Stripper's Guide

January 28 1910 -- Ad Wolgast has already beaten Frank Picato twice (March 30 1909, December 21 1909) and George Memsic twice (April 16 1909 and January 7 1910), but they both want rematches. Memsic will eventually get his chance, but Picato never rated another shot.

Labels: Herriman's LA Examiner Cartoons

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

 Today we'll cover the comic strip and panel cartoon series contributed to Wheeler-Nicholson's blanket service by M.A. Dunning. Marshall Alston Dunning might not have been the most accomplished cartoonist ever, but if we are to believe the interwebs, he certainly excelled in selling his services. If the Library of Virginia has the story right, between the 1910s and 40s Dunning lent his cartooning talents to the San Antonio Express, Akron Times, Cleveland Press, Miami News, Jacksonville Journal, San Diego Tribune, Austin American-Statesman, plus animation work at Walt Disney Studios and Columbia Pictures, and even a stint working for the Landon correspondence school. Colour me a little skeptical of the extent of this resume.

To that long list we can add Wheeler-Nicholson, Inc., for which he produced a panel cartoon and a comic strip. The panel was one of those "Guess what's about to happen" things, a genre that I generally find appealing. Dunning's work on They Never Do This But Once is quite uneven, the cartooning varying from just fine to amateurish. Dunning also showcases his *ahem* interest in ethnic humour, with lots of stereotype blacks as the butt of his jokes. The nadir of these has a KKKer in a cartoon of singularly bad taste, even for its day. 

Unlike the strips, the Wheeler-Nicholson panel cartoon features weren't numbered. Although it is devilishly hard to come to any definite conclusions about these things based on the universally sporadic publication of these features, I'd be willing to bet that these panel features did not all make it to true daily frequency, even for the eight week span of The Syndicator service. 

Dunning's penchant for ethnic stereotypes was showcased once again in his comic strip, this time training his sights on Jews. My jaw dropped the first time I saw the title Maggie's Yiddish Moe, which sounds more like the title of a Tijuana Bible than a comic strip for mainstream newspapers. It's pretty hard to get a sense of the plot since newspapers could not seem to manage to run this strip in anything like the intended order (I've preserved that lack of order below -- you're welcome). 

I gather that Moe Kabinzie is in love with Maggie O'Day, who is a secretary to Moe's papa, a knock-off of Harry Hershfield's Abe Kabibble. I imagine in that day a romance between a Jew and an Irish Catholic would have been somewhat scandalous, but I see little of that dynamic in the strips, mostly because Dunning sends Moe off to a vacation resort for much of the storyline, so the two lovebirds seldom manage to even get in the same room. Dunning is evidently more comfortable making gags with the father, anyway, 

Maggie's Yiddish Moe went unprinted by many of those who ran the Wheeler-Nicholson offerings. I  imagine most readers outside of New York City would have been mystified by the Yiddish dialect stuff, so many papers didn't bother with it. It was no great loss. 

Maggie's Yiddish Moe is another Wheeler-Nicholson feature that did not make it into the E&P listings in June. My guess is that it was a late replacement for another strip they advertised that never appeared. That was Little Otto by H.T. Elmo, and as far as I know, Little Otto never made it into papers from any syndicate.

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 5 comments

Oscar Samuel Hitt was born on March 22, 1892, in Nottingham, England, according to his World War I draft card which had his full name. Lambiek Comiclopedia said “Hitt was an American cartoonist of German descent…” International Journal of Comic Art, Volume 10, Issue 2, 2008, said Hitt was a German cartoonist. 

The 1901 England census recorded Hitt in the household of Oliver Altree, his maternal grandfather. Also listed was his mother, Edith, one-year-old sister, Beatrice, and uncles Percy and Alfred. On September 26, 1901, Hitt and his mother sailed from Liverpool to Boston, Massachusetts. They were on their way to Salt Lake, Utah. 

On September 20, 1915, in Salt Lake City, Hitt married Nellie Chase. 

