Stripper's Guide

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Harry J. Tuthill

2012-01-31T08:00:00.000-05:00

Harry Joseph Tuthill was born in Chicago, Illinois on May 10, 1885, according to his World War I draft card at Ancestry.com. The World Herald (Omaha, Nebraska) published, on March 7, 1926, a profile of him; Tuthill said:

I was born in Chicago, Illinois and sold newspapers until I was old enough to answer advertisements for 'strong boy, not afraid of work,' and in this capacity experimented with employers for several years, at the rate of one job a week. One per week is a generalization, because too frequently some boss with a particularly low voltage nervous system was willing to call one day long enough.

In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, the Tuthill family of six lived in Chicago at 731 West Ohio Street. His mother, a widow, was a laundress. He was a newsboy and the oldest of five children. In the World Herald, Tuthill said:

Drug stores were my main hold. The opportunity to learn a business while eating ice cream sodas was very alluring in spite of junior drug clerks who apparently devoted their spare time and knowledge of chemistry towards jokes calculated to annoy small boys….

Then a man with more faith than vision sent me out of town to sell enlarged pictures. After that I sold soap, knobs for tea-kettles, baking powder, calendars, solicited patients for an itinerant malpractitioner who specialized in bunions, and, for a part of a season traveled with a medicine show which tried to pass a business depression that was running on the same track.

The September 26, 1935 Niagara Falls Gazette (New York) elaborated on his medicine show days:

He got his start as a humorist when he was playing the banjo for an itinerant medicine man in the middle west. The medicine man specialized in corns, and he and Harry traveled in a covered wagon with beautiful signs, picturing the miseries of the human foot, on the outside.

The corn doctor and his able assistant covered most of the towns between the Adirondacks and the Rockies, and Harry picked up, besides his weekly pay, a wealth of impressions and mental notes.

Another version of the story was published in Modern Mechanix, October 1936. The World Encyclopedia of Comics (1976) said he arrived in St. Louis, Missouri when he was 19 years old, around 1904. In the 1910 census, he, wife Ethyl and son Harold lived in St. Louis at 2808 Dayton Street. He worked at a dairy. In the World Herald, Tuthill said:

...I worked for several years in a dairy, studied steam engineering and got a license to practice it.

During all of this I liked to draw and finally made enough progress to justify a preliminary skirmish with a managing editor. After my wounded vanity was able to be up and around I took a course in drawing and returned to the editor many times. Youth against age. I wore him down to the point where he hired me to get rid of me.

I spent eight years as topical cartoonist and then joined a syndicate as a comic artist.

St. Louis Star editorial cartoon 1916

He signed his World War I draft card on September 12, 1918. He resided in St. Louis at 4537 Tower Grove Place. His occupation was cartoonist at the St. Louis Star. His description was tall, slender brown eyes and hair. The Editor & Publisher reported, on October 16, 1919, Tuthill's move to a syndicate: "Harry J. Tuthill, late cartoonist of the St. Louis Star and the Post-Dispatch, will join the forces of the New York Evening Mail Syndicate, October 27th." There he created the strip Home, Sweet Home, which changed it's name to The Bungle Family around 1923.

He was counted twice in the 1920 census. He resided in Manhattan, New York City at 534 West 153 Street. He was a newspaper cartoonist. He lived in St. Louis at 4537 Tower Grove Place. The head of the household was his brother-in-law George Morrison, who was married to Tuthill's sister Irene. The childless couple looked after Tuthill's sons Harold and George.

Tuthill was the head of the household in the 1930 census, and lived in Saint Ferdinand, Missouri at 102 Elizabeth Avenue. Harold, the eldest son, was a newspaper reporter. His sister Irene was a widow who had a son. The Niagara Falls Gazette said:

From possible undocumented cartoon series, 1916

…He has an old-fashioned home of many large rooms, set back among the trees. A separate building houses his studio and a workshop where he tinkers with automobile engines in his spare time. He is a widower, and has two sons in college. His sister presides over his home, and Harry's friends know the place as one of the most hospitable in the hospitable city of St. Louis.

…Tuthill has always spurned the lures of Broadway. He is one of the few strip cartoonists who insist upon living in the middle west. He likes the outdoors and enjoys a motor trip through the Ozarks more than he enjoys a visit to New York night life. He visits the big city once or twice every year, and goes back to St. Louis more than ever contented with home life in Missouri.

Tuthill owned The Bungle Family strip and ended it on August 1, 1942. Time magazine said on June 11, 1945: "…The strip's newspaper clients dropped to 70 in 1942. Cartoonist Tuthill, as bored as everyone else, killed the Bungles. Eight months later, he started them up again this time with three teen-aged children…." World Encyclopedia of Comics said, "…Weary even of that by the close of the war, Tuthill once more folded his strip in June 1945, and lived out the remainder of his quiet life quietly in Missouri…"

Official Gazette of the United States Patent Office published his April 5, 1946 application for "Shading Process for Photographs".

1. The process of applying dots to a graphic composition which consists in providing a thin sheet of transparent flexible material having a multiplicity of perforations extending therethrough, laying such perforated sheet upon said graphic composition, applying to the exposed face of said sheet a liquid solvent therefor which flows through the perforations therein to the underside thereof and causes said sheet to removably adhere to said graphic composition, and then applying to said exposed surface of said sheet a viscous marking fluid which flows through said perforations and adheres to said graphic composition in the form of dots corresponding to the shape, size and spacing of said perforations.

Tuthill passed away on January 25, 1957, in St. Louis. His death was reported, on January 26, in the New York Times which said he died of heart disease at St. John's Hospital. "The Bungles were just an accidental creation," Mr. Tuthill once explained. "I didn't have anybody in mind when I drew them. They just happened."

Stripper's Guide Bookshelf: Luks' Illustration Work Reviewed

2012-01-30T08:04:00.023-05:00

Life on the Press: The Popular Art and Illustrations of George Benjamin Luks
by Robert L. Gambone
University of Mississippi Press, 2009
Hardcover, 284 pages, indexed.
ISBN 978-1-60473-222-1

Gambone's book, which seeks to recap George Luk's life as an illustrator, was published so far under the radar that I didn't stumble across it until just a few months ago, two years after it was published.

Of course I ordered it immediately, because the subject is right up my alley. Anything about the work of a cartoonist who was in the thick of the Sunday funnies phenomenon of the 1890s is like manna from heaven. Of course I do realize that the book would not have seen the light of day had Luks not been famous as a painter, but the blurb reassured me that this book is about his illustration and newspaper work, not his 'fine' art.

And so it is. Although Gambone certainly does discuss Luks' fine art here and there, he does an admirable job of sticking to the task he claims to be tackling in the title of the book. So huzzahs on that account to Gambone. And huzzahs again for the thoroughness of coverage, because Gambone discusses many of Luks' cartoons and illustrations in detail as to style, subject and background, and mentions seemingly practically every major piece he did for a newspaper. So regarding sticking to the subject and covering it thoroughly I give the book an unmitigated thumbs up.

Beyond that things unfortunately go downhill. My problem with the book is that I found myself mistrusting Gambone's judgment about Luks' artwork. In a book as sparsely illustrated as this (keep in mind this is no coffee table art book) it is quite disconcerting to find yourself wondering if the author is really able to judge and explain a piece of artwork realistically and accurately.

I first became concerned early on in the book when Gambone discussed a minor little multi-panel cartoon produced for Puck. This is a strip that is fairly well reproduced in the book. In it we see a dapper rich kid holding a balloon encountering a tough-looking street urchin. The urchin, who is smoking a cigarette, gives the kid a disdainful look and pops the balloon with his cigarette. Panel three finds the pair in a tumbling wrestling match, and in the final panel the foppish rich kid is stalking away with the tough kid's cigarette perched victoriously on his lip while the urchin slinks away, bloody and cowed.

Gambone makes much of a perceived difference in the way the two kids are drawn. He feels that the rich kid is "merely an outline" whereas the urchin is "carefully rendered". Looking at the strip, at least as it is reproduced in this book, it certainly looks to me like Luks put the same amount of effort and detail into both kids. Certainly there is more ink expended on the dirty urchin as opposed to the immaculately clean rich kid, but it takes more ink to show soiling than it does to indicate cleanliness.

Bringing this up would be hairsplitting, except that Gambone uses this perceived difference in the drawing to jump to an utterly ridiculous conclusion. He claims that the quality of the drawing on the urchin proves that it could only have been drawn from life and "this drawing demonstrates that at least three years prior to starting as a newspaper artist-reporter in 1894, Luks developed the habit of strolling about inner-city neighborhoods observing, sketching and devising compositions." Even if there were a vast difference in the quality of the drawing of the two kids, a difference I certainly don't see, drawing such a conclusion is like saying that Alex Raymond must have visited Mongo since he drew the creatures of that world so convincingly. While I certainly don't discount the possibility that Luks might have been sketching street urchins, I can offer a much simpler explanation for a cartoon in which the two characters seem to have a stylistic difference. How about this -- the cartoonist was swiping from different sources for the two characters and didn't make the effort to adapt them to a single unifying style.

For the remainder of the book, now having established his credentials as a spotter of such things, Gambone tells us with assurance many instances when a drawing must have been sketched from life. Another instance when the author's logic in this regard is highly questionable comes with an illustration from the New York Sunday World. The subject is bosses who take their secretaries to lunch, and Luks contributes a large illustration of a restaurant, filled with older men dining with attractive young women. According to Gambone, who notes that the dresses and varying body types seem fully realized, and that the furniture is of a specific design, concludes that the "degree of veracity indicates the World assigned Luks to dine at this establishment and record the scene or else had a photographer make a candid shot that served the artist as an exact model." Oh come now. First of all, any newspaper artist worth his salt could produce such an illustration without moving an inch from his drawing board -- artists were not employed by newspapers if they needed the crutch of live models in order to make a simple story illustration. Second, the illustration depicts a restaurant populated ONLY by twosomes, each consisting of a man and a gorgeous young lady. What are the chances of this ever happening in real life? What, not a single pair of guys or girls going out to lunch? No table just happens to have just a single person or three? The chances against such a congregation of businessmen and their secretaries is astronomical. Third, the women are dressed in such high style my guess is that they were copied out of a Godey's Lady's Book -- it seems very doubtful that a secretary would wear such finery to go to work or could afford to, even if they were the boss' 'special favorite'. And finally, for all the vaunted realism of the scene, Luks has made a royal mess of the perspective. If he were sketching from life, surely he was a good enough artist to not make such a mash-up of the drawing.

These are only two examples, but they're not the only ones. Look, I don't much care whether Luks sketched a given scene from life or not. To me it's not really an important distinction. However, I cannot help but wonder how often Gambone is leading me down the garden path about all sorts of details of Luks' other drawings, the ones that aren't reproduced in the book.Without an illustration which I can judge for myself (which is often since there are few illustrations reproduced), how much of Gambone's description and interpretation should I believe?

Also, to be a bit nitpicky, the book would have benefited from the services of a good proofreader. I don't blame Gambone for the many slip-ups I noted, because everyone has a few holes in their knowledgebase and fingers that sometimes type faster than the brain functions, but a proofreader certainly should have caught the instances of "grizzly" for "grisly", "ground-braking" for "ground-breaking", "sheers" instead of "shears", "lodge" instead of "loge", and so on.

I am impressed and enthused that people from the fine art world would see fit to look beyond Luks' paintings and delve into his commercial art career. Cross-pollination like that is thrilling to me, because I myself rarely think of cartooning in terms of just the lines on the paper or the stories that are told. I am fascinated by the whole universe of thoughts, events and viewpoints that swirl around every piece of newspaper cartoon art. The world reflects the art, and the art reflects the world. To read the perspective of someone like Gambone whose specialty is in fine art is instructive, as so are the perspectives of other disciplines when they intersect with my own personal passion for the history of cartooning. We can all learn something from each other, and increase the sweep of our perspective accordingly. The fact that I think Gambone's book fails on some counts is nothing compared with my delight that this kind of book is being published. More, please more!

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2012-01-29T08:08:00.000-05:00

Herriman Saturday

2012-01-28T08:07:00.051-05:00

Thursday, February 27 1908 -- Before government regulation did much to smooth the terribly bumpy road of the economy, financial panics were relatively common occurrences, happening on average about every seven years. One of the effects of these panics was often a localized shortage of government currency due to hoarding. When currency became scarce, banks and other institutions sometimes printed their own temporary currencies, commonly called scrip.

In the Panic of 1907, the Los Angeles Clearing House Association, one of those institutions, had to issue scrip. Today they burn all the cancelled scrip paper, satisfied that the panic is over and it won't be needed again, at least for awhile. Herriman cartoons the scene when huge piles of scrip were fed into the furnace of the Llewelyn Iron Works.

Certain factions in the country today, mainly those with no knowledge of history, shout endlessly about the need for smaller and less intrusive government, and for allowing the free market to fly forward unheeded by government regulation. Financial panics at the rate of one or two per decade are one of the features of the 'good old days' before government interference. Is this what we're supposed to be nostalgic for?

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Hal Forrest

2012-01-27T08:00:00.008-05:00

Harry Paul "Hal" Forrest was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 22, 1892, according to his World War I draft card. The California Death Index at Ancestry.com said his birth year was 1893, and a Spokesman-Review (Spokane, Washington), August 30, 1935 profile, said the birth year was 1895.

