Wednesday, July 13, 2022
Selling It: Safety Sallies
Industrial workplace safety seems an odd topic for a newspaper cartoon, but apparently the Division of Safety and Hygiene of the Industrial Commission of Ohio (phew!) felt the need to produce them, and a few Ohio papers deemed them worthy of unpaid space. The earliest I find Safety Sallies running is August 1958*, and the latest is March 1960**. I've documented over 20 different panels, but no paper I know of ran them consistently or often enough to get any feeling for how many were likely produced, whether there were multiple series of them provided to papers, or if there was an intended frequency of appearance.
What I do know is that artist Leland S. McClelland shows off some of the most sumptuous inking work you're ever going to set your peepers on in these masterfully done panels. Which is odd, because McClelland did not usually draw using such a flamboyant brush -- he typically went for a more realistic look to his cartoons, and even when he went full-on bigfoot, it was generally less exuberant than this.
McClelland produced a long-running local interest Sunday page for the Columbus Citizen called Cartoon Parade, which I'd love to feature here if I can ever get hold of some hardcopy samples. The Safety Sallies series was produced as that feature was in its waning days. McClelland is known to have worked at the Byer & Bowman ad agency around this time, and that's probably how he came to produce this very obscure but wonderful series.
* Source: New Philadelphia Daily Times
** Source: Lancaster Eagle-Gazette
Labels: Public Service Features
