Monday, August 19, 2024
Obscurity of the Day: Scientific Sam -- Have You Met Him?
It's Mad Professor week here on Stripper's Guide, featuring three, count 'em, three, wacky genius inventors. Leading off with ...
It's impressive to me that there was a time when a freelance cartoonist, probably a kid who had just completed a mail order course, could walk into a newspaper of the first stature, like the New York World, get an appointment to see the features editor, and sell him on a new comic strip series.
I know basically nothing about E. Burton Johnson, the cartoonist of today's obscurity, but given that Scientific Sam - Have You Met Him? is his only known newspaper credit, it seems likely that he somehow managed to get that much sought after audience with an editor, and with a not particularly original series, and decent though by no means spectacular cartooning, got himself a berth in one of the globe's highest circulation papers. Wow, that's an incident that would strain the credulity of even Horatio Alger
I suppose you could say the same thing is possible today, but the odds against you seem almost infinitely worse. But as far as I know, you can still show up at The New Yorker and get yourself an audience with the cartoon buyer. Or, with a lot of chutzpah and luck, you could see a features editor at the New York Times, or the Washington Post, and maybe, just maybe, they might take pity on you. But you better arrive with something a lot better than Scientific Sam!
Anyhow, Scientific Sam - Have You Met Him? ran as an occasional weekday feature in the New York Evening World from August 16 to October 6 1909. What happened to Mr. E. Burton Johnson after that? Did he keep on as a cartoonist in some other capacity? Sorry, I haven't a clue. But hopefully he didn't use up his whole lifetime's quota of luck at the New York World, and the rest of his career was also replete with bright spots.
Labels: Obscurities