In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, he was the youngest of three children born to William and Annie. They lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania at 1912 Sterner Street. The census said he was born "July 1892". His father was an insurance agent.

Ten years later, the Forrests were in Philadelphia at 3501 Water Street. It's not clear what his occupation was. The Spokesman-Review said, "From 1911 to 1915 Forrest attended the Art Institute of Chicago. He became a member of the art staff of the Chicago Tribune and then joined troop A, First Illinois cavalry. During 1915 to 1917 he was a member of the headquarters troop, third New Jersey in infantry…." He signed his World War I draft card in April 1917. His home address was in Clementon, New Jersey. His occupation was student at Fort Myers Camp in Fort Myers, Virginia. He was described as tall, medium build, with brown eyes and dark hair.

He has not been found in the 1920 census. His father, a widower, lived in Clementon, New Jersey. The Nevada State Journal published Forrest's United Press International obituary, on November 26, 1959, which said, "…[Forrest was] an editor of the Culver City, Calif., News in the early 20s…." In the late 1920s, he created Artie the Ace, the forerunner to Tailspin Tommy.

The 1930 census recorded Forrest in Los Angeles, California at 3135 Durango. According to the census, he married Charlotte around 1925, and their daughter, Elizabeth, was born in early 1927. He was a newspaper artist. An August 5, 1934 passenger list, At Ancestry.com, recorded their address as 9018 Olive Street, Los Angeles.

The Aberdeen American News (South Dakota) said on November 25, 1959, "…in 1952…Tailspin Tommy…became the basis for a television series, a radio program and several books…."

Forrest passed away November 23, 1959, in Culver City, California, according to the Associated Press report in the Springfield Union (Massachusetts), November 25. However, the California Death Index has the date as November 21. Samples of his original art are at Heritage Auctions.

Obscurity of the Day: Willie

2012-01-26T07:58:00.048-05:00

Over a decade before Hal Forrest found his claim to fame as the artist, and later sole creator, of Tailspin Tommy, he made an early foray into the world of newspaper cartooning at the Philadelphia Record. The strip was untitled but featured a precocious little boy named Willie, so Willie I hereby christen the strip. The strip only ran five times. The first four were daily style outings (though printed on Sundays), while the fifth was a larger Sunday-style half page strip (but still in black and white). The first four episodes appeared January 16 to February 13 1916, and then the half-pager ran on April 2 1916.

According to an otherwise pretty reliable sounding website about Tailspin Tommy and its creator, Forrest's first pro work was at the Philadelphia Telegraph in 1911, a strip called Percy the Boy Scout. I haven't indexed the 1911 Telegraph, but I'm a bit skeptical of that claim, especially since the author says next "he collaborated with Lee Pape, author of Little Benny's Notebook, on a Sunday page of colored comics in the Philadelphia Record." This was supposedly sometime in 1915-17, but that paper I have indexed and I say it didn't happen. There is, however, Willie, which wasn't mentioned.

Ink-Slinger Profiles: William Steinigans

2012-01-25T08:00:00.006-05:00

William John Steinigans was born in Connecticut on February 15, 1878, according to Artists in California, 1786-1940 (2002); the source of that date is not stated. He has not been found in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census. He attended Meriden High School in Meriden, Connecticut. He was in the class of 1898 (see photo); an excerpt from the 1898 annual:

Our "Little Willie," or rather William John Steinigans is the sport of the class. In one sense he is always well informed as to the occurrences in the athletic world; on the other hand his sportive wit and grotesque actions causes much mirth and (trouble.) Willie, "Let not thy mirth turn to mischief," so goes the proverb. On one occasion Willie was asked why he did not recite. He replied "I hain't got no book." At other times he would often answer "Because."

In the 1900 census, he was the youngest of two children born to John and Emily, both German emigrants. They lived in Meriden, Connecticut at 880 Broad Street. His father was a knife maker. Steinigans birth date was "Feb 1879" and his occupation was "Type Writer". He was listed as a clerk in the Meriden, Connecticut, City Directory, 1901. The date of his move to New York City is not known. He was on the staff of the New York World which published his strip, The Dream That Made Bill a Better Boy, starting in August 1905. He and George McManus were instructors, in comic art, at the School of Practical Illustrating; an advertisement for its summer school appeared in International Studio, May 1907.

And he instructed at the National School of Art, 2228 Broadway, according to an advertisement in the New York Herald, January 12, 1908. He and Vet Anderson handled the evening comics and cartooning class.

In the 1910 census, he was recorded in Manhattan, New York City at 320 West 96 Street. He married Martha around June 1909 and was a newspaper artist. HIs strip Grimes's Goat ran in the World beginning November 1911. Around 1913, he moved west. In the book, This Way to the Big Show: The Life of Dexter Fellows (1936), Fellows recalled carousing with his cartoonist friends:

…[George] McManus, who boasted that they kept him on the World, his first New York paper, because Joseph Pulitzer, who was then blind, could not see his drawings; Tom Powers, whose cartoons and barblike quips will be remembered by thousands; Bill Steinigans, who drew dog pictures for the World; and I were the four horsemen of Park Row. We rode, for the most part, in search of drink, food, and pleasure and invariably found them all. The little group was broken up in more ways than one when doctors presented Steinie with an ultimatum which gave him a year to live in New York or three years in the West. Steinie elected to go to Banning, in Southern California. Although he lived for five years, it seems to me that he would have been much happier with a shorter stay on this earth spent in New York. In Banning and later in Tucson, Arizona, he was among strangers, people who were not his kind, with nothing to see but cacti and desert.

Steinigans also spent time in Palm Springs, about twenty-two miles southeast of Banning. The Riverside Enterprise (California) named him and others in its February 8, 1920 article, "Palm Springs Has Lure for Tourists".

…Lovely indeed is the Palm Springs of today—and yet this some pilgrim cannot but regret the passing of the picturesque, ramshackle little collection of huts and shacks beloved by the colony of former days, which included Edwin Salisbury Field; Mrs. Robert Louis Stevenson, wife of the famous author; Robert V. Carr, another writer; "Jimmie" Swinnerton, well known Hearst cartoonist; George Herriman, creator of "Dinny Dingbat" and "Krazy Kat"; William Steinigans, New York World comic man; and others noted for their creative talents.

He was in Tucson in 1917. At Ancestry.com, the U.S. IRS Tax Assessment List 1917 recorded his name for the 1916 tax year. He was in Tucson when he filed his 1040 form and owed twelve dollars. His wife put an ad in the Tucson Daily Citizen on March 27, 1917.

Lost—Mexican poodle dog. Color, yellow and white, spotted, long hair, weighs between 5 and 6 pounds. Answers to the name Japeno. Liberal reward if returned to Mrs. Wm. J. Steinigans, Santa Rita St. Box 114.

Steinigans passed away January 25, 1918, in Los Angeles. Cartoons Magazine, in its March 1918 issue, gave a brief account of his life.

William J. Steinigans, comic artist on the staff of the Sunday World, died at Los Angeles, Cal., Friday, January 25.

Mr. Steinigans was a member of the World staff for about sixteen years, most of that time on the Sunday comic supplement. He was the creator of "The Bad Dream That Made Bill a Better Boy," "Splinters," "Mr. Hubby" and other comic series. He was famous particularly for his funny pictures of dogs, which figured in every series that he drew.

About five years ago, Mr. Steinigans went to California for his health, and with the exception of some time spent in Arizona, he remained there until the end. He is survived by a widow.

The Fourth Estate, 2/2/1918

The Daily Citizen printed a series of legal notices, regarding Steinigans' will.

Notice of Hearing Petition

In the superior court of Pima county, state of Arizona.

In the matter of the estate of William J. Steinigans, deceased.

Notice is hereby given that Southern Arizona Bank and Trust company, a corporation, has filed in this court a certain document purporting to be the last will and testament of William J. Steinigans together with his petition praying that said document be admitted to probate in this court as the last will and testament of said William J. Steingans who, said petitioner alleges, is deceased, and that letters testamentary issue thereon to said petitioner, and that same be heard on Tuesday the 26th day of March, A.D., 1918, at 9:30 o'clock in the forenoon of said day, at the court room of said court, in the court house, in the city of Tucson, county of Pima, state of Arizona, and all persons interested in said estate are notified then and there to appear and show cause, if any they have, why the prayer of said petitioner shoal not be granted.

S.A. Elrod

Clerk.

By M.S. Brown, Deputy Clerk.

Dated March 14, 1918.

First pub, Mar. 15, 1918.

Last pub, Mar. 27, 1918.

Legal Notices

Notice to Creditors

In the Superior Court Pima county, State of Arizona

In the matter of the estate of William J. Steinigans.

Notice is hereby given by the undersigned executor of the estate of William J. Steinigans deceased, to the creditors of and all persons having claims against the said deceased, to exhibit such claims, with the necessary vouchers, within them months after the first publication of this notice to the said executor, 36 North Stone Avenue, which said place the undersign selects as its place of business in all matters connected with said estate of William J. Steingians.

Southern Arizona Bank & Trust Company.

Executor of the Estate of William J. Steinigans.

April 4, 11, 18, 25

According to the Connecticut, Deaths and Burials Index at Ancestry.com, Steinigans was born in 1879, and buried at the Walnut Grove Cemetery in Meriden, Connecticut. Steinigans was in Los Angeles when he died. The address of where he lived, at the time, is not known but there are two possibilities to consider. His wife was recorded in the Los Angeles City Directory, 1920 at "1321 N Serrano", and in the 1920 census at 1404 Serrano Avenue.

Obscurity of the Day: Mister Hubby

2012-01-24T08:06:00.002-05:00

William Steinigans was a workhorse in the bullpen of the New York World for over a decade (not the Herald as you'll see reported on various websites). Although his name isn't remembered except by diehard cartooning buffs, his style was very familiar to the average New Yorker in the the 1900s and 10s. He had an affinity for dog strips, but was adept at humans as well.

Mister Hubby was his last new strip creation for the World, and also the last to end. It started on September 1 1912 and ended December 17 1916. It is not a fitting coda for Steinigans, who obviously preferred penning his dog strips. In fact Mister Hubby is quite bland, to the point where the title couldn't be much more generic.

According to reports on the web, Steinigans died in 1918 at the age of forty, less than a year after Mister Hubby ended.

Obscurity of the Day: Curious Avenue

2012-01-23T08:05:00.063-05:00

Tom Toles is one of the leading lights in editorial cartooning and has a Pulitzer to prove it. And that's only about a half-dozen Pulitzers short of what he deserves, in my humble opinion. Back in the 1990s, when he was still with the Buffalo News but had already gained national fame he took the plunge and created a comic strip. This is no great surprise, as it seems most every editorial cartoonist of any note gives it a go at one time or another.

Tom Toles' Curious Avenue, distributed by Universal Press Syndicate, debuted on April 19 1992 to a lukewarm reception. I'm betting that feature editors who liked Toles' political cartoons grabbed the strip on reputation alone, while others wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. The strip, however, was completely apolitical. It featured a cast of rather goofy tykes who sport a host of neuroses. They generally act like kids, but they can express themselves like adults. So yeah, somewhat like Peanuts, but with an edgier and overtly darker sensibility. The strip tended to be a bit on the violent side, with physical encounters between the kids a pretty commonplace occurrence, and sarcasm was as rampant in the strip as in Toles' editorial cartoons.

I found the strip intriguing and the drawing style attractive. I rather liked it, although I did feel it suffered for a lack of likeable characters . Apparently I was in the minority for liking the strip because it went belly-up in less than two years; the latest I've found it running is December 31 1994. I imagine Toles pulled the plug, seeing that it wasn't going to be a major income-producer.

If the samples intrigue you, look for an Andrews-McMeel reprint collection of the strip issued in 1993; it's on the scarce side, but not particularly expensive.

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2012-01-22T08:05:00.000-05:00

Herriman Saturday

2012-01-21T08:05:00.008-05:00

Wednesday, February 25 1908 -- Battling Nelson goes out to sea on a day off from training, but the big news is that a certain duck character is named here for the first time, almost two years before he enters the pantheon of Herriman comic strip series.

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Harris Brown

2012-01-20T08:00:00.001-05:00

Harris Harper Brown was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 26, 1884, according to his World War I and II draft cards. Information on his childhood and art training has not been found. Apparently he was the second child of Henry and Elizabeth who were recorded in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census; the first child was his sister, Jennie. The family lived in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on Sharwood Street.

Brown's parents were counted in the 1900 census but he was not. They were farmers in Bristol, Pennsylvania. The local newspaper, The Bucks County Gazette, reported on several events involving Brown. On September 14, 1905, he and Mrs. Stackhouse had organized a lawn party on his father's property. On November 30, 1905, "a freedom party was given to Harris H. Brown at his uncle's residence, by Mrs. Frank P. Warrington, Mrs. William K. Stackhouse and Mrs. Henry C. Brown." Another party honoring his twenty-first birthday was reported on December 8, 1905. The Gazette noted the start of his cartooning career, at the Philadelphia Record, on November 30, 1906:

Harris H. Brown, formerly of this section, has associated himself with the Philadelphia Daily Record and is running a series of comic drawings in the Sunday issue of that paper.

For the Record he created the comic strip, The Adventures of Willie Green, which ran from 1906 to 1928 (with several long gaps).