Hitt signed his World War I draft card on June 5, 1917. His address was 4832 Winthrop Avenue, Chicago, Illinois. Hitt was a Chicago Herald artist who was described as short, medium build, with brown eyes and hair.

American Newspaper Comics (2012) said Hitt’s first series was Hitt and Runn which ran from October 30, 1916 to May 12, 1917. He drew the Katzenjammer Kids from May 28, 1917 into 1919. The copycat Mama’s Darlings started June 24, 1917 and ended August 28, 1918. Hitt’s work appeared in some 1917 issues of Cartoons Magazine. 

The Salt Lake Telegram (Utah), February 24, 1918, published the following article.

Pioneer Resident of Salt Lake Dies

After a lingering illness extending over a period of nearly five months, William Powe, a pioneer resident of Salt Lake, died at his home, 171 Third East street, late yesterday afternoon.

Mr. Powe came to Salt Lake from England twenty-six years ago, and had been engaged as a hatter in this city ever since. He was connected for some time with the firm known as the Taylor Hatters, but in late years had been in business for himself.

He is survived by a widow and stepson, Oscar Hitt.

Hitt has not yet been found in the 1920 U.S. Federal Census. Hitt’s wife, daughter and son were in Springville, Utah, with his in-laws. According to the Ogden Standard-Examiner (Utah), Hitt lived in New York City. 

June 11, 1922

Oscar Hitt, noted cartoonist, of New York, was a guest during the early part of the week at the residence of Mr. and Mrs. V R Reeder, Jr. Mr. Hitt will join his wife at Springvllle. Mr. and Mrs. Hitt are to spend the summer in Utah. They will visit frequently in Salt Lake and Ogden. 

August 27, 1922

Mr. and Mrs. Hitt of New York are spending two weeks at the Virginia. Mr. Hitt is connected with the New York Times. 

August 30, 1922

Oscar Hitt, cartoonist for the New York World, pleased the guests with cartoons which he drew upon large sheets of paper in view of his audience. Miss Fay King offered vocal selections. 

During the 1920s, Hitt drew Captain and the Kids; Ever Since Adam; Seezem and Sqeezem; Ambitious Ambrose; Uncle Eph Says; Wally and His Pals; Mack and Marx (credited as Sam Hitt); and Hi-Way Henry. Robert Lesser described in his 1975 book, A Celebration of Comic Art and Memorabilia, a Hi-Way Henry toy car, designed by Hitt and made in Germany.

It is a small lithographed tin car with an old bearded man hunched over the steering wheel and his fat wife in the backseat. Their laundry is drying on a clothesline on the roof, their pots and pans are lashed to the back of the car, the radiator cap has popped up, and the head of their dog sticks out from the crank-handle insert. …

Lesser included the inserted poem.

The Hi-Way Henry

Out on the highway rain or shine

This funny bus you’ll always find,

Six million of these cars they say

Start out on every holiday.

With stove and clothes line all intact,

They “step on it” and leave the pack,

And thump and bump along the road,

Regardless of the heavy load.

And then when dusk begins to fall

Into their back seat beds they crawl, 

Until the dawn of another day,

When they resume their merry way. 

And so the cartoonist, Oscar Hitt

Has made this into a comic strip

That runs in papers far and wide, 

For folks who read life’s funny side,

And, we in turn, have made a toy,

That’s sure to bring a lot of joy,

To every little girl and boy.

Black Dolls: A Comprehensive Guide to Celebrating, Collecting, and Experiencing the Passion (2008) published a photograph of Hitt’s brush doll. 

In the 1930 census, Hitt was one of ten people boarding with the Hebeler family in Manhattan at 48 West 70th Street. I believe he and his wife had separated or divorced. Hitt was naturalized and worked as a newspaper comic artist. 

Hitt’s longest running series was Neighborly Neighbors which ran from March 17, 1930 to August 27, 1938. It was one of several new cartoons introduced in the Sarasota Herald (Florida), on March 16, 1930. (Editor & Publisher, February 8, 1930, was first to announce the lineup.)

