Saturday, May 09, 2020
What The Cartoonists Are Doing: April 1916 (Vol.9 No.4)
[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.]
RAEMAEKERS’ CARTOONS
(From the Toronto World)
Everyone has been to see the collection of Raemaekers' cartoons exhibited in London, and the papers have been full of references to these remarkable examples of the cartoonist's art. They follow in their artistic character the tradition of modern English cartooning with its regard for the proportions of the human form divine rather than the earlier grotesqueries of Rowland and his school and the distortions of some of the European continentalists and many of the Americans. In Canada the art of the cartoonist still hovers between adopting the caricature distortion of the human face and form and the genuine humor of idea and incident, with the tendency strongly in favor of the nobler aspect of the cartoon.
The great Dutch cartoonist follows the more humane method, and his cartoons appeal by their beauty as well as by their genius of satire, irony and tragic mirth. His monsters are monsters in expression and not merely in form. His maenads and furies are terrible, not by their outraged features, but by the force that their features display. The men who are drawn in the midst of murder and rapine are studies from life, not hideous imaginations, but they are all the more striking and dreadful because they are men of like nature to ourselves. It is ordinary men, just like the men of other lands, who are being driven to the fearful deeds which the Prussian system compels from its slaves. This is the profound truth underlying Raemaekers' work. Other cartoonists give us the impression that the Germans are a race apart, and they are drawn as though they had descended from another planet. They are of this earth earthy, indeed, but human, though depraved by a system against which the whole world is in revolt. Given the system and any race of men may gradually be degraded to the frightfulness which these cartoons so scathingly portray.
There is much simplicity about Raemaekers' work. “The Widows of Belgium” is appalling in its suggestions of the grim harvest of the battlefield. Three typical “money bags" moralize over martyred Belgium. “Why couldn't she submit? She would have been well paid.” The type of mind, essentially German, which always thinks in terms of money, does not wear the appearance of a monster.
One of the most striking of all the cartoons, worthy of the highest classical art, is “Germany's Dance with Death.” Germany will think of this for centuries, long after the dance with death has been ended. Another picture full of bitter irony is “The Children of the Lusitania.” Underneath is the quotation from a Berlin paper: “We do not want any love among the Americans, but we do want respect, and the case of the Lusitania will win it for us better than a hundred victories on land.” Stretched on the deck lie the rows of murdered infants.
Be Germany never so blind, surely these great cartoons would make even the kaiser see the depth of his deep damnation.
Axel Peterson woodcarving, "Signing for the Army" |
SOME NEW CARTOON TOYS
At the recent exhibition of Swedish art at the Brooklyn, N. Y., Museum, many persons were attracted by the display of cartoon dolls which were contributed to the sculpture section of Axel Peterson, a self taught peasant genius, who began life as a carpenter's apprentice. He has developed the art of carving wood statuettes of local types and groups to such a degree of ironic insight that his work is said to compare favorably with that of Daumier, Caran d'Ache, Poulbot, or Forain.
His “Village Trial,” “Christening,” and “Game of Chess,” with their marvelous little gargoyle figures, so cunningly, so humorously whittled out of wood, and stained with black and brown, give the impression of a very Dickens of a sculptor.
“WEB'S” BOYHOOD THRILL
The ruler of the Queen's Navee in “Pinafore,” it will be remembered, polished up the handle of the big front door, but H. T. Webster, author of “Our Boyhood Thrills,” in the days of his youth went the British admiral one better. His earliest experiences in art consisted, he tells us, in delivering flour and bacon for the village grocer in Tomahawk, Wis., working in a box factory, and toiling in a brickyard for a dollar a day. So successful did he become in these occupations that he was promoted to a position of sweeping out the railway station, filling lamps, and delivering telegrams. He was not, he adds, adopted by the railway president.
WHISKER CONTEST EXTRA
The great whisker contest between Ray Rohn, of the Judge art staff, and Herb Roth, of the New York Evening World, is running into the tenth inning. Under the terms of the contract, both were to let their beards grow while patronizing Broadway cafés nightly. The first to get arrested was to lose the stake.
The whiskers on the two contestantrs are now several weeks old, and are said to be the most offensive facial adornments ever seen on Times Square. The term “frightfulness,” in fact, as the New York Telegraph expresses it, loses its significance when applied merely to alleged German atrocities.