The 1910 census recorded Brown in Philadelphia, boarding at 733 North 20th Street. He was an artist doing newspaper work. His parents were still farming in Bristol. He copyrighted Adventures of Willie Green, Book No. 1 on March 26, 1915, according to the Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 1, Group 2: Pamphlets, Leaflets, etc. 1915, New Series, Volume 12, Number 4. He signed his World War I draft card on September 12, 1918. His occupation was farm laborer; his description was medium height and build with gray eyes and red hair. He has not been found in the 1920 census; his father, a widower, was retired and staying with the Stackhouse family.

In 1930, Brown was married and lived in Morrisville, Pennsylvania at 456 Stockham Avenue. According to the census, his wife, Alice, was 17 years his junior; they had a five-year-old daughter. He worked as an insurance agent. He signed his World War II draft card on April 27, 1942. He lived at 615 North Pennsylvania Avenue, in Morrisville, and worked for the Prudential Insurance Company in Princeton, New Jersey. His description on the card was "5 ft 10 in, 170 lbs, blue eyes, sandy hair."

Brown passed away on November 11, 1962 in Trenton, New Jersey. The Trenton Evening Times reported his death the following day.

Harris Brown Dies Following Short Illness

Harris H. Brown died last night at his home, 26 South Westfield Avenue, following a short illness.

Mr. Harris was a retired Prudential Insurance Company agent, and also was retired as a guide at the State Museum.

He was well known as a cartoonist, having created the "Willie Green" comics, and was a cartoonist with the former Philadelphia Record for 30 years. He also had done commercial art work.

Born in Philadelphia, he resided in Trenton for the past 25 years, and previously made his home in the Emilie-Fallsington [Pennsylvania] area for many years. He was a graduate of Williamson College [a vocational school], Media, Pa.

Surviving are his wife, Mrs. Alice Kellett Brown; two daughters, Mrs. Nancianne B. Parrella and Mrs. Sally Jane Bergner, both of Trenton, and five grandchildren.

Funeral services will be held Friday at 11 a.m. in the First Presbyterian Church. The Rev. Dr. Andrew Sebben, pastor, will officiate. Burial will be in Fountain Lawn Memorial Park.

Obscurity of the Day: Willie Green

2012-01-19T08:06:00.101-05:00

Unlike most of its competitors in Philadelphia, the Philadelphia Record chose not to engage in a circulation race for its Sunday edition based on how many pages of color it could produce. In fact until the 1920s the paper, which did have very respectable circulation figures, had a relatively staid Sunday edition, often enlivened with only a black and white magazine section designed to appeal to relatively sophisticated tastes.

However, although the Record wasn't awash in color, they did make a nod to running Sunday comics. For over twenty years they featured a half-page homegrown strip in black and white titled Willie Green. This wasn't by any means the only strip they ran, but when it did run it was always clearly the star of the show. Most of the other strips tended to be daily size.

Willie Green, a strip about a mischievous boy, debuted on September 2 1906, penned by a local teenaged cartoonist named Harris H. Brown. The strip, initially drawn in a very crisp style that you can see in this old blogpost, seems to have been a real hit with Record readers. The strip ran weekly for the next five years, then began to run every second week, alternating with Cousin Sammy Green (a country cousin of Willie) penned by John F. Hart, from December 3 1911 to May 12 1912.

Willie Green disappeared at that point, and other minor strips ran in its place. Eventually even these pretty much petered out. Then as the new year of 1914 rang in, the Record added a Sunday color comic section, courtesy of Hearst's new Newspaper Feature Service syndicate. In addition to the color section, Willie Green came back. This time the strip ran from January 4 1914 to September 3 1916 (today's samples are from this interval). It was during this run that a pair of reprint books were issued through the Frank M. Acton Company. Both are quite rare.

Once again Harris Brown took flight, but again he returned. On November 18 1917 the strip is resurrected yet again, only to stop on July 14 1918. This time Brown was gone for quite awhile, but either the pull of cartooning for the Record was too great, or his luck at other ventures was too bad, because on May 22 1921 he's back. But not for long. This run ended after a bare six months, on November 13. It was in this period, however, that Brown self-published another Willie Green reprint book; perhaps the 1921 run was intended purely as a bit of promotion.

Willie Green then pops up in the darnedest place, as a feature of World Color Printing's weekly children's activity page. I believe these are reprints of earlier material. One has to wonder if Harris Brown or the Philadelphia Record sold them the rights. Anyway, whatever the arrangement was, it didn't last, as Willie Green ran only three times on that page.

The last hurrah for Willie Green came near the end of the 20s, when it made its last gasp as a feature of the Record Junior magazine section for kids. This final run was from January 8 to August 12 1928.

Why Brown did this feature in fits and starts is a mystery to me. But maybe we'll learn some clues tomorrow when Alex Jay contributes an Ink-Slinger Profile of Harris Brown.

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Wally Wallgren

2012-01-18T08:00:00.001-05:00

Abian Anders "Wally" Wallgren was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on June 4, 1891, according to Find a Grave. The 1900 U.S. Federal Census recorded the Wallgrens in Philadelphia at 1631 Chadwick Street. His birth was recorded as "June 1891" and he was the oldest of three children born to Abian and Hilma, both born in Sweden. His father was a tailor.

The book Swedes in America, 1638-1938 (1969) said, "He entered newspaper work at an early age and was indeed, something of a youthful prodigy in the art department of the old Philadelphia North American, for by the time he was sixteen [1907] he had two Sunday comic strips running; 'Inbad, the Sailor' and 'Ruff and Reddy.' " [Allan's note: the series cited actually began in 1911 and 1910 respectively]

In 1910 the Wallgren family of six remained in Philadelphia, at 1208 52nd Street. He was a newspaper cartoonist. In 1915, for the Philadelphia Record, he produced the strip Sammy and Sue and Slobbery Slam. Find a Grave and Lambiek said he contributed to the Philadelphia Public Ledger and the Washington Post. The U.S. Marine Corps Muster Rolls, 1798-1940 at Ancestry.com said he enlisted on April 25, 1917, almost two weeks after the U.S. entered World War I. A muster roll from September 1917 summarized his conduct violations:

SD, Sign Painter. Tried by S.C.M. 7th charged with violation of the 61st and 96th Articles of War. Specifications: AWL from 9:30 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. on 4th; Drunk in Camp about 7:00 p.m. on 4th; Findings: Guilty. Sentence: To perform hard labor for one month and to forfeit two-thirds of his pay for one month. Sentence approved 8th.

Swedes in America covered his early service career.

…[Wallgren] was among the first to see service in France as a buck private and regimental sign painter, a post which army logic assigned him on his "professional" record. According to his own account for nine months he painted "Latrine" and "Officers Only" signs up and down France, from St. Nazaire, through Menaucourt, to Damblaine in the Vosges. Private Wallgren's light, however, was being kept under a bushel. His great opportunity came when the Stars and Stripes was started as the official newspaper of the AEF [American Expeditionary Forces], and Wally was placed on the staff as cartoonist. In February, 1918, he was transferred to Paris and drew cartoons for this doughboy newspaper throughout the War, until the final issue in June, 1919.

Robert I. Snajdr, of the Cleveland Plain Dealer (Ohio), wrote a remembrance of Wallgren on March 29, 1948; below, an excerpt about his time on Stars and Stripes:

…Incidentally, Wally's utter indifference to deadlines was a cause of continuous, albeit at times humorous, exasperation to his superiors. As John T. Winterich, another brilliant staff member, put it in his history of the paper, "Squads Write!": "The extraction of a weekly strip from Private Wallgren became one of the more monumental tasks of the war."

Sometimes it was even necessary to assign a detail to the carefree artist to see that he produced a job on time. Once, even, so the story goes, he was confined in a room under watchful eyes of M.P.s with instructions not to let him out until he had completed his weekly stint.

Some of his cartoons can be viewed here. His military career was covered in a Time magazine profile on October 17, 1938. According to a U.S. Marine Corps Muster Roll, Wallgren was on indefinite furlough from July 14, 1919 to January 14, 1920, and was discharged on January 15. He was counted in the 1920 census with his family, now at seven members, at the same 1910 address. His occupation was magazine cartoonist.

In 1930 Wallgren and his wife Florence lived in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania at 837 Concord Avenue. They married when they were 28 years old, which was around 1920. He was a cartoonist. In 1938, Wallgren created the newspaper strip Hoosegow Herman; color samples can be viewed at I Love Comix Archive, [Update: The blog has moved and offers a way to access the archive.] and original art can be viewed at Heritage Auctions.

Sunday page, 12/3/1939, courtesy of Heritage Auctions.

Wallgren passed away on March 24, 1948 in Upper Darby, Pennsylvania. The Lawton Constitution (Oklahoma) published the Associated Press story the following day.

Wally Wallgren, Cartoonist of First World War, Dies

Philadelphia, March 25.—(AP)—Abian A. (Wally) Wallgren, 56, cartoonist for "Stars and Stripes" during the first World War and later with the American Legion monthly, died yesterday after a long illness.

Wallgren was credited by Gen. John J. Pershing with keeping up the morale of thousands of doughboys with his travesties on officers and his humorous illustrations picturing the difficulties and problems of soldiers.

Among Wallgren's creations were "Inbad the Sailor," "Hoosegow Herman," and "The Saluting Demon."

Obscurity of the Day: Inbad the Sailor

2012-01-17T08:08:00.052-05:00

Sometimes destiny plays a cruel trick on us. Take the example of Wally Wallgren. If ever there was a fellow who was unfit and undesirous of any connection to the military, it was Wally. He was, to put it charitably, a free-spirit. He did not recognize authority, he was lazy, he was unable to keep a schedule, and he was a compulsive smartass. The one thing he seemed to take really seriously and to pursue with gusto (besides cartooning) was drinking. Let's just say that Wally sure as hell wasn't officer material.

So naturally fate ensured that Wally's entire adult life ended up entwined with the military. When he wasn't in uniform, he was cartooning about military life. And here's where it all started, in 1911, with Inbad the Sailor. Why Wally chose a sailor for this series I cannot fathom. It's not really germane to the idea, other than providing a pretext for an ever-changing setting. And this was long before the military should have even been on his radar (he was drafted for World War I). But he did, so I get to tell you that this is Wally Wallgren's very first military-themed strip, a portent of the next 30+ years of Wally's life.

Inbad the Sailor, a strip about a tender-hearted tar who gets the snot beat out of him all over the world for trying to do good deeds, ran in the Philadelphia North American from January 1 to June 18 1911.

Thanks to Cole Johnson for the scans!

Tomorrow: an Ink-Slinger Profile of Wally Wallgren by Alex Jay

Obscurity of the Day: Kiwi

2012-01-16T08:11:00.004-05:00

The kiwi is a flightless bird, so it seems sort of amazing that a strip about one had a very long migration, all the way from Australia to the U.S.

Ken Montone, new to Australia from the U.S., and Brian Kirby, fresh from Great Britain via Singapore and India, both came to the country as art directors at McCann-Erickson Advertising. The two found enough free time to come up with a minimalist comic strip about birds, then called Birdwirds, and sold it to the Sydney Sun-Herald as a Sunday feature in early 1965.

Not long after, both Kirby and Montone left Australia, taking their strip with them. They then sold it in England to the London Daily Sketch.

Then Montone returned to the U.S. and sold the strip to the Chicago Tribune-New York News Syndicate. According to Montone the strip was initially tried out in the syndicate's flagship papers, and then was generally syndicated starting on February 12 1968. In the U.S. the title was changed to Kiwi; Montone says this was because the original title was considered "somewhat naughty". (I hate to admit ignorance of anything naughty, but I confess I don't see what's off-color about the title Birdwirds).

Things were tough, though, for the two creators. Kirby tried to immigrate to the U.S., but was unsuccessful. The two creators ended up collaborating long distance, with Kirby living offshore in Barbados. In 1970 the partnership carried on by mail and long-distance calls proved too much, and Kirby dropped out as co-creator of the strip. As Montone tells it, it was the beginning of the end. "By this time, the strip was suffering from a myriad of problems and the circulation showed it. In 1971, CT/NYNS and I parted company".

And thus the Kiwi with by far the longest flight on record became extinct.

Thanks to Ken Montone, who supplied many details about his strip.

PS -- The co-creator's name is definitely Montone, not Monotone -- my samples from the San Francisco Examiner seem to have been typeset by either a practical joker or a comic strip critic.

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2012-01-15T08:04:00.002-05:00

Herriman Saturday

2012-01-14T08:09:00.021-05:00

Tuesday, February 25 1908 -- The game of water polo comes to Los Angeles courtesy of a fellow named Les Henry, who believes that the game could well become as popular as football to fans who like rough and tumble sports. Henry is organizing a league made up of teams from the local athletic clubs.

Water polo wasn't much more than an infant sport at this time; the rules were still being standardized in the late 19th century. The sport got a big boost when it was featured in the first modern Olympics in 1900.

Ink-Slinger Profiles: A.Y. Hambleton

2012-01-13T08:00:00.004-05:00

Arthur Yeager Hambleton was born in Baltimore, Maryland, on September 24, 1876, according to his World War I draft card at Ancestry.com. According to a family tree at Ancestry.com, his parents were Richard Emory Hugg-Hambleton (1845–1898) and Ella Frances Yeager (1849–1933). He has not been found in the 1880 U.S. Federal Census.