Hitt went on a short cruise from February 29 to March 3, 1932. The passenger list said his home was the Hotel St. George in Brooklyn.

The Maine Marriages at Ancestry.com said Hitt married Gladys M. McKechnie on November 24, 1933. 

The 1935 Florida Census listed Hitt, his wife, “Sanford May Hitt”, four-year-old son, Robert, and mother-in-law in Miami Beach.

The Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 4, Works of Art, etc., 1939, New Series, Volume 34, Number 1, published the following entry: “Hitt, Oscar Samuel.* 339, Dude and his wife. Old Timer and his wife. © 1 c. Jan. 3, 1939; G31345.”

In July 1939, Hitt filed his Social Security application which identified his parents as Samuel Hitt and Edith M. Altree.

According to the 1940 census, Hitt was institutionalized at the Mountain View Farm, the Home for Homeless, in Sanford, Maine. He was divorced and had four years of college education. It’s not known when Hitt passed away; presumably, it was at the institution.

Hitt’s first wife, who remarried, passed away November 4, 1965. His son, Howard, passed away April 10, 1989. His daughter, Kathryn, passed away May 9, 1997. The status of his second son, Robert, is not known. 

(An earlier version of this profile was posted in October 2015.)

Labels: Ink-Slinger Profiles

# posted by Alex Jay @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

 Over the past ten installments of this series we've seen precious little in the way of comics from the Wheeler-Nicholson syndicate; we had the Great Mystery and Adventure series, Vivian Vanity in two separate series plus the panel version, and a smattering of sports-related cartoon features by Joe Archibald. 

The new and improved blanket service announced no less than twenty-two features, most of which were new (eight of the listings, including a double listing of the Great Mystery and Adventures series, were  already existing features). Perhaps the most amazing thing was that the extravagant claim of all these features turned out to be, for the most part, true. 

From an historian's perspective, the great thing about many of the new comic strip and panel features is that they were numbered. In spite of some of the worst possible printing quality imaginable, I was able to determine that the longest any of the new features ran was until installment #48. That means that The Syndicator, assuming that the comics were present throughout, lasted a mere eight issues, supplying material from July 12 to September 4 1926. It wouldn't be too much of a stretch to guess that Wheeler-Nicholson might have asked for eight weeks of up front material from the creators on spec. The syndicate would surely know after three months whether the new blanket service was a success, with payment to be forthcoming at that point. Which, of course, it wasn't. 

Oscar Hitt was reeled in by Wheeler-Nicholson to be the bedrock on which his comics offerings were built. Hitt's syndicated cartooning career had been underway since about 1916, and he'd already worked for World Color Printing, NEA, the Chicago Herald syndicate, Hearst, the New York Graphic and McClure Syndicate. Although Hitt was an able enough cartoonist, he never seemed to be able to stick long anywhere. That probably made him easy pickings to helm a new syndicate. 

Hitt was the cartoonist behind no less than four of the syndicate's new offerings, a workload that seems impossible to sustain. My guess is that he may even have contributed more, because some of the other creator names are suspiciously vague. 

Hitt authored two strips, here are some samples of Ambitious Ambrose:

This one is nominally about a teenager, but father Amos pretty well takes over the strip. It's sort of a mash-up between Harold Teen and The Bungle Family. Lots of hepcat dialogue to mask that there weren't much of the way in gags.

Through tales passed down from generation to generation, there seems to be some impression that Major Wheeler-Nicholson wrote Ambitious Ambrose and another of Hitt's features, Hi-Way Henry. I see no reason to believe this because Oscar Hitt was more than capable of churning out this material, and frankly, I get the impression that the Major wasn't the sort of fellow who was comfortable writing comedy. 

Next up for Hitt is his second strip, Wally and his Pals. Here are some samples, and sorry about the awful condition:

Hitt definitely considered this his 'class B' strip, because he elected to credit himself only as 'Oscar' on it. This use of pseudonyms was common at little start-up syndicates, to give customers the impression that there were more creators in the bullpen than there really were. 