Complications already have arisen which threaten Rohn's stand-in with Judge. It is he who illustrates Walt Mason's rhymes, and Mason is an arch enemy of whiskers. Mr. J. A. Waldron, editor of Judge, fearful lest Mason will quit writing poetry when he knows the truth, has offered Rohn the alternative of shaving or resigning from the staff. E. P. Ripley [sic, should be R.L.], sports cartoonist of the New York Globe, loses a side bet of $25 if the artists wear their beards longer than three months.
HOW SAM'S CHANGED!
Apropos of Preparedness (and what isn’t?), some years before the present war Punch ran a cartoon representing Britannia pleading for a more adequate defense against the War-Lord, shown rampant in the background with the caption: (Britannia to Vulcan): “If you turn sulky and won't make any armor, how shall I be able to resist Mars?”
The date of the issue of Punch was March 25, 1865, and the War-Lord in the background was Uncle Sam, fresh from his victory over the Confederacy and arrogant with lust for territorial and financial aggrandizement. Isn't it a small world, after all?—New York Tribune.
WESTERMAN’S TOY SPANIEL
Admirers of Harry J. Westerman's “Young Lady Across the Way” cartoons have for many years reserved a soft spot in their hearts for the little dog who is frequently seen with the young lady. After a long search for a real dog of that kind Mr. Westerman has found one in Rochester, N. Y.
The little black and white boy is of the most aristocratic and blue-blooded doggy families to be found, and is noseless and a first-prize winner at every show where he has been exhibited.
He boasts of having the undefeated Prince Charles, Celamo Daydream, for his father, and is a grandson of the wonderful English Blenheim, Ch. Windsall, who defeated every English toy spaniel on the English bench, and whose owner, Mrs. Lytton, refused $10,000 for him.
Only the best to be found could please Mr. Westerman, and though the price was a long one, the little dog is now a member of his household and many times the amount paid could not buy him.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Will some cartoonist,” pleads the Brooklyn Eagle, “kindly picture the Bull Moose, a pen in his cloven hoof, writing on a mammoth table a Progressive platform for the Grand Old Republican party? A somber elephant in the background might be worth while.”
MISREPRESENTING UNCLE SAM
“If the humorous and satirical papers of London,” says the Western Christian Advocate (Cincinnati), “are any index of the popular British conception of the ideals of the United States and the attitude of our nation toward the mother country, then we must utter our most serious protest against their caricatures. Because, it would seem, this country elects to remain neutral, and will not openly ally itself with England in the fierce struggle in which she is engaged, and because, as a neutral, she feels free to sell in open market to the belligerents on both sides, food supplies, clothing, horses, minerals, munitions, etc., the cartoonists of London represent Uncle Sam in various pictures as worshipping a dollar-sign, thus intimating that money, and money only, is his god—that the dearest idols he has known are his money-bags and his stocks and bonds, and that, when on his knees to these he is oblivious to all the pitiful cries of humanity—turning a deaf ear to all appeals for help. Again we say that such representations do us rank injustice and are not calculated to foster a kindly feeling on this side toward those on the other side.”
RED-BLOODED CARICATURE
(London Correspondence of the Christian Science Monitor)
In England, in the days of Hogarth, Gillray, and Rowlandson, caricature was forceful and savage. Those days have passed. Edwardian and Georgian caricaturists are neither forceful nor savage. They use the rapier, never the bludgeon, and they incline to humor rather than to menace. The extraordinary success of the exhibition of cartoons by Louis Raemaekers, the great Dutch satirist, shows that the British public is ready for a more vigorous system of cartoons than that offered them hitherto. Contrasted with the passion for justice, and the scorn for vile deeds shown by Raemaekers, the gentle fun of F. C. Gould, the labored sarcasm of Bernard Partridge, the particularized humor of Haselden, seem a little tame. E. J. Sullivan, our strongest satirist, is far behind Raemaekers in range, artistic feeling and the spontaneity that make his cartoons seem inevitable and enduring.
HIS LUCK MAY CHANGE
Gene [sic - Jean] Knott, sports cartoonist on the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, has been drawing a series of poker cartoons entitled “Penny Ante.”. They have the earmarks, it is said, of having been inspired by one who knows, and according to an unidentified rumor, Knott is contemplating submitting to his business office at the end of each week an expense account to cover losses while engaged in getting raw material.
