Obscurity of the Day: Oh Thunder

 

Robert W. Satterfield, long-time editorial cartoonist for the NEA syndicate, included a little bear as a mascot in his cartoons. The bear was never named, but came to be closely identified with Satterfield.

In June 1915 the syndicate assigned him the task of a comic strip based on current events, to which he appended a little single panel cartoon titled Oh Thunder and which starred his little bear. The earliest I find it printed is June 18 in the Evansville Press. In less than a month the current events strip seems to have been deemed too much work, and its space was shrunk and reassigned to a rhyming strip now starring the little bear, retaining the title Oh Thunder. The strip started as a two-panel affair, then increased to four panels. It was close to a daily but was sometimes dropped, presumably when Satterfield had bigger fish to fry in getting out editorial cartoons. 

I imagine newspaper readers who were initially excited to see Sat's little bear character starring in a comic strip doused their enthusiasm when they read the really quite awful rhymes that were offered. I actually chose the above samples because they were the cream of a crop that I looked through, believe it or not. 

Oh Thunder came to an end on October 21 1916*, presumably unmourned by creator and readers. 

Of more interest than this strip, to me, are the comings and goings of Satterfield in this era. In spring 1914 he advertised that his editorial cartooning services are distributed by himself, via the R.W. Satterfield Cartoon Service**. Evidently that means that he had split from NEA.  In later 1914, he is reported by several paper to be quite ill and unable to produce his cartoons -- whether he is still self-syndicating isn't mentioned in the reports I can find. Then in the May 1915 edition of Cartoons Magazine reports that Satterfield has accepted a position with the Sandusky Register. By June, though, he's back to producing cartoons, including today's obscurity, for NEA. Whew, what a whirlwind! 

* NEA Archives at Ohio State University

** Various 1914 issues of Editor & Publisher.