This funny animal strip with pretensions at melodrama was not among the advertised features in E&P, but may well be a retitling of Duckville Doings, which was advertised but never appeared. In fact, here's an example that got the original title by mistake:

This sample is different, though, in that it is not part of the ongoing story. Perhaps the storyline was dropped at times during the series?

The advertised Duckville Doings wa supposed to be by someone named Bill Bly, a name I do not know. However, there was a Bess Bly doing some newspaper cartooning in the mid-20s. Maybe Bill/Bess found out payment would be in stock certificates and decided not to participate at the last minute?

In addition to the strips, Oscar Hitt was responsible for two panel features. One of them is slightly famous; Hi-Way Henry. 

Why is Hi-Way Henry famous? Well, Oscar Hitt must have been pretty pleased with his design for a camper-jalopy Model T, and so, as you'll notice in the samples above, he retained the copyright on the cartoons. 

After Hi-Way Henry's short-lived stint in a smattering of papers, Oscar took this design and made a toy and board game out of it. The toys hit stores in the 1927 Christmas season and apparently didn't set the world on fire, because they were never heard from again, but the wind-up toy sure was cool looking:

Last but not least from Hitt was a panel called Uncle Eph. This was a blatant me-too of the other popular country sage panels, like Abe Martin: 

Not only did Hitt not sign this panel, but it was floridly signed "Dinky", who is William Howell "Dinky" Duncan, the writer of the Wheeler-Nicholson column This Is New York. Perhaps Duncan supplied the aphorisms, but the art sure looks like Hitt to me, and I'm sticking to the ID. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Okay, that's enough for today. We're going to break tomorrow for an updated Ink-Slinger Profile of Hitt by Alex Jay, then after that we'll be back covering more Wheeler-Nicholson features.

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

 Yesterday we saw a list of what Wheeler-Nicholson, Inc. claimed would be in their blanket service, and an impressively long list it was. But could the syndicate actually come through on these extravagant promises? 

As with most things in life, the answer is not a simple yes or no. I have been able to find quite a few of these features running in newspapers, but under circumstances that do not point toward a syndicate that was on solid footing. Most newspapers that ran the new Wheeler-Nicholson material used it in dribs and drabs, or threw a bunch of it into their pages for a week or two and then no more was to be seen. 

This kind of behavior on the part of newspapers points to a simple explanation, one that I've seen happen many times. Here's the scenario: syndicate sends out a stack of samples, perhaps of one feature, perhaps of an entire roster, as promotional material to a whole bunch of papers. Some editors throw the material out, and some might well take the bait and sign up for whatever the syndicate is offering. In the middle ground, though, we have papers that, as often as not, are run on a shoestring, starved for slick  and expensive syndicated features. When they get a promo packet in the mail, it goes directly to the pressroom to be used to fill spots and add brightness. There might be no serious intention or even ability to buy the features, but in the spirit of not looking a gift horse in the mouth, those samples are going to run.

You might think this was akin to stealing, and if the promo packet says that the material is not for publication, then it is undeniably so. But in fact many of those packets sent to papers most assuredly don't say that, but just the opposite. Imagine a struggling new syndicate, sending out a bunch of unfamiliar material to newspapers all over the country. Any struggling syndicate editor, hoping desperately for new clients, who has any marketing acumen at all, is going to not only allow the editor to publish this material, but might well outright beg him to do so. 

Why? Well, if you as syndicate editor really believe that the material you're sending out is the best thing since sliced bread, you are going to challenge those editors to give your material a chance. Put it in your paper, and just you wait, the clamor from your readers for more is bound to be like a Walmart on Black Friday. 

Wheeler-Nicholson was sending out copies of The Syndicator to newspapers all over the country, hoping to stimulate subscriptions. The syndicate had to do this because the other option is a large traveling sales force, and we know from the Major's manifesto that he was against that method of marketing. From my searches, the result seems to have been a lot of takers on the free content among the smaller papers, and darn few papers willing to sign up for the service. In fact, on newspapers.com, where I've done most of my research, I am only confident in in identifying at least 2-3, and no more than a half-dozen, newspapers that  subscribed. Since the blanket service was supposedly offered at a bargain basement price, they needed lots more papers to subscribe.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

But let's change focus now and see some of the features I was able to locate, all of which presumably came as part of the blanket service and appeared in The Syndicator. 