“PUNCH” GOES TO LAW
Action to restrain a London theatrical concern from reproducing Punch cartoons in the form of tableaux vivants was brought recently by the proprietors of London Punch. It was admitted that Mr. E. V. Lucas, one of the chief contributors to Punch, and librettist of the revue, “Business as Usual,” had received permission to introduce certain cartoon tableaux into the production with the understanding that Punch was to receive a royalty. The plaintiffs claimed, however, that they had no thought of licensing the use of their cartoons to any hall but the London Hippodrome. Suit was brought after the revue had been touring the provinces.
The cartoons in question were “Dropping the Pilot,” by Sir John Tenniel, which appeared in 1890; “After Ten Years,” which in April, 1914, celebrated the entente between France and England; “Bravo, Belgium!” by Mr. Townsend, which represented the attack on the independence of Belgium; “The World's Enemy,” a striking cartoon representing the Kaiser and the spirit of Carnage as his only friend (by Bernard Partridge), and “Unconquerable,” depicting the King of the Belgians defying the Kaiser.
“BRINGING UP FATHER” IN LONDON
London has capitulated to the comic strip. Thus, the London Evening News ponderously announces that it will introduce a feature that might be called “a humourous serial story in pictures, with the title ‘Bringing Up Father.’” The story, the News goes on to explain, concerns the Jiggs family, who have suddenly come into a fortune. The artist, George McManus, says the News, came to New York from St. Louis “with only a hundred pounds or so in his pocket.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
McKee Barclay, cartoonist of the Baltimore Sun, has been writing, in collaboration with William O. Stevens, a tale now running serially in the Sun. It deals with events of the war of 1812, the scenes being laid on the privateer “Comet,” which plied the waters of Chesapeake Bay.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Daniel McRitchie, who was formerly on the staff of the Sydney Post, and who later worked as cartoonist for several Canadian newspapers, has enlisted for active service with the 36th Canadian field battery.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The press agent of “Mutt and Jeff in College,” an attraction based on Bud Fisher's cartoons, has been presenting free tickets on the western tour of the company to youngsters who send in the best copies of the famous characters. The efforts of these budding Bud Fishers are published in the local newspapers.
GOLDBERG TELLS HOW HE DOES IT
All one needs to do to draw a salary of $100,000 a year, according to Reuben L. Goldberg, the New York Evening Mail cartoonist, is to make a few perpendicular lines, then a few horizontal lines, then a few diagonals and circles.
At least that's what Goldberg told the members of the Men's Club of Temple Berith Kodesh, of Rochester, N. Y., on the occasion of a recent monthly dinner. He confessed that he didn't know himself how he earned $100,000 a year. He hadn’t the least idea, he said, where his ideas came from. They only came, and all he had to do was to put them on paper.
He never realized that his ideas were funny, he admitted, until people began telling him they were, and then he tried to analyze the ideas for himself. He tried to hit upon the foibles of the day, he told his audience,—ice skating, or preparedness— and thus make the reader smile at himself. In other words, he added, a spirit of kindly satire animated all his work.
Mr. Goldberg illustrated his talk with crayon sketches and moving pictures of some of his latest cartoons.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Russell Henderson, cartoonist of , the American Issue, the official Anti-Saloon League publication, has a small brother, James Henderson, who has ambitions to become a second Nast, and has considerable talent too. The youngster, who is now in Charlotte, N. C., will take a three months' course in art this summer under the tutelage of his brother at the Chicago Academy of Art.
TAKES PUNCH TO TASK
A recent cartoon in Punch, representing Uncle Sam addressing the prophet Job on the subject of President Wilson's attitude toward Germany, has called forth a rebuke from the London Chronicle. Such attacks, the Chronicle declares, are neither good form nor good policy, and in making them Punch falls into the same error by which German propagandists have made themselves so much disliked. In the cartoon Uncle Sam boasts that in Wilson, America possesses a man able to knock the spots off Job's record for patience.
“CARTOONS” IN THE TRENCHES
From Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada, comes a word of cheer. Cartoons Magazine, it appears, has a staunch admirer in “The Parson,” who “has been a reader since the first number was published,” and who “always looks for his copy (at the Rex cigar store) about the 27th of the month.”