In the 1900 census, he was married to Alice, whose mother, Mary Sisselberger, a widow, was head of the household, which included his sister-in-law, Mary. They lived in Baltimore at 1506 Mount Royal Avenue. He was an artist. The Sun (Baltimore, Maryland) reported on January 2, 1902, "A chalk talk was given in the boys' room during the afternoon by Mr. A.Y. Hambleton, a sketch artist." The Morning Herald (Baltimore, Maryland), November 21, 1903, noted, "An entertainment will be provided by Knight's orchestra and Mr. A.Y. Hambleton, chalk talker." He contributed cartoons to the Sunday Sun in 1906 and signed them "Hamb."

The Sun, 9/25/1906

The Sun, 10/21/1906

In 1910, he was the head of the household which included son Richard, born 1901. The family of three lived in Baltimore on Pimlico Road. He was an artist. On September 26, 1910, The Sun reported, "A.Y. Hambleton, the comic artist and illustrator, recently launched on the vaudeville stage, where he gives 'Chalk Talks'." He signed his World War I draft card on September 12, 1918. He lived at 2710 Reisterstown Road in Baltimore. He was a newspaper artist for the International Syndicate. His description was tall, slender, with gray eyes and brown hair.

In the next census, he remained in Baltimore at another address, 2710 Fanview Avenue. He had his own business as an artist. In the 1930 census, Baltimore remained his hometown where he lived at 3110 Reisterstown Road. He was a newspaper artist.

Hambleton passed away in 1957, in Maryland. An obituary has not been found. The funeral service for his wife was reported in The Sun, May 17, 1970, and it said he had died 13 years earlier.

Update:

The Sun, November 14, 1899, marriage license notice

Issued by the Clerk of the Court of Common Pleas

The following marriage licenses were issued yesterday in Baltimore, the parties residing in Baltimore unless otherwise stated:

Arthur Y. Hambleton, 319 North Paca street, Alice B. Sisselberger.

The Sun, November 14, 1949, reported the couple's fiftieth wedding anniversary. In addition to being a commercial artist, Hambleton gave guitar and ukulele lessons for ten years.

The Sun, July 4, 1957, death notice

Hambleton.—On July 3, 1957, at his home, Luna lane, Round Bay, Arthur Y., beloved husband of Beatrice S. Hambleton (nee Sisselberger) and father of Mr. Waldo Hambleton.

Thanks to Leonardo De Sá for the additional information!

Obscurity of the Day: The Theatrical Alphabet

2012-01-12T07:51:00.054-05:00

If the excruciatingly awful rhymes perpetrated in the samples above haven't turned your gray matter into a bubbling ooze pooling around your ankles, let me tell you that this is some mighty rare stuff you're looking at. The Theatrical Alphabet is a series Cole Johnson found in the Baltimore Herald, an obscure newspaper of 1900-1906 that might be totally forgotten had not H.L. Mencken alit there for a few years.

Cole says of this item:

Here's a local strip from the Baltimore Herald. I've seen "Hamb"'s work before. This is a very primitive section, with a mix of real artists and cro-magnons, such as Morrison, T. Barnes, Fenderson (unsigned), W.M. Goodes, C. Toles, Sissel, J.C. Mayer, Mark Dintenfass, Fithian (dated "99"), all one-shots but for this item, in April and May, 1901. The insides feature "M. Quad's Page", and the saga of "Mr. Bowser" , illustrated by McDougall, longtime staples of the McClure syndicate. In September, this paper picked up the McClure comic section. Did McClure syndicate cartoons before the section was introduced?

Whether this section of the first half of 1901 in the Herald was indeed some sort of proto-McClure section I don't know. McClure's 'official' comics section debuted on 4/28/1901 and had continuing series from the start. I do, however, think I can ID "Hamb" -- I think this is A.Y. Hambleton, who later did a little work for the Philadelphia North American.

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Albert Carmichael

2012-01-11T08:00:00.003-05:00

In The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons, Volume 2 (1983) Maurice Horn profiled Albert Carmichael. Like the other profiles in the book, the sources of information were not mentioned. Using Ancestry.com and Google, I found sources that support some of the details in the profile, and I have found information regarding Carmichael's wife and son. What follows are excerpts from Horn's profile of Carmichael. My comments appear parenthetically.

CARMICHAEL, ALBERT PETER (1890-1917) American cartoonist born in Albany, New York, on December 13, 1890. Albert P. Carmichael started his cartooning career with the New York World when he was not yet 17. Among his co-workers on the World art staff were Gus Mager, Jack Callahan and George McManus, whose style Carmichael greatly admired and endeavored to emulate.

(Carmichael's full name is correct. The Washington Post reported, on October 26, 1974, the death of his wife. "Myra C. Carmichael, the widow of Albert Peter Carmichael, a cartoonist for the old New York World, died Thursday night at Sands Point Nursing Home at Sands Point, N.Y. She was 84." The month and year of Carmichael's birth is confirmed by the 1900 U.S. Federal Census. He, his mother and brother lived with his maternal grandmother in Malta, New York. In the 1910 census, Carmichael's birthplace was recorded as "Albany, N.Y." He, his mother and grandmother lived in the Bronx, New York City at 1000 Simpson Street. His occupation was artist at the World.)

Carmichael contributed cartoons and spot illustrations to the columns of the World, as well as a number of panels and comic strips, including Jay Jones and His Camera (1908) and Why Be Discontented (1907), The Ambitions of Sonny and Sue (1908), Our Funny Language, Dr. Spook's Explorations (1909), Rosie, the Joy of New York Life (1911) and…Everybody's Doing It! (1912). Carmichael is best noted for his continuation of McManus's The Newlyweds and Spareribs and Gravy which he took over in 1912. Carmichael died on February 3, 1917, from complications of an appendicitis operation, at the age of 26.

(At Ancestry.com there is a family tree for Carmichael; the tree has the same death date, plus the location as Los Angeles, California. He married Myra Cordes around 1916; the Washington Post said, "Mrs. Carmichael was an artist for the World, an actress in silent films and an active suffragette in the days before World War I." In the book Silent Film Necrology (2001), her entry is, "Carmichael, Myra [actress] (b. 22 Jan 1890-22 Oct 1974 [84], Port Washington NY). AS, p. 205 (d. 25 Oct, LA CA). BHD1, p. 605."

Fort Wayne News (Indiana) 7/26/1912

Their son was Albert Peter Carmichael, Jr., and, according to the Social Security Death Index, he was born July 19, 1917 and died October 21, 2001. Myra was pregnant when Carmichael died. The Washington Post said, "She is survived by her son, Albert, an Associated Press newsman and two grandchildren." An assessment of Carmichael's work is here. Carmichael also produced postcards.)

Obscurity of the Day: Ambitions of Sonny and Sue

2012-01-10T08:08:00.001-05:00

Albert Carmichael is one of the most intriguing and mysterious cartoonists to me. In fact one of my first posts to this blog back in 2005 was a little appreciation of Carmichael.

One of the reasons I started the blog was as bait for contacting people who had more intimate knowledge of cartoonists who intrigue me, Carmichael of course being one of those. I've been lucky enough to connect with relatives of Roy Taylor, Ethel Hays and others through the blog, learning some fascinating stuff here and there. Carmichael, though, has been a blank all these years. That is, until this past summer when I was contacted by his great grand-daughter. So far I've learned a few interesting tidbits (for instance -- he died of complications after an appendectomy), with promises of more reminiscences to come. Unfortunately we both had busy schedules at the time, and I haven't heard from her in a long while. I know that life has an unfortunate habit of not slowing down so that we can catch up, but I do hope that I'll hear from her again.

Today's obscurity, a weekday strip called The Ambitions of Sonny and Sue, was penned by Albert Carmichael for the New York Evening World from September 19 to December 26 1908. It didn't run all that often, and the plot about the romance between a secretary and a clerk in an office is less than enthralling. But this is early Carmichael, just seventeen years old, and he'll improve.

Tomorrow: Alex Jay's Ink-Slinger Profile of Albert Carmichael

News of Yore: Dan McCarthy's School

2012-01-09T08:00:00.002-05:00

The National School of Caricature

(Printer's Ink, 4/23/1902)

A representative of Printers' Ink recently had an interview with Mr. Daniel McCarthy, the director of the National School of Caricature, which has a suite of offices in the Pulitzer Building, Park Row, New York City. Mr. McCarthy told an interesting story about the way in which he had built up a business by means of advertising in the short space of one year.

"I commenced by advertising among the 'Help Wanted" columns in the Herald and other papers," said Mr. McCarthy, "using only five or six lines. I advertised to teach drawing by mail, and I soon began to get quite a number of replies, a fair percentage of which later turned out to be regular pupils. My plan was to send out a prospectus with all particulars of the tuition and and costs to every person who answered the ad. I guarantee instruction by mail, in newspaper caricature work, which is the principal and, I may say, the unique feature of this school. I am not aware that there is such another school in existence.

"I will tell you about my advertising first, then about my methods of instruction. Finding that the business grew, my partner, Mr. Burger [this would be Mort M. Burger -- ed.], and myself decided to extend the advertising still further. We took the same small space in the leading dailies of the country, and even in the British metropolis we use the four principal newspapers. We get on an average from 80 to 100 letters of inquiry daily, and we have over 400 regular pupils whom we teach by mail. The course consists of 35 lessons, and for this instruction we charge $25 if paid in advance, $30 if paid in installments. Our pupils are in the United States. Canada, Great Britain and even France and Germany. We arrange the course of 35 weeks so that the 17 weeks of summer shall be for vacations, as most people go away during some part of the heated term.

"By reason of our original method of instruction, we positively guarantee that any young man or woman with a natural talent for drawing, can, by following all the instructions carefully, conscientiously and accurately,become a competent illustrator and prepare for earning a good income. We write letters of criticism and advice to our pupils, and then, if after conscientious trying, they fail to benefit by our teaching, the amount paid for tuition is cheerfully refunded.

"The course of 35 lessons includes caricaturing, cartooning, sketching from life , the study of original action, decorative designing, lettering, process paper drawing and landscape sketching, newspaper and commercial designing and all branches of illustrating, including wash and crayon drawing. The first lessons are naturally rudimentary—the making of lines, for that is the first step towards learning how to draw correctly. Each lesson, after being done by the pupil, is mailed to us for criticism, and I personally examine it, marking in red ink my comments, adverse or otherwise, so that the pupil may see exactly where he or she is right or where wrong.

"We have only been in business one year, yet there are very many of our pupils who are now drawing for the newspapers and magazines and are on the way to making good incomes. I place a profession in their fingers and they learn it at very little cost. We have men and women of mature years and also boys and girls as pupils.

"Lately we have started a school in our class rooms where pupils may study in person by day or evening and our school is rapidly growing. Here we teach caricaturing from the model—from life itself. We have an average class of twenty-four of both sexes, and while they are at work Mr. Burger and myself walk around and see how the students are progressing, giving advice here, criticising there, and so on. It is our intention to form another class shortly, one that shall be devoted more to mechanical draughtsmanship, water color work, advertisement designing and show card writing and illustrating.

Advertisement

(Printer's Ink, 5/7/1902)

HAVE YOU TALENTS FOR DRAWING!
Send for free lesson No. 14 and terms to the

National School of Caricature. We teach by

mail also. Day and night classes from model.

The only school of its kind in the world.

DAN McCARTHY, Director,

NATIONAL SCHOOL OF CARICATURE,

Studios, 87 World Building, New York City.

[George Carlson's obituary in the Bridgeport Telegram, September 27, 1962, said, "...He studied in the National School of Caricature, started by Dan McCarthy, political cartoonist for the New York World..."]

Cartoonist Dead

(The Meriden Daily Journal, 2/17/1905)

Daniel M'Carthy Was Well-known Newspaper Artist.

New York, Feb. 17.—Daniel McCarthy, one of the best known caricaturists in this country in his prime, died yesterday at his home, 58 West 116th street. (more)

[Gay Gazoozaland contributor]

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2012-01-08T08:03:00.003-05:00

Herriman Saturday

2012-01-07T08:10:00.040-05:00

We take a break this week on Herriman Saturday from our regularly scheduled LA Examiner cartoons for this late-breaking news: Mark and Cole Johnson, whose prodigious memories are to be questioned only if one likes to eat crow, have sent me the above episode of Musical Mose.

You'll recall that we covered that strip as an obscurity about a month ago, and Mark shortly thereafter mentioned that he seemed to recall an episode running in the North American. I disagreed, saying that my indexing of that paper indicated no such occurrence. A week or so passed and brother Cole sends me this scan, which he assures me is from the March 9 1902 issue of the North American, my index notwithstanding. Presumably the comic section I indexed on microfilm was incomplete or I just plain missed it.

The remaining question, then, is whether this episode also ran in the New York World, or if it ran only in the North American. If it did run in the World, did it run on March 9? Or is it the one remaining episode of February 16 not printed with my earlier blog post? Sadly all these questions are, at least for the moment, unanswered.

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Harry Temple

2012-01-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

Harry Clifford Temple was born in Perry, Ohio on March 3, 1881 according to the Ohio, Births and Christenings Index, 1800-1962 at Ancestry.com. The 1880 U.S. Federal Census recorded his parents and two siblings in Perry. His father was a telegraph operator. He has not been found in the 1900 census, but his parents and two siblings lived in Berlin Heights, Ohio at the time. The Cleveland Plain Dealer reported, on October 29, 1905, Temple's marriage.