It should be noted that while Wheeler-Nicholson said that the blanket service would start the week of July 5, all evidence points to a July 12 start, as I find nothing before then except for the couple of already running features. 

Here is a feature page from the Fresno Bee of July 12 1926. This page has two Wheeler-Nicholson offferings; Beauty Hints by Peggy Hopkins Joyce and the unbylined Love Confessions of Famous Men. The latter feature, according to the E&P listing, was by the busy typing fingers of  Joseph Kaye, who was credited with three features, and who could well have been responsible for a number of the staff-written items as well. 

Peggy Hopkins Joyce was a celebrated beauty and gold-digger who was much in the news. Her name on a column would have been much more noteworthy if she had been telling tales of her romantic life. A lukewarm column of beauty hints, on the other hand, was bit of a yawn. Since Ms. Joyce was far too busy marrying and divorcing rich men, and was rumoured to be illiterate to boot, presumably this column was ghosted. Beauty Hints is last found appearing at the end of August and seemed to come three or four episodes per week, in widely varying lengths.

Joseph Kaye could be proof that Wheeler-Nicholson really did buy the Wheeler Syndicate. Kaye was churning out the same sort of features for them, as well as McClure, even while he was producing material for Wheeler-Nicholson.

A few days later, on the 15th, we see the Bee offering three additional Wheeler-Nicholson columns. Stories that Must be Told is by Evelyn Norton, a rather smug column of instruction to women. There's also My Mother by Joseph Kaye, which is a holdover or revival from the 1925 line-up, and Tested Recipes for Long Life, offering wisdom from the famously elderly; this one is basically a quote from a public figure, so no byline necessary. 

This episode of Stories that Must be Told is one of only a few I've been able to find. Either it was not liked by the subscribing papers or only a few episodes were actually offered. Given that I see this situation with a number of the features, I'm guessing that Wheeler-Nicholson had quite a few features that were more or less tryouts. Which, of course, the Major said would be part of their strategy for keeping up the highest quality, But this is the same sort of thing I saw with his 1925 features -- examples of many of the columns seem to be limited to just a few. 

The Rutland Evening News of July 29 offers three Wheeler-Nicholson products on this page. We have Where Are They Now, another 1925 holdover, and two new features that both ended up being retitled from their announcement in E&P. 

So This is New York, by William Howell "Dinky" Duncan, was advertised in E&P as Babble from Babylon. I saw the original name used a few times, but I guess they decided it might be a good idea to actually name the city that was the subject of the column.  

Lastly, Daily Health Talks by Frederick Damrau was advertised as The Doctor Talks, but never ran under that title. Odd since the title Daily Health Talks was already in use by another syndicated newspaper column by a Doctor Hugh Cumming. 

 The Dothan Eagle ran a page just brimming with W-N columns on July 30 1926. We've seen Beauty Hints and My Mother before, and Holding Your Husband is one of the 1925 features. 

I get a kick out of Fifth Avenue Fashions (which was not in the E&P list) because they ask readers to send off for the patterns. Unfortunately they forget to list an address to which the aspiring seamstress should send her dough.  Oopsy!

The Well-Groomed Man was listed under the title of Men's Fashions in E&P -- 'Syl' was Sylvester Martin Zinns. 

Shopping on Fifth Avenue is another that wasn't in E&P; this is yet another women's fashion column. Maybe it was listed as Personality in Dress?

Last but not least, there is Cookery Kinks by Gabrielle Forbush, a recipe column. She is listed as the contributor of What Every Woman Knows in the E&P listings, but that doesn't sound likely to be the same column. 