“I am going into uniform in the 152nd battalion,” he adds, “but let me tell you, they don't dig trenches too small or make guns big enough to keep me from reading Cartoons Magazine.”
VON JAGOW AS A CARTOONIST
Like his distinguished superior Emperor Wilhelm, Herr Gottlieb von Jagow, Germany's secretary for foreign affairs, is a cartoonist and designer. When not en gaged in writing notes to Secretary Lansing he is busy with his pencil. As you enter his office you will observe a large clean blotter on his desk, and this, as he talks, he gradually covers with sketches. His servant brings him a new blotter for every visitor.
MAKING ANIMATED CARTOONS
(From the Dayton News)
Animated cartoons are always favorites of those who like comic motion picture films. Few realize the enormous amount of work entailed in making one of the animated photo comics. Six cartoonists, twelve assistants and four camera men are included in the average staff of a studio turning out animated cartoons. There are from 3,000 to 4,000 cartoons in each thousand feet of the completed film and as each cartoon undergoes thirty-four processes, it will be seen that a thousand feet of animated pictures involves from 102,000 to 136,000 processes.
First, a background is traced on a sheet of heavy paper, and then reprinted on many sheets of tracing paper. Then the artists draw the parts which are to appear in motion. The background remains absolutely stationary. Great care must be taken in the drawing of the cartoons. The artist places a sheet of transparent paper over his last drawing and thus is enabled to draw the next position carefully, as the one before shows clearly through the paper. When the set of cartoons is completed, four cameramen photograph them to obtain the negative film. The speed of action in the picture is controlled by varying the number of photographs taken of each cartoon. For instance, if the scene demands that an object shall move rapidly, then slowly, and finally come to a stop for a moment, the pictures representing the quick action would each be given one exposure. As the movement of the object diminishes in rapidity, each picture is given a correspondingly increasing number of exposures. When the action comes to a stop numerous photographs are taken of the same picture, the number being dependent on the length of time the action is suspended.
RAEMAEKERS HONORED IN PARIS
After being fêted in London, Louis Raemaekers, the Dutch cartoonist, has been lionized in Paris. He was the guest of honor at a reception given by the Paris Municipal Council on February 8. The reception was followed by a dinner. On February 10 an exhibition of Raemaeker’s drawings opened at the Trocadero with a program of music and speaking. The proceeds of the affair were given to charity.
According to the Paris correspondent of the New York Tribune, it is because of the strength of his sentiments rather than the superiority of his work that his cartoons have had such a vogue in France and England. “There are many cartoonists,” the correspondent adds, “who are the equal of Raemaekers, both in ideas and professional skill, and not a few who are his superiors, but the circumstances of the war have given him a special value.”
Labels: What The Cartoonists Are Doing
Friday, May 08, 2020
Wish You Were Here, from Cobb Shinn
Here is a Cobb Shinn card published by Taylor Platt Company. It looks like the copyright says 1910, and it says it is Series 833 on the back. What I like about this card is that they have tried to turn a liability into an asset. Is this a crummy black-and-white postcard? No, says the back, this is a card that is to be hand-colored by the buyer!
Labels: Wish You Were Here
Thursday, May 07, 2020
Ink-Slinger Profiles by Alex Jay: William Ferguson
In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census month-old Ferguson was the youngest of five siblings. The family resided in Groveland, Kansas. Ferguson worked on the family farm for about 18 years.
Ferguson signed his World War I draft card on September 12, 1918. He was a student whose address was 521 South Main Street in McPherson, Kansas.
The 1920 census was enumerated in mid-January. It recorded unemployed Ferguson, his parents and two brothers in Groveland. Not long after the census Ferguson had a cartooning job. The McPherson Daily Republican, June 16, 1920, said
“Beekins” CartoonsDrovers Telegram was in Kansas City, Missouri. The Printers’ Ink, December 30, 1920, printed a two-page advertisement for the Corn Belt Farm Dailies that featured Ferguson’s Beekins. Information about Ferguson’s art training has not been found.
Made for the Drovers Telegram by Former McPherson Boy.
