim, was a virtuouso performance. His first, Precocious Peter, on the other hand, was as forgettable as the second was memorable. In this series which ran occasionally from May 7 1905 to February 3 1907*, a little boy dreams of some job or activity in which he'd like to engage. In some strips, like the one above, he comes out the hero; in others he gets in some very mild trouble, seldom his fault. In still others, he just plays at it and the strip ends without any real conclusion. I guess since the Globe had Billy the Boy Artist, they needed a little angel to balance out that more mischievous boy.

Note that in the episode above the Globe typesetter has had a little flying finger trouble spelling Precocious.

* Source: Dave Strickler's Boston Globe index.

Labels:


Comments: Post a Comment

Monday, February 17, 2020

 

Obscurity of the Day: The Man From - - -


Running only six times in the period January 24 to March 11 1907, this George McManus obscurity offers smug readers of the New York Evening World a view of how the other half lives ... defined as those poor wretches who do not live in New York City. This series gave McManus an occasional break from producing Newlyweds strips, for which readers had a voracious appetite. Each episode offered a look at a different hometown, starting with Chicago, Boston (January 29), Philadelphia (February 5), Milwaukee (February 9), New Jersey (March 5), and finally Louisville on the end date.

Labels:


Comments: Post a Comment

This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?

Subscribe to
Posts [Atom]