Miss Edythe Nina Carvey, daughter of Mr. Judd K. Carvey, was married on Saturday, Oct. 21, to Harry C. Temple of Berlin Heights, O., Rev. Treat of Park Congregational church officiating, and the ceremony taking place at the bride's home, No. 11 Beulah street, at 4:30 p.m. J.W. Carvey, brother of the bride, was best man and Miss Bessie Temple, the groom's sister, was bridesmaid. The bride's gown was of light gray voile with Irish applique trimmings. She carried white carnations. The bridesmaid was gowned in white and carried pink carnations. A horseshoe of autumn leaves hung over the bridal party. After an informal reception and supper Mr. and Mrs. Temple left for the home of the groom in Berlin Heights, where they will remain for a short time before going to make their home in Ft. Wayne, Ind.

How long they lived in Fort Wayne is not known. In 1910 Temple, his wife and her sister lived in Cleveland, Ohio at 1354 East 91st Street. He was a newspaper artist. For the Cleveland Plain Dealer he produced the panel Sketches from Life which ran from September 17, 1913 to November 24, 1926. Some of them were collected in a book Sketches from Life, published in 1915. In the April 28, 1917 issue, Editor & Publisher said,

Editor & Publisher 4/28/1917

Harry C. Temple is a country-bred Ohioan, educated in a red brick schoolhouse on an unimproved road. At seventeen he learned telegraphy, and advanced until he became an assistant dispatcher. Later he entered an art school, but returned occasionally to railroad work. Finally he landed with the Cleveland Plain Dealer, where he developed his distinctive Sketches from Life, which have been featured in that paper for several years past, and have been extensively syndicated throughout the country these past three years.

He is a fisherman by instinct, but most of his recreation is work. As his sketches indicate, his principal interest is in folks, every-day folks, of the kind you see wherever you go.

He signed his World War I draft card on September 18, 1918. The home address is illegible. His occupation was artist at the Cleveland Plain Dealer. He has not been found in the 1920 census. In 1930 he lived in Manhattan, New York City at 3 East 27th Street. He was a commercial artist, and his wife was a jewelry craftswoman. On August 9, 1935 the Kingston Daily Freeman (New York) covered his watercolor exhibition.

Gregory Exhibiting Temple Water Colors

Harry C. Temple of Woodstock, has an exhibition and sale of water colors at Gregory & Company, Broadway, for the last three weeks in August.

There is a variety of subjects and each one is handled with sympathetic understanding. Mr. Temple shows a thorough knowledge of color which few artists seem to possess. His "In the Hemlocks" is strong and masterful, while "Nature's Lace" is delicate and beautiful in color in pattern; "Sky Shadows" is dreamy and skillfully handled; "Portland Harbor" brings back pleasant memories and is peaceful and charming.

Each subject has its special appeal and the exquisite harmony and beauty of color make any one of them invaluable as a center of interest in the well furnished room. Then too, they bring close at hand things we all love to see.

Mr. Temple is to be congratulated on his splendid contribution to art.

Temple passed away on November 2, 1962, in Woodstock, New York. His death was reported the following day in the Kingston Daily Freeman.

Harry C. Temple of 79 Yerry Hill Road, Woodstock, died Friday at his residence. He was born in Perry, Ohio and was one of the earlier Woodstock artists. He had been a resident of Woodstock for the past 43 years. Fraternally, he was a member of the Kingston Lodge 10, F&AM and the Woodstock Country Club. Surviving is his wife Mrs. Edith N. Temple. Funeral services will be held Monday 2 p.m. at Lasher Funeral Home Inc., Woodstock. The Rev. Donald Hicks, pastor of the Dutch Reformed Church, Woodstock, will officiate. Burial will be in Woodstock Cemetery.

Obscurity of the Day: Sketches From Life

2012-01-05T07:51:00.098-05:00

We tend to think of comics as raucous things, and when something comes along that is quiet, elegant and sophisticated we instinctively want to categorize it as something else. I proudly declare, though, that Sketches from Life is a cartoon panel. Cartoonist Harry Temple never went for the belly laugh, and in fact often drew pictures that were just observations of everyday life with no particular attempt at humor. His panel cartoons are sometimes wistful, occasionally even sad. But what they are most often is deftly drawn and quietly powerful.

Try to imagine something like Sketches from Life appearing in your daily paper -- a little eddy of somber reflection in a sea of headlines about war, crime and dirty politics. If you were a newspaper editor, would you see the value of Sketches from Life? Not many newspaper editors did take the feature, but those who did tended to be very loyal to it. I can certainly see why that would be. It seems to me readers could get quite addicted to a few square inches of calm meditation amid all the clamor and commotion of the news.

Sketches From Life was produced for the Cleveland Plain Dealer from September 17 1913 to November 24 1926. The Plain Dealer seems to have used World Color Printing as the syndicator of the feature for most of its life. There is some circumstantial evidence of a distribution relationship, perhaps short-term, with either Associated Newspapers or the Philadelphia Inquirer, too.

A book collection of the feature was issued in 1915 by World Color Printing, but there must have been a terrible distribution problem. The book is extremely rare -- I have never seen a copy for sale, and WorldCat shows copies of the book at only three libraries in the country.

Tomorrow: an Ink-Slinger Profile of Harry Temple

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Murray Jones Jr.

2012-01-04T08:00:00.007-05:00

Murray Jones, Jr., I believe, is William Murray Jones, Jr. who was born in Durham, North Carolina on November 5, 1915, according to his Army registration card at Ancestry.com. He was the only child of Murray and Jeanette. According to the 1920 U.S. Federal Census, they lived in Wilson, North Carolina at 310 Park Avenue. His father was a tobacco buyer.

In 1930 they lived in Durham, North Carolina at 1528 Hermitage Court. Information about Jones's childhood art training has not been found. Jones attended Duke University; he was pictured in the 1934 yearbook The Chanticleer. In the 1935 Chanticleer he was pictured (see photo) in the fraternity Alpha Tau Omega. While a student, he contributed art to Caro-Graphics; The Dispatch (Lexington, North Carolina) published one of them, by Jones and Johnston, on November 1, 1934. Jones was listed, at the same address as his parents, in the Hill's Durham City Directory from 1936 to 1943. In Durham County: A History of Durham County, North Carolina (2011), Jean Bradley Anderson wrote:

...While Durham had many practicing artists by the decade of the 1970s, it had not been devoid of native talent in earlier times, and contrary to the contention of the Atlantic Monthly article that the arts were the province of Durham's women, the 1930s produced a group of men who became professional artists. Both the time and the place, however, made earning a living by art impossible, so that if they intended to stick to their last they had to go elsewhere to survive. In that decade appeared Nelson Rosenberg, Eugene Erwin, Ralph Fuller, Jr.*, Murray Jones, Jr., and Nathan Ornoff….

In 1939 when he was 24, Jones registered with the Army, according to his Army registration card at Ancestry.com. He was a student at Duke, and described as six feet and a half-inch tall, weighing 143 pounds, with hazel eyes and brown hair. The Shirley Jones Gallery said, "…Jones entered the Chicago Art Institute in the mid-1930s where he studied painting, drawing and the graphic arts. He graduated with an MFA degree in 1939." The May 23, 1939, Chicago Tribune story, "3 Art Institute Janitors Picked for Trip Abroad", said, "The student-janitors, who won awards of $1,500 each, are: Murray Jones, 24 years old, 17 West H- street, who comes from Durham, N.C…." The Detroit News, January 31, 1998, profiled Jones and said, "Murray Jones received his MFA at the Art Institute of Chicago in 1939, then traveled to Tahiti and Latin America…."

In 1940 he was an instructor at the Summer School of Painting in Saugatuck, Michigan, according to ads in Arts Magazine 1940. According to Shirley Jones Gallery, he served in the Army during World War II. The Detroit News said, "He joined the faculty at Michigan State University in 1946…" A June 30, 1946 news release from Art Institute of Chicago announced "Paintings by Janet and Murray Jones, and Maurice Ritman, exhibition". The date of Jones's marriage is not known. Their son Michael was born in 1946, according to Shirley Jones Gallery. Time Magazine published his letter in its January 13, 1947 issue.

Shirley Jones Gallery said, "From 1959-61, Jones lived and worked in Kyoto Japan under the sponsorship of a Fullbright Research Fellowship….at Michigan State University...he taught until 1962 at which time he accepted a professorship at Ohio State University…." Jones passed away in 1964. In a 1985 issue of Dialogue, from the Akron Art Institute in Ohio, Dale Newkirk said Jones died of multiple sclerosis. Murray Jones 1915-1964: A Memorial Exhibition was published in 1965.

* Ralph Fuller Jr. (1904–1972; no relation to Ralph Fuller of Oaky Doaks fame) may have been one of the artists who worked on Caro-Graphics; a cartoon in yesterday's post was credited to "Fuller and Johnston". Fuller, a Georgia native, grew up in Durham. Johnston might be Samuel Nash Johnston (1906–1937), a North Carolina native, who died of acute nephritis. Another possibility is "Nash Johnston" is a pseudonym; Nash and Johnston are counties in North Carolina.

Obscurity of the Day: Caro-Graphics

2012-01-03T08:09:00.003-05:00

I was contacted by Lew Powell, who hoped I would have some words of wisdom to say about Caro-Graphics, a feature he found discussed on this North Carolina history site. Unfortunately I have to admit to Lew that I'd never heard of it!

Caro-Graphics is one of the many features that have come and gone over the years that tell factoids about a state, region or city. I doubt that there is a state in the union that can't boast a few of these features. Caro-Graphics focuses on North Carolina, which makes it two known for that state; the other being Carolina Hall of History.

Armed with the knowledge that the feature existed, some online searching revealed that it ran at least 1933 to 1937. The earliest samples carry credits to Nash Johnston and someone named Fuller. I believe they were both writers on the feature; Johnston was for sure. I say Fuller was a writer, too, because the art remains consistent throughout the life of the feature, and seems to have been by Murray Jones, Jr. throughout. I guess Jones didn't ask for credit early on. By late 1934 Fuller has disappeared, and then by 1937 so has Johnston, leaving Jones to presumably fend for himself as both artist and writer. Unfortunately I found no paper that ran the feature consistently or long enough to give more definite credit dates than these.

The writing is run of the mill for this sort of feature, but Jones' art is certainly an asset. Pleasingly stylized and slick, it really makes the feature quite attractive despite the awful reproduction of these samples, all found online.

Thanks to Lew Powell for putting me on the scent!

News of Yore: Edward D. Kuekes

2012-01-02T08:00:00.000-05:00

Edward D. Kuekes Is Named Cartoonist of Plain Dealer

Cleveland Plain Dealer, 6/14/1949

Edward D. Kuekes, an artist on this paper since 1922, yesterday was named Plain Dealer cartoonist by Editor Paul Bellamy, succeeding to the post left vacant by the death of Hal Donahey June 1.

Kuekes, known familiarly to his associates and countless admiring readers as "Ed." will not be facing a new task in concentrating his facile technique on editorial cartoons. On and off since 1926 he filled in for Donahey when the senior cartoonist was on vacation, away on trips or out because of ill health.

Kuekes' artistic leanings were first discovered when as a child he snipped a folded piece of paper with his mother's scissors and fashioned a bird and a horse. His parents encouraged the ability, and study at art school came later.

Drawing Like a Golfer

The new cartoonist holds to the theory that a drawing should be like a golfer—"the fewer the strokes the better."

Seldom one to ask friends for comment on his work, Kuekes feels acceptance is sound praise or unfounded criticism come from such requests.

Once, when Kuekes had placed a pastel he had done of a dog on the mantel in his home, the artist received the "sincerest form of flattery." His cocker spaniel bounced into the house, spotted the picture and barked.

After attending Baldwin-Wallace College, the cartoonist studied at the Cleveland School of Art and the Chicago Academy of Fine arts before coming to this paper.

Features Include "Kernel"

Plain Dealer features of the artist which have brought him acclaim over the years have included "The Kernel," one-column fixture of the comic page; "Closeups," movie page feature done with W. Ward Marsh; "Cartoonist Looks at the News," published on the Sunday editorial page; "Funny Fables," popular feature from 1933 to 1937 which was later published, and "Alice in Wonderland," a series done with Miss Olive Ray Scott, which was carried in 20 papers in the United States and several European publications before the war.

Interest in magic brought the birth of "The Kernel" in 1942. Kuekes first sketched the likable little rabbit as a trade-mark on the drawings sent from a magicians' convention he helped cover for the Plain Dealer in Kenton, O.

An ardent hobbyist, Kuekes is an mature orchid grower, is widely known for his skill in playing bells and is active in doing pastels and etchings in his remaining spare time.
The cartoonist, his wife, Clara, and two sons, Edward G. (Pat) and George C., both seniors at Baldwin-Wallace College, live at 112 East Center Street, Berea.

[Edward Daniel Kuekes (KEY-kess) was born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on February 2, 1901, according to Current Biography Yearbook (1954). In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census, he was the third of four children born to Otto and Elizabeth, both German emigrants. They lived in Pittsburgh at 525 Jackson Street. His father was an employment office agent. The Encyclopedia of Cleveland History said, "…Kuekes moved with his family from his native Pittsburgh, Pa., to Berea [Ohio] in 1913. There he graduated from Berea High School before pursuing art studies at the Cleveland School of Art…and the Chicago Academy of Fine Art."
In 1920 the family lived in Middleburg, Ohio at 128 East Center Street. Kuekes was a salesman at a notion store. According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History, "In 1922 he married Clare Gray of Berea and began his career at the Plain Dealer as understudy for cartoonist James H. Donahey." He has not been found in the 1930 census.