Possibly you have noticed the cartoons appearing lately in the Drovers Telegram “The Beekins” family of the “Clear Creek” community. These cartoons appear every day and are the work of William Ferguson formerly of McPherson, son of G. P. Ferguson of this city. Ferguson is on the permanent staff of the Drovers Telegram and is under agreement to furnish a new cartoon each day for the paper.
Ferguson’s cartoons were reprinted in 1921 issues of The Cattleman here and here four times.
In 1924 University of Wisconsin–Madison student, Maynard Wilson Brown, wrote his thesis, The New Agricultural Journalism. A chapter focused on cartoons and he wrote
William Ferguson in the Chicago Daily Drovers’ Journal has also done some excellent work in cartooning. His cartoons invariably show a very pleasing sympathy with the farmers’ problems and he has the happy faculty of not cluttering up the main issue with too many ideas and an overabundance of composition. He as a rule works out one idea only in each cartoon.The Omaha World-Herald (Nebraska), July 30, 1925, reported Ferguson’s marriage.
The wedding of Miss Evelyn Roberts, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Charles Z. Roberts of McPherson, Kas., and William Ferguson of this city was solemnized Wednesday at 8:30 o’clock at the home of the bride’s parents. Mr. Ferguson is a son of Mr. and Mrs. G.P. Ferguson of McPherson.American Newspaper Comics (2012) said Ferguson produced Hesper and the Beekins, beginning around the mid-1920s, for the Chicago Daily Drovers Journal. He began a long association with NEA starting with Feathered Facts and Fancies (1927); Who’s Who in Dogdom (1928), Our Great Outdoor Zoo (1928); Mother Nature’s Curio Shop (1928); Your Sunday Stroll (1929); This Curious World (1931); and Righterong? (1943).
The attendants were Raymond S. Clark of McPherson and Glessuer Wright of Colorado Springs, Colo.
Mr. Ferguson and his bride, following a month’s honeymoon in Colorado, will be at home at 5907 Mason street after September 1. Mr. Ferguson is the cartoonist for Corn Belt Farm Dallies of which the Omaha Journal Stockman is a member.
The Fertilizer Review, July 1929 published a joint note from H. Howard Biggar, farm editor, and Ferguson, Omaha Daily Journal-Stockman cartoonist.
In the 1930 census newspaper artist Ferguson was an Omaha resident at 5907 Mason Street. The address was the same in the 1940 census which said he had four years of high school and earned $5,000 in 1939. His daughter, Mary, was six years old.
On February 12, 1942, Ferguson signed his World War II draft card. He lived at the same place and was employed at the Journal Stockman. His description was five feet ten inches, 165 pounds, with gray eyes and black hair.
On September 14, 1952 the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate debuted Ferguson’s Glen Forrest with the topper Cateby. The Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington), January 17, 1954 said
Creator of this adventure story with a nature background is William Ferguson. Cartoonist Ferguson was born in 1900 and spent his first 18 years on a Kansas farm. It was during those years that he found and developed his interest in the observation of nature’s way.Ferguson passed away on June 23, 1986 in Omaha. His death was reported in the Salina Journal (Kansas), June 25, 1986.
He began doing nature drawings for a national syndicate in 1927. These educational cartoons soon became widely circulated in newspapers throughout the United States and Canada under the title, “This Curious World.”
Ferguson’s combined interest in natural history and photography resulted in making thousands of feet of color movies of wildlife subjects, and since 1947 he has traveled from six to 19 weeks each winter under the auspices of the National Audubon society, showing films to wildlife and nature audiences throughout North America.
Ferguson is married and has a daughter, Mary, a student at Carleton college in Northfield, Minn. He lives in Omaha during the winter months, but with the coming of spring he strikes our for Colorado, where he and his family make their home in a studio 8500 feet above sea level in the magnificent area bordering on Rocky Mountain national park.
The hero of the “Glen Forrest” strip is no superman, but just a normal young fellow with a few years of army service and a college course behind him. He has an inherent love of the out-of-doors, furthered by a major in biology.
Omaha, Neb.—William H. Ferguson, 86, Omaha, died Monday, June 23, at the Methodist Hospital, Omaha. Mr. Ferguson was born May 8, 1900, in McPherson. For 50 years he had written a comic strip called Beekins for Drover’s Journal of Omaha.Ferguson was laid to rest at McPherson Cemetery.