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Okay, I'll call a halt now to this material on the text columns; we don't really need to cover each one, just wanted to give a flavor of the material. One last note I have to mention -- W-N offered a fiction series by Ninon Romaine, but as far as I can tell she was a well-respected concert pianist, and not a fiction writer. Could "Sylvia", the advertised title, be a translation of "Annete y Sylvia" by French writer Romaine Rolland???

Tomorrow we'll get on with the fun stuff, the comics!

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 1 comments

 In Part 8 of this series we looked at Major Malcolm Wheeler-Nicholson's promise, published in an Editor & Publisher full page ad, of a new and improved blanket service to start in July 1926. But that's not all we learned about his service in that E&P Syndicate Directory. In addition to a full page ad, the syndicate also submitted a list of the specific features to be offered, which were detailed  in the E&P syndicate listings. And what a whopper of a list it was! The syndicate advertised a total of sixty features, a roster which puts them in pretty heady company. 

To give you an idea of how serious a contender this would make them, here are the total features offered by a selection of the major syndicates, showing that Wheeler-Nicholson was gearing up to become a very major player:

 These major syndicates shown above all offered their wares for individual purchase; the blanket services generally did not list all their features in the syndicate listings. But the blanket service ads sometimes offer us an idea; Editors Feature Service, for instance, listed 33 named or described features in their ad. NEA, the market leader, would have offered more than that, but purely comparing numbers, they probably didn't offer much more than Wheeler-Nicholson. 

Here are the features offered by Wheeler-Nicholson in the 1926 E&P Syndicate Directory, along with credits and frequencies. You'll see a few familiar features from 1925, along with lots of new ones:

 ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

We'll talk lots more about the new features in coming posts, but at the moment we need to backtrack a little. I said in a previous episode that I did not have any information about the investors who increased the Major's capitalization to $200,000. That turned out to be the case only because I've been doing lots of searching but not much reading. Luckily I have brilliant readers who come to my rescue. Blog reader Jim Davidson was kind enough to point out to me that there was more information right under my nose, in the same issue of Editor & Publisher I've been discussing for the last two days. For some reason my searches of E&P have not been finding this short item that appeared in that issue:

Maj. Malcom Wheeler-Nicholson this week announced that the capital stock of Wheeler-Nicholson, Inc. has been increased to $200,000. He also announced completion of agreements with the Advertisers' Photo-Engraving Company, the Craft Off-Set Printing Company, and the Shaefer Stereotyping Company, all of New York City, which have merged their services into working arrangements with the Wheeler-Nicholson syndicate and have become minority stockholders.

 While not out-and-out stating that these printing companies are responsible for the increase in capital stock, another reader, E.O. Costello, tells me that it would not be terribly unusual for investors to trade services for stock, and that the issuance of the stock can be considered essentially the same as capital, as long as it is being accepted by a third party as having some worth, which these three companies apparently did. 

Therefore, we are chipping away at Wheeler-Nicholson's financial mystery. It seems now that the Major was probably not actually awash in cash, but rather was relieved of the need for a bunch of cash by convincing a cadre of printing companies to exchange their needed services for stock certificates.  

With all or at least some of his printing needs taken care of, the only other big drain on Wheeler-Nicholson's cash reserves would be to pay his editorial and creative staff. Given the Major's obvious ability to convince people to invest in his new blanket service, could he have paid the creative personnel in the same way, with stock certificates and dreams of riches?

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 0 comments

Here is another Garfield card published by Argus Communications. We've seen a bunch of them on the blog, but this one is different. This one was actually produced for a company called SmartPractice, and the reverse of the card is preprinted with a reminder notice that the recipient is due for a dental exam, and should either call for an appointment or has been assigned one. Obviously SmartPractice was selling these cards in bulk to dental offices. This particular card, however, is unused.

Whether this card was also sold without the special back I don't know, but Argus used a different code on this one. While the others are all 'P + four numbers', this one is #82-033. Perhaps that 82 part finally tells us what year these Garfield cards were published?

Labels: Wish You Were Here

# posted by Allan Holtz @ 6:00 AM 1 comments