He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize in 1953 (see photo) for the cartoon "Aftermath", published in the Plain Dealer on November 9, 1952. The cartoon can be viewed here. The original art is at the Library of Congress.

Current Biography Yearbook said, "Kuekes has hazel eyes and light brown hair. He stands five feet nine inches tall and weighs 148 pounds. His hobbies include raising orchids, taming wild ducks, doing pastels and etchings, and playing a set of twenty-five to thirty musical bells." In 1964 Kuekes gifted a collection of his cartoons to Syracuse University.

Kuekes passed away on January 13, 1987 (Social Security Death Index), in the Baptist Retirement Home in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma (Encyclopedia of Cleveland History).]

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2012-01-01T08:00:00.000-05:00

Herriman Saturday

2011-12-31T08:10:00.000-05:00

Tuesday, February 25 1908 -- Herriman attends a city council meeting in which the phone company makes its plea to up rates, and is not all that impressed with the meeting or the council members.

Obscurity of the Day, Disqualified Division: Do You Believe

2011-12-30T08:04:00.000-05:00

One of the entries on my E&P Mystery List is Do You Believe, a feature listed in their directories from 1955-1962 as a daily panel cartoon by Steve Feeley and Ed Kuekes. The feature was finally unearthed by Alex Jay in the Aberdeen American-News. He sent me samples which you see above.

This illustrates one of the problems with relying overmuch on the E&P listings. Do You Believe is, in my opinion, a column feature with an incidental illustration, not a panel cartoon. As such it does not qualify for listing in Stripper's Guide. It is a great case in point for the principle that I must see a feature with my own beady li'l eyes before it gets listed in the Guide.

Sorry to sound like I'm on my high horse about this, but I sure do wish others would set the bar a little higher rather than making claims based solely on E&P listings. You can find Ed Kuekes bios in which this feature is described as a panel cartoon, or even a panel cartoon strip (whatever that is) on several sites on the web. Sigh.

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Dennis McCarthy

2011-12-29T08:00:00.004-05:00

Dennis Bartholomew McCarthy was born in Chicago, Illinois on September 18, 1893, according to his World War I draft card. However, the Social Security Death Index said his birth year was 1892, and the 2011 exhibition catalogue, Southeast Texas Art: Cross-Currents and Influences 1925–1965, said he was born in San Francisco, California.

In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, he was the oldest of four children born to Barth and Nellie, Irish emigrants. They lived in Denver, Colorado at 2449 West 28 Avenue. According to the census, McCarthy was born September 1881 in Illinois. His father was a laborer.

Ten years later, the McCarthys remained in Denver. He was the oldest of nine children and was employed as a machinist. The date of his move to Chicago, Illinois is not known. He signed his World War I draft card on June 5, 1917. He resided at 507 North Lawler Avenue and was a cartoonist at the Chicago Herald. His description was medium height and build with blue eyes and black hair. During his service he was in San Antonio, Texas, the location of the aviation site Kelly Field. The book Kelly Field in the Great World War (1919) said:

The Kelly Field Eagle [newspaper] was fortunate in having as members of its staff men who were specialists in their line. Sgt. Dennis B. McCarthy, a cartoonist who had long been well-known in newspaper circles, immediately began to develop a series of what might be termed "punch" cartoons, with the result that his work was soon copied extensively….

In the 1920 census, McCarthy was married and lived in New Orleans, Louisiana at 2026 St. Charles Avenue. He was a newspaper cartoonist. Southeast Texas Art said, "…McCarthy worked for 15 years at the Hearst Enterprises in San Francisco and New York. Before 1925, McCarthy was a cartoonist for the Fort Worth Record. In the 1930s and 1940s, he worked for the [Texas newspapers] Beaumont Enterprise and Beaumont Journal as a cartoonist and journalist, illustrating his own articles on topics of historical, biographical, and political interest…."

McCarthy has not been found in the 1930 census. Editor & Publisher mentioned his strip for the San Francisco News. During World War II he contributed work to North American publications, an aircraft company. Flying Magazine, August 1944, noted the popularity of McCarthy's aviation industry creation: " 'Willie Wingflap,' an impish cartoon character, is drawn by a North American artist, Dennis McCarthy, and has proved so popular that the cartoons are being collected in book form for immediate publication….

After the war Southeast Texas Art said, "…A specialist in watercolor, he taught classes and provided lectures for many years at the Beaumont Art League. McCarthy also exhibited frequently at the Beaumont Art Museum…" Some of his watercolors can be viewed at the online catalogue on pages 65 through 67; at the bottom, enter a page number or click on the arrows or click the bottom corner of the page.

According to the Social Security Death Index, McCarthy lived in Las Vegas, Nevada. He passed away on May 22, 1973 in Prescott, Arizona, and was buried at the Prescott National Cemetery, according to U.S. Veterans Gravesites at Ancestry.com.

Obscurity of the Day: Unforgettable Episodes in the Lives of Chicagoans

2011-12-28T08:02:00.044-05:00

Newspapers occasionally tried to curry favor with local businesspeople (and potential advertisers) by featuring them in cartoons. The gimmick was sometimes artfully handled -- take, for instance, Billy Ireland's The Passing Show. D. McCarthy of the Chicago Sunday Herald, however, lets it all hang out as a transparent attempt at posterior worship with this series of not-particularly-funny cartoons based on the boyhood reminiscences of Chicago businessmen.

The weekly series appeared in the Herald starting on February 4 1917 and ran until July 22 of that year.

D. McCarthy is either Dennis or Daniel, both of whom were cartoonists in this era. I'm too full of Christmas cookies this morning to bother hunting down which it is.

Thanks very much to Cole Johnson for samples of this feature!

Edit: Alex Jay, apparently not suffering so much from after-Christmas inertia, tells me that this would be Dennis McCarthy, as Daniel was long dead by 1917, and will offer an Ink-Slinger Profile tomorrow. What service!

Ink-Slinger Profile: Raoul Barré

2011-12-27T08:00:00.006-05:00

Vital Achille Raoul Barré was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada on January 29, 1874, according to The World Encyclopedia of Cartoons (1999), Who's Who in Animated Cartoons (2006), Wikipedia, and Robert Edwards' biography at Find a Grave. Barre's life and career is thoroughly covered in these four sources. This profile will focus on just a few things.

Barre's only American strip was Noahzark Hotel. The strip has been titled incorrectly as Noah's Ark by many sources.

In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census, Barré, wife Antoinette, and daughter Marguerite lived in Manhattan, New York City at 609 West 127th Street. His occupation was illustrator. The census said he immigrated in 1903.

In 1913 Barré formed his own animation company, Raoul Barré Studio, according to the World Encyclopedia of Cartoons. However, in Felix: The Twisted Tale of the World's Most Famous Cat (1996), John Canemaker said the company name was, "…Raoul Barré's Animated Cartoons, Inc., in the Fordham section of the Bronx."

The Riverside Enterprise (California) published this item on May 18, 1915.

Barre, Edison Cartoonist

Edison is to release regularly, beginning with "The Animated Grouch Chaser," a series of animated comic cartoons by the noted French cartoonist, Raoul Barre. The cartoons will be considerably different, in several features, than some that have already appeared, as the pictures will combine both acting by the Edison players and the animated cartoons, both being interestingly and funnily blended. Mr. Barre will personally stage the part of the picture devoted to the players so that the infectious strain of fun will run consistently through the picture and work out his ideas perfectly.

New York Dramatic Mirror, 8/25/1915

In 1916, Barré and Thomas Bowers formed the Barré-Bowers Studio to produce Mutt and Jeff animated cartoons. The Trow Directory New York City 1916 listing was "Barre Raoul 2524 Webster av". The 1917 entry was "Barre Raoul cartoonist 2553 Webster av". The addresses were in the Bronx borough.

In 1918, Barré suffered major setbacks. Who's Who in Animated Cartoons said, "A year later, in early 1917, Fisher took control of the series, forming Bud Fisher Films Corporation and setting up a studio with Bowers in the Bronx, producing fifteen cartoons that year and gradually squeezing Barré out of the operation." Edwards said, "But there was friction between him, Bowers and Fisher, and Barré abruptly quit in 1918." World Encyclopedia of Cartoons said, "Personal and financial disputes between the partners led to Barre's withdrawal in in 1919." Wikipedia said, "Mutt and Jeff was a strong money-maker for Barré, Bowers, and Fisher, but Barré began to get tired of it all as the years passed, due to personality conflicts with both partners. Barré retired from animation in 1919, amid rumors of a nervous breakdown."

Barré's World War I draft card revealed that he was institutionalized at the Central Islip State Hospital in 1918. The date of his admission is not known. Below is the information on the card:

Name: Rauel [sic] Barre

Address: 1 Northern Avenue [illegible]

State: New York

Age: 44

Birth Date: unknown 1874

Race: White

Alien: England (Canada)

Occupation: None

Employer's Name: A patient in Central Islip State Hospital

Employer's Address: Central Islip, Suffolk, New York

Nearest Relative: Antonette [sic] Barre, wife/1811? University Avenue, New York City [Bronx], New York

Signature: refuses to sign

Height/Build: Tall/Stout

Color of Eyes/Hair: Blue/Brown

Disqualification: Insane

Date of registration: September 12, 1918

Barré's draft card

The date of his release from the hospital is not known. In the 1920 census, the family of three lived in Glen Cove, New York at 49 Sea Cliff Avenue. He was a newspaper cartoonist. Barré returned to animation in 1926 but ill-health forced him to leave and return to Montreal, where he passed away on May 21, 1932.

News of Yore: George Swanson

2011-12-26T08:00:00.001-05:00

Comic Strip Artist 'Kidded' Into Profession

George Swanson Creator of 'Flop Family' Calls Wife Severest Critic

Herald Statesman (Yonkers, New York) 8/1/1962

by Susan Rohan

George Swanson, the cartoonist who does "The Flop Family" strip, is the only comic artist who was "kidded" into the profession.

In the years just before World War I, Mr. Swanson left Curtis High School in Chicago and worked as an office boy for the Pullman Car Company in suburban Chicago. The Pullman organization published a house organ monthly and a regular contributor to it was a man by the name of Ralph Swanson, no relation to George.

The youthful Swanson was regularly kidded by the 100-odd men in his department when they'd say, "Now there's a Swanson who's done something, he's got initiative. At least one Swanson around here will get somewhere some day."

Novice At Drawing

The jibes hit home with the young man and he went home and grabbed a sheet of paper and a pencil. In his 16 years, he never had so much as drawn a resemblance of a straight line. Drawing pictures had never entered his mooned before this episode. What he had in mind at the time was to ultimately become president of Pullman.

He sent his first two cartoons to the company paper and was startled a month later to see one of them in place of Ralph's cartoon.

From then on the paper had a new cartoonist named George Swanson and he was on his way to a new career.

Born in Chicago, the son of Nel's and Anna Swanson, George's mother wanted him to be a violinist. This failed to arouse any interest in the young man, and he tried being an electrician, a wish if his father. This didn't work out either, and then he went to Pullman.

Mr. Swanson attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Chicago after starting his new career. He later went to the Carlson Studio doing movie animations.

His first syndicated strip was "Salesman Sam," which had a seven-year tenure. His next was "High Pressure Pete," also syndicated.

Mr. Swanson and his wife, the former Victorine Turgeon of Cleveland, met while both worked for the same syndicate in Cleveland. Mrs. Swanson was with the bookkeeping department of the syndicate. They have lived in Yonkers since 1940, now at 294 Bronxville Road.

Mr. Swanson works at his drawing board at his home and sends in each week's work to his syndicate. He must work 10 weeks ahead o his daily strip and six weeks ahead on the Sunday strip. He reports that there is no let-up even on vacation, because he must keep up and ahead of schedule.

Ideas From Life

In order to get new ideas for his strip, Mr. Swanson resorts to good, plain, deep concentration. He sometimes sits and thinks for a good long time before he gets the idea he wants to portray. He tries not to look at other cartoons and strips because it is possible to unwittingly use someone else's ideas for his own strip. He also gets other material from extensive reading and from real-life episodes.

Sometimes Mr. Swanson has an idea of what he wants but can't get to the point. When this happens, he draws or sketches the last picture first and then works from there in a backward sequence.

Another difficulty which arises is the fact that his cartoon strip is carried abroad. What may be very humorous here is not always so in foreign lands….

...Besides "The Flop Family" strip which keeps him very busy, Mr. Swanson rounds out his activities as a member of the National Cartoonist Society and the Banshees, an honorary, invitation-only organization.

Mr. Swanson names his wife as his severest critic. "If she says a joke is good, I think she's clever. If she doesn't think it is good, well, we just don't speak for a week." The Swansons are currently on speaking terms.

[George O. Swanson was born in Chicago, Illinois on August 16, 1897, according to the 1900 U.S. Federal Census and the Social Security Death Index. He was the second of three children born to Nils and Hannah, both Swedish emigrants. They lived in Chicago, Illinois at 1342 North Artesian Avenue. His father was a carpenter. In 1910 the family of six lived in Chicago at 17 East 112 Place. He signed his World War I draft card on August 24, 1918. At the time he lived at 41 West 111 Place in Chicago. He worked for the Pullman Company. His description was medium height, slender build with gray eyes and light brown hair.