Survivors include his wife, Evelyn of the home. A service will be at 1 p.m. Friday in the McPherson Cemetery, the Rev. Lawrence Clark officiating. Memorials may be made to the Dundee Presbyterian Church of Omaha or the Community Church of the Rockies, Estes Park, Colo. Glidden Funeral Home of McPherson is in charge.
—Alex Jay
Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles
Wednesday, May 06, 2020
Obscurity of the Day: Glen Forrest
After World War II, the Chicago Tribune's Midas touch with comic strips ended abruptly. That Midas had a name, and it was Joseph Medill Patterson. After he died in 1946, you'd swear the syndicate execs went into such deep mourning that they intentional picked strips that had no hope of selling, as a memorial to Patterson's genius.
Case in point is Glen Forrest, which was obviously meant to be a "me-too" feature to feed off the popularity of Mark Trail. At the helm was William Ferguson, who had certainly proven his mastery of all things in the natural world with a successful two decade run on This Curious World, a panel serving up odd facts about nature. Ferguson was not only a nature expert, but he was also a darn fine cartoonist with a clean and sensuous style. What could go wrong, you wonder?
Well, as it turns out, Ferguson's Achilles heel (yes, it's mythology day here on Stripper's Guide) was that he hadn't even the slightest understanding of how to write a comic strip. This Sunday-only strip started on September 14 1952 with this episode:
Why do we join our hero on the second day of his journey? Have we already missed an episode? Nope. Ferguson has succeeded in confusing his readers with the VERY FIRST sentence of his strip. It won't get any better.
Ferguson proceeds to try to tell his herky-jerky manic stories on a starvation diet of a third-page once per week. In fairness, this is a task that few cartoonists can pull off, but Ferguson practically gives a class on how not to do it. Characters are not so much introduced as just appear with no explanation. If you look at the color samples up top, there's not a strip in there that offers a synopsis of any kind, off-stage character names are bandied about constantly, and there's a general assumption that you, dear reader, have made it your life's work to take notes on the strip every week so that you can follow the unfollowable. And what a shame, because Ferguson's excellent art makes us want very much to like this strip.
Believe it or not, the Tribune stuck with this train wreck for almost two years. Glen Forrest was finally put to rest on May 30 1954, right smack in the middle of a story (the last color sample above is that last strip). I wasn't sure if some other papers might have run it longer, but I've since reviewed two other papers that ran it and they ended it on the same date.
By the way, the topper strip Catesby (seen in the black and white sample above) was offered throughtout the run, but rarely did anyone use it, including the Chicago Tribune.
Labels: Obscurities
Comments:
The title may be something of an inside joke, since Forest Glen is one of the neighborhoods of Chicago (Northwest Side).
Post a Comment
Tuesday, May 05, 2020
Obscurity of the Day: Girl Wanted - Nothing But Trouble at Home
At the turn of the century, many in the newly emerging middle class were making enough through papa's salary to keep a live-in maid. The wages were affordable on a modest income because a good portion of the maid's remuneration was considered to be her room and board. If you had a spare bedroom you were already a long way toward getting housekeeping and cooking help.
The burgeoning market for live-in help, and the not necessarily outstanding character of women who were interested in such arrangements, made a good maid a prize like few others. Roy W. Taylor created the series Girl Wanted - Nothing But Trouble at Home to chronicle the lengths to which Joe and Jane Bougeoisie might go in order to procure such prize help.
Taylor's weekday series appeared in the New York Evening World from October 15 to November 13 1906, appearing for a total of eight installments in that time.
Labels: Obscurities
Monday, May 04, 2020
Magazine Cover Comics: Flapper Fairy Tales
The Philadelphia Public Ledger had some great Sunday magazine covers that they offered through their syndicate, but rarely did they form a series. Hearst loved the romantic magazine cover series, but Ledger stood pretty firm on the side of one-shots.
One of the few exceptions was Flapper Fairy Tales, which brought together the verses of Ruth Plumly Thompson and the art of Ledger regular Charles J. Coll. Thompson is well-known to Oz fans for her many books continuing Baum's original series, and she also wrote a long-running series of children's stories for the Ledger. Here she jumps well out of her regular groove to write jazzy adult fare, and, well, I'll let you decide for yourself if she succeeds.
Flapper Fairy Tales ran from April 21 to May 26 1929.
Labels: Magazine Cover Comics