The 1920 census recorded Swanson, his mother and youngest sister in Chicago at 417 West 111 Place. His occupation was recorded as bookkeeper. The date of his move to Ohio is not known. In 1930 he lived in Lakewood, Ohio at 11727 Lake Avenue. He married Victorine, around 1923, and worked as an artist for a newspaper syndicate. His mother-in-law lived with them.

Swanson passed away in December 1981, in Bronxville, New York, according to the Social Security Death Index.]

Merry Christmas from Jim Ivey and Stripper's Guide

2011-12-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

The Magic Christmas Tree Part VI

2011-12-24T08:09:00.002-05:00

The Magic Christmas Tree Part V

2011-12-23T08:08:00.002-05:00

The Magic Christmas Tree Part IV

2011-12-22T08:08:00.002-05:00

The Magic Christmas Tree Part III

2011-12-21T08:07:00.002-05:00

The Magic Christmas Tree Part II

2011-12-20T08:06:00.002-05:00

The Magic Christmas Tree Part I

2011-12-19T08:00:00.016-05:00

Here for your holiday enjoyment is presented The Magic Christmas Tree, the 1972 Christmas comic strip distributed by King Features. Art is by John Ushler, story by Frank Reilly. The strip originally ran in newspapers from December 4 to the 23rd 1972.

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2011-12-18T07:53:00.003-05:00

Herriman Saturday

2011-12-17T08:14:00.000-05:00

Monday, February 24 1908 -- Herriman takes a day off from boxing coverage on the sports page to shine the light on the many beach cities near L.A. offering excellent angling opportunities.

Ink-Slinger Profile: Eddie Eksergian

2011-12-16T08:00:00.016-05:00

Self-portrait, 1902

Edward "Eddie" Eksergian was born in Turkey in February 1873, according to the 1900 U.S. Federal Census. The census said he emigrated to America in the year of his birth, however, his mother's passport application said the year was 1883.

Vahan Altiparmak profiled Edward's uncle, Carnig (also spelled Karnig) Eksergian here. Altiparmak's profile has some information about Edward's father, Telemaque, who was a portrait painter. Altiparmak said Carnig learned portrait painting from his older brother. In 1870 when he was 12, Carnig sailed to America, and landed in Boston, Massachusetts where he continued painting. However, a New York Herald article, dated July 8, 1915, said he arrived in the U.S. when he was fourteen. Telemaque and his oldest son, Edward, arrived in Boston four years later, according to Altiparmak. I believe that time frame is incorrect.

Telemaque and Carnig have not been found in the 1880 census. Altiparmak said, "…they worked together for many years painting famous and rich people, portraits that made them famous…." According to a passenger list at Ancestry.com, Telemaque and Edward (listed as Master Eksergian) sailed from Liverpool, England to Boston and landed on July 23, 1883. Edward's age was listed as 11, which made his birth year 1872. The Eksergian brothers advertised their "Studio Days" in the Boston Herald and Boston Daily Advertiser in May 1884.

Boston Herald, 5/15/1884

On June 14, 1884, Telemaque's wife, Agavnie, arrived with their sons Leon, 10, and Joseph, 3, according to a passenger list. In the mid-1880s, Telemaque moved his family to New York City. On November 21, 1886, the Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported the fall exhibition at the Academy of Design and said, "Of portraits there are several that show advance on the flat and conventional in treatment, Telemaque Eksergian's portrait of a gentleman, for example..." Other notable artists in the show were R.A. Blakelock and Winslow Homer. Ancestry.com has some New York City directories. Telemaque is not in the 1884 directory; the years 1885, 1886 and 1887 are not in the collection. He was listed in the 1888 and 1890 Trow's New York City Directory: "Eksergian Telemaque, artist, 3 E. 14th". On October 21, 1890, both Telemaque and Edward became naturalized citizens, according to the U.S. Naturalization Record Indexes, 1791-1992 at Ancestry.com. The documents recorded their occupation as artist.

The Trow's New York City Directory 1891 included Telemaque's son: "Eksergian Edw'd, photographs, 67 Park pl. h 3 E. 14th". Around the age of 18, Edward began his career as a photographer. On August 6, 1891, The New York Herald published this death notice:

Eksergian.—August 5, after a long sickness, Telemaque Eksergian, beloved father of Edward Eksergian. Funeral will take place two P.M. Friday. [August 7]

On March 30, 1892, Edward's mother, who was living in Constantinople, applied for a passport to the U.S. Her son Lee (Leon) was to accompany her. On the application it said:

…my husband emigrated to the United States, sailing aboard a Cunard steamer, from Liverpool…[in] 1883; that he resided 9 years, uninterrupted, in the United States, from 1883 to 1891, at Boston & New York; that he was naturalized as a citizen of the United States before the Superior Court of New York City at New York on the 21 day of October 1890 as shown by the accompanying Certificate of Naturalization;…that I am the identical person referred to in said passport; that I have resided in the United States, uninterrupted, for 4 years, from 1884 to 1888, at New York…

She returned to Constantinople in 1888. Written on the application was this note, "The husband died in New York in 1891 (August 5) his eldest son [Edward] was with him and is now there; a younger son [Joseph], 15 years old, went to New York last year, where the mother and this son [Leon] propose to join them." The length of their stay in the U.S. is not known. According to Altiparmak, Leon was an architect in Constantinople. She visited the U.S. again in 1896.

After the death of their father, the whereabouts and doings of Edward and Joseph were not known until the 1900 census. They were boarding in Brooklyn, New York at a house on Cropsey Avenue near Bay 11th Street, about three miles northwest of Coney Island. They were artists. In 1901, Edward produced comics for the McClure Syndicate, such as A Bunch of Umbrella Jokes. The date of his move to St. Louis, Missouri is not known. In 1902 he was working for World Color Printing and continued there to 1904. One of his strips was Mrs. Knitt.

He was active in the St. Louis Newspaper Artists' Society as reported in The Republic (St. Louis, Missouri) on March 29, 1902.

Newspaper Artists' Exhibit.

Will Be Held at Planters Hotel in May.

The St. Louis Newspaper Artists' Society will give an exhibition at the Planters Hotel in the week beginning May 13, showing cartoons, portrait and humorous sketches and drawings as they appear from the artists' hands for reproduction in the newspapers. The exhibit will be managed by George Munson and Mr. Max Orthwein, who is treasurer of the society.

The exhibition promises to be of much interest, and extensive preparations are being made for the entertainment of a heavy patronage. Artists whose work will be on exhibit are:

Messrs. Carlisle Martin, H.B. Martin, George Walters, Benjamin Devine, Edward Marrs, Paul Gregg, Ed Eksergian, A. Block, George McManus Jr., Berthold Widmann, Edward Grinham, C.L. Cadwallander, Henry F. Thode, Dick Wood and T.K Hedrick.

The Republic covered another show on October 5, 1902. (A follow-up article, dated October 19, included portraits of four cartoonists.)

…The Newspaper Artists' Society was organized with the primary object of the general betterment of the art of newspaper illustration, for an increased fraternal and feeling of good fellowship among the cartoonists, and with the hope of ultimately effecting a permanent institution. To this end this first exhibition will be given. The following artists form the Committee of Arrangements:

H.B. Martin, Dick Wood, George McManus, Ed Eksergian, S. Carlisle Martin, Berthold Widmann, Paul Fred Berdanier, Edward Grinham, J. Gay Martin, Miss Lina Barclay, Henry Thode, George Walters, Louis E. Donahoe, A. Briscoe, A. Block, George Stick, Miss Anita Moore, F.F. Porter, Max Orthwein, treasurer.

Lambiek Comiclopedia said he did the following comics: Holiday Shopping in Kit-Kat Town(1904), Mr. Tom (1904-1905), Mr. O-Heeza-Knocker (1904), Dreamy Mary (1904), Raphels the Awful Cat (1905) and Vacation News (1905). On some strips, he signed his name as "Ed Eks". In late 1904 he left World Color for employment at St. Louis newspapers. His 1904 St. Louis Dispatch hockey cartoon was reprinted in the book Before the Stars (2004).

He may have returned to New York. In the publication Proceedings of the Grand Lodge of Free and Accepted Masons of the State of New York (1906) there is a "Brother Edward Eksergian, Crescent Lodge, No. 402 [$]1.00 [contribution]." In 1906, Aesop in Rhyme was published; the location was not stated. It was adapted by Mary Leone Gilliam Thummel, a St. Louis resident, and illustrated by "Edward Eksergian, 'Ed. Eks' ". (A free download is here.)

In the 1910 census, he was in St. Louis where he resided at the Buckingham Hotel, on North Kings Highway and West Pine Boulevard. He was a newspaper cartoonist. The Brooklyn Daily Eagle reported, on March 4, 1913, that his Uncle Carnig "...has come to live in Manhattan after several years sojourn in Boston..." In the book A History of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat (1961), Jim Allee Hart said, "…Edward Exsergian [sic] (Eddie Eks) drew cartoons for the sport pages…." In 1915 his marriage was referred to in the New York Times on July 20:

Their Engagement Broken

St. Louis, July 19.—Mrs. Alexander Finney of the Sherwood Apartments, today announced that the engagement of her daughter, Miss Olga Jane Finney, to S. Elwood Hunt of New York, had been broken. The couple became engaged about six months ago and planned to be married in June.

Miss Finney was maid of honor at the wedding of Miss Clara Langan to Edward Eksergian, an artist, June 30...

A World War I draft card has not been found for him. The Editor & Publisher mentioned him on January 13, 1917, "…Among the staff artists and cartoonists at the inauguration of Governor Gardner, Monday were A.B. Chapin, Republic; Edward Eksergian, Globe-Democrat; Carlye S. Martin, Post-Dispatch; Otto Hartsman, Times."; and on March 24, 1917, "Eddie Eks, cartoonist of the Globe-Democrat, entertained the members of the St. Louis Millers' Club at their banquet Tuesday evening with drawings and chalk talks."

The Catalogue of Copyright Entries, Part 4: Works of Art, Etc. 1918 New Series, Volume 13, Number 3 had this entry, "Eksergian (Edward) St. Louis. [9819 On and off the trolley. © June 20, 1918; 2 c. June 27, 1918; K 121461." He contributed art to the June 15, 1918 issue of War Saver. Building Age, February 1919, published his cartoon "Reach Out for Big Business!"

In 1920, Edward, his wife and three-and-a-half year old son Edward lived in St. Louis at 5522 Waterman Avenue. He continued as a newspaper cartoonist. The household included his mother-in-law and two brother-in-laws. Samples of his work in this decade have not been found. His name was on a 1924 patent for a cigarette holder.

The 1930 census recorded him in St. Louis at 6678 Washington Avenue. His surname was spelled "Eksergen" (this spelling was used in his obituary). In the occupation column it read, "Advertising and Artist Studio", and in the industry column was "Magazine". Samples of his work in this decade have not been found.

Edward passed away January 28, 1943 in St. Louis. His obituary was published in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on the same day; a copy is at the St. Louis Public Library. He was survived by his wife Clara, son Edward and brother Joseph; the status of brother Leon is not known. Copies of his and Clara's death certificates are here (scroll down to Eksergen).

Clara passed away November 6, 1945 in St. Louis. Joseph, also a Mason, passed away July 14, 1950, in West Englewood, New Jersey, according to a New York Times obituary. He was an employee at the Times photoengraving department from 1925 to 1947. His surname was also spelled "Eksergen". Edward Langan Eksergen passed away April 9, 1964 in St. Louis.

Obscurity of the Day: McNutt

2011-12-15T07:40:00.002-05:00

While I regularly sing the praises of my man Walter Bradford here as one of the great unsung wacky cartoonists, Cole Johnson has a decided preference for Eddie Eksergian. And I can certainly see where Cole has a point that his man is the summa cum wacky of the early funnies. I guess where I have trouble is that I get the distinct feeling that with Eddie the wackiness wasn't so much a matter of craftsmanship as a bit of a wiring problem in Eddie's noggin. I mean, if nothing else, Eddie's constant fascination with umbrellas does have to give you a moment's pause.

Well, Eddie's long dead so I guess ruminations regarding his mental stability or lack thereof are purely academic. So let's just enjoy the product of Eddie's dementia, shall we? Today we have a strip that I index as simply McNutt, although the main character sometimes went by Bug McNutt, Nat McNutt and Fool McNutt (consistency being the hobgoblin of small sane minds). Cole Johnson tells me some of these were actually different characters -- Cole cites an escaped lunatic, a political candidate and a racetrack tout.

The ones I've seen, though, all feature the same fellow, and quite a character he is. Apparently Eddie saw strips like the Katzenjammer Kids, Buster Brown and all their ilk and decided enough's enough with these rotten smartass kids who play tricks on adults. How about an adult who plays tricks on kids? And nix! Not that cutesy-pie crap Foxy Grandpa pulls. No, Eddie wanted serious mayhem -- grievous bodily and mental injury, with torture for flavor. McNutt is on a mission. We don't know why, but he's definitely dead set on making life hell for the rugrats. I can just imagine mom making one of those McNutt dolls in the top sample to scare the bejeezus out of junior. "Hey kid, any more trouble outta you and I'm gonna get McNutt after ya!"

An odd feature of McNutt is that the rhymes beneath the panels are sometimes credited to others (see final panels). I find it hard to believe Eks was paying or otherwise recruiting people to do the bulk of the writing on this strip for him, and for that matter, I don't think others could maintain the Eks-level looniness exhibited. Bit of a mystery, that.

McNutt ran in the proto-World Color Printing section of the St. Louis Star starting on October 19 1902, and ran there until at least January 31 1904 (there are a lot of sections missing from the microfilm). It did not run in the 'official' World Color Printing section that began in the New York Daily News in January 1904.

Thanks to Cole Johnson for the samples!

Tomorrow: an Ink-Slinger Profile of Eddie Eksergian

Obscurity of the Day: The Gee Whiz Brothers

2011-12-14T08:01:00.036-05:00

Sometimes I'd swear cartoonists from the days of yore liked to play tricks directed at future historians. Case in point -- look at the two strips above and decide if they constitute a series or not.

The two episodes you see here constitute the entire 'run' of the Gee Whiz Brothers in the Chicago Daily News. The first, by George Frink, ran on August 29 1903. The second, by someone who drew a flower in a flowerpot as their signature, ran three weeks later, on September 17.

So we have just two episodes featuring the same characters, run the better part of a month apart, and by two different creators, one of which obviously prefers anonymity.

Is it a series? When compiling the Chicago Daily News information for Stripper's Guide, I, perhaps a little grumpily, decided it didn't merit listing. What do you think?

Ink-Slinger Profiles: R.E. Schad

2011-12-13T08:00:00.000-05:00

Ross Earle Schad was born in San Francisco, California on March 4, 1884, according to his World War I and II draft cards. In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, he was the oldest of three children born to William and Annie. They lived in San Francisco at 51 Elgin Park. His father was a jeweler. Information about his education and art training has not been found. News of his thirteenth birthday was reported in the San Francisco Call on March 21, 1897. The Call reported his seventeenth birthday on March 17, 1901. The San Francisco Bulletin published his strips, Miss Gushe in the Country and The Adventures of Miss Touryste, in 1904. On June 1, 1904 the Call reported the upcoming Newspaper Artist's League exhibition, which included cartoonists Schad, G.A. Bronstrup, Ralph O. Yardley and Bert Igoe. According to The Sun (Baltimore, Maryland), April 27, 1905 edition, he married Claudia White. Almost a year later, April 22, 1906, The Sun reported news of the San Francisco earthquake.

Mrs. E.R. [sic] Schad Escaped

Daughter of Rockville Minister Was in Frisco Horror.

[Special Dispatch to the Baltimore Sun.]

Mrs. E.R. White, of this place, have received word from their daughter, Mrs. R. Earl [sic] Schad, formerly Claudia White, who was for a number of years prominent in Baptist missionary work here, informing them that she escaped injury from the San Francisco earthquake.

Mrs. Schad lives in San Francisco, and the house she occupied was destroyed. She is now comfortably quartered several miles outside the city.

The San Francisco-Oakland Directory1907 has this listing, "Schad R Earle, commercial artist, 876 Brdy, Oak". The Overland Monthly published Schad's illustrations (left) in its October 1907 issue.

In 1910 the couple lived in San Francisco at 912 Pine Street. His occupation was artist in the illustration industry. The date of his move to New York City is not known. The New York Herald (New York) printed his classified ad on November 23, 1915, "Artist, all around, wants work; advertising or art service. Earle Schad, 21 East 14th st." His World War I draft has his Manhattan address as 216 West 34th Street. He was a self-employed artist.

Schad has not been found in the 1920 census. In 1930 he and second wife Louise lived in Middletown, New Jersey on Monmouth Avenue. His occupation was artist. He signed his World War II draft card on April 25, 1942. He was a free-lance artist who lived in New York City at 401 1st Avenue. According to a family tree at Ancestry.com, Schad passed away on April 20, 1949 in New York City.

A Pair of Mysteries

2011-12-12T12:15:00.077-05:00

The Stripper would like some Christmas presents from his readers.As always, the stocking stuffers I crave are answers to my newspaper comics questions. Here are two that have me stumped right now. Can you help?

MYSTERY #1

I have three weeks of 1966 proof sheets for a panel cartoon titled Washington Razzle-Dazzle. It was distributed by Nonpariel Features out of Canton Ohio and the panel creators were Erlyn L. Smith and C. Winebrenner.

The feature sports 'gags' that are more like the fumings of a spittin' mad Tea Partier than anything resembling actual jokes -- these guys were way ahead of their time!

Can you shed light on any aspect of this? I know nothing of Nonpariel Features, or the creators, or the panel itself. Have you seen it running anywhere?

MYSTERY #2

This gaggle of gags is from the Fort Gibson (OK) Times, December 4 1991. They are all copyrighted to The Comic Factory, which I'm guessing was run by Ed Gillum. Gillum signed Winston and The Jones Sisters, and both Punchline by Chris Johnson and Gaggles by Francis sure look like they are by Gillum working under pseudonyms. Outer Limits, signed Ron Wilson, is a little harder to tell because the figures are so small I can't really get a sense of the art style.

A photocopy of this page from the Fort Gibson Times was sent to me by a correspondent, but I've asked him several times for more information (like -- did these run more than once?) and I get no answer. I've also sent an email to an artist named Ed Gillum in California asking if he's the same guy who ran the Comic Factory, but have heard nothing back. So, does anyone have any information to break this conspiracy of silence??

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2011-12-11T08:18:00.002-05:00

Herriman Saturday

2011-12-10T08:19:00.024-05:00

Sunday, February 23 1908 -- A huge Herriman cartoon snakes around a full page article about Frank Wiggins, the head man at the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce. Wiggins is an indefatigable booster for L.A. and southern California, and the Herriman vignettes illustrate various tales Wiggins tells of the 'old days' in L.A. (by which he means a whole 20 or so years ago). At the bottom, we have Wiggins himself about to introduce the residents of Whittier to the citrus trade. At top left we have 'touridents', Wiggins' name for tourists who become residents, in the top middle there is the old Zanja aqueduct, and at right, memories of cheap land and wildlife hanging around downtown.

Obscurity of the Day: Noahzark Hotel

2011-12-09T08:25:00.046-05:00

In 1913 the McClure Syndicate was having a heck of a time getting and retaining cartooning talent, as the market for their readyprint Sunday comic sections was rapidly drying up. Most McClure sections of this period are populated with lackluster material and reprints of material from as long ago as 6-8 years earlier.

Into this mess walked French-Canadian cartoonist Raoul Barre, who was soon to become a leading light in early animation. The details of why and how he came to be associated with McClure are unknown to me, but he was obviously not anxious to let the world know he was penning a strip for McClure. Hence Noahzark Hotel, his only known U.S-syndicated comic strip, is signed Varb, an acronym for his full name, Vital Achille Raoul Barre. The strip, as the name implies, is about a hotel whose staff and customers are animals. The theme is put to good use in many of the strips, with the species of the animals dictating the action, which tends to the playfully and pleasingly frantic. The quality of the drawing varies quite a bit from week to week, but the strips are always attractive on the page, with shortcomings only apparent on closer study. Perhaps the less well-drawn strips were due to Barre's no doubt busy schedule in this period. He was already working at the Bray Studios on their very earliest animated shorts, the first of which was released in June of this year.

Barre produced Noahzark Hotel for almost a full year, from January 12 to November 9 1913.

Thanks to Cole Johnson who supplied the samples!

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Charles D. Small

2011-12-08T08:00:00.000-05:00

Charles Desaix Small was born on February 21, 1882, according to his World War I draft card. The Times Record (Troy, New York) said, on February 18, 1953, he was a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He has not been found in the 1900 U.S. Federal Census. Information about his education and art training has not been found.

In 1910 he was married to Katherine (also spelled Catherine and Katheryn in subsequent censuses) and lived in Troy, New York at 10 13th Street. He was a clerk at a freight office. He signed his World War I draft card on September 12, 1918. His description was short height, medium build with hazel eyes and black hair.

They remained at the same address in 1920. Their son Charles was nine months old. Small worked as a railroad clerk. Some of the strips he worked on were Mudd Center Folks (1925), Bugs (1926–1927), and Salesman Sam (1927–1936). The date of his move to Ohio is not known.

The 1930 census recorded him in Lakewood, Ohio at 1240 Brookley Avenue. His occupation was comic artist for a news "jernal". The census said he married when he was 25 (around 1907). The date of his return to Troy, New York is not known. Polk's Troy City Directory 1947 had a listing for him, "Small Chas D (Kath) cartoonist h 793 2d av Lans".

Small passed away on February 18, 1953. The Times Record reported his death later that day.

Charles D. Small

Charles DeSaix Small of 793 Second Avenue, commercial cartoonist, died at his home early today after a short illness. He was a native of Philadelphia, Pa., and was a member of St. Barnabas' Episcopal Church. Survivors include his widow, the former Kathryn Chase; a son, Charles Small of Closter, N.J., and a brother, Emile S. Small of Troy. Private funeral plans are being completed.

A photo of Small is here.

Obscurity of the Day: Mudd Center Folks

2011-12-07T08:04:00.042-05:00

Charles D. Small seemed to always be stuck taking up the slack where other cartoonists left off. He lived in Cleveland in 1925 and got on with NEA there, and his first signed assignment was Mudd Center Folks. NEA had just lost the panel cartoon series The Old Home Town to Johnson Features and the syndicate had Small provide a replacement. His version was Mudd Center Folks, in my opinion a much superior feature. Small did not follow the lead of Lee Stanley, whose Old Home Town was a rather frantic and slapstick look at small town life. Small instead chose a warmer, folksier approach that owed more to another NEA panel, J.R. Williams' Out Our Way. The drawing style is very much like Williams', and the gags are gentle.

This excellent feature didn't immediately catch on as a replacement to The Old Home Town. Many NEA clients chose to continue the original feature through its new syndicate, and just how many folksy panels does a newspaper need? Even though Mudd Center Folks came free as part of the NEA package service, it ran in few papers. A shame really.

After Mudd Center Folks, Small continued to pick up where other cartoonists left off. There was Bugs, the radio panel, and then the long-running Salesman Sam, in which Small did such a perfect impersonation of George Swanson that you can't tell one from the other without looking for the signature.

Mudd Center Folks ran from July 6 1925 to April 20 1926.

Tomorrow: an Ink-Slinger Portrait of C.D. Small

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Jack Smith

2011-12-06T08:00:00.000-05:00

A New York Times obituary, published October 13, 1935, said Jack H. Smith was 66 when he died; his birth was around 1870. He has not been found in the 1870, 1880 and 1900 U.S. Federal Censuses. In Indiana's Laughmakers (1990), Ray Banta profiled Smith. His source was The Sunday Journal (Indianapolis, Indiana) article, "Newspaper Artists and Their Work the Public Seldom Sees," published on December 13, 1903. Banta wrote, "Jack's father, Samuel R. Smith, died when Jack was about five years old. Later, the family moved to Bloomington, Indiana, where Jack and his brothers, Charles and John, entered Indiana University. Jack majored in mathematics, but…switched to philosophy under Dr. William Lowe Bryan. It was at the suggestion of his professor of philosophy that he first submitted his drawings to papers at home and abroad. He achieved almost immediate success.…Smith was 'editor, manager, illustrator, and staff, all in one' for the I.U. Illustrator, which was launched in November, 1897.…After five years in the university, he came to Indianapolis and became illustrator and cartoonist for The Indianapolis Press.…When the Press discontinued publication, Smith went to the Nashville News as head of its cartoonists and artists. He returned to Indianapolis around 1901 and resumed his career with The Indianapolis Journal."

In the 1900 census, his mother, Hilda, and brothers lived in Indianapolis at 1024 Virginia Avenue. Smith gradually moved to the east. His strip Uncle Billy was a Philadelphia product. According to the 1910 census, he and his mother, 65, lived in Manhattan, New York City at 348 West 45 Street. An Illinois native, he was a newspaper artist. Smith produced illustrations and The Motion Picture Boy for Motion Picture Magazine; apparently his work appeared every other month. When the Motion Picture Boy began and ended has not been determined. Ads for his cartoon school appeared in the magazine, and other periodicals such as Boy's Life and Popular Electricity and Modern Mechanics.

Motion Picture Magazine, August 1915

Motion Picture Magazine, October 1915

Motion Picture Magazine, December 1915

Smith has not been found in the 1920 census. He produced the strip Daddy Dusk, The Sandman in 1927. He has not been found in the 1930 census. Smith passed away on October 11, 1935. The New York Times reported his death two days later.

Jack H. Smith, who had been a cartoonist for the old New York Herald and other newspapers, died on Friday, in the Fordham Hospital, Bronx, after an illness of several weeks at the age of 66. Of late years Mr. Smith had conducted a correspondence school for cartoonists at his home, 2122 Bryant Avenue, Bronx. A brother, Charles, survives.

Obscurity of the Day: Musical Mose

2011-12-05T08:01:00.000-05:00

George Herriman made quite the coup as a young unknown cartoonist in 1902 when he landed a berth at one of the most prestigious papers in the country, Pulitzer's New York World. Although he certainly didn't become a star there, he did produce some interesting series. There was little hint of the greatness to come, but this early material certainly displays an excellent knack for slapstick.

His first continuing series for the World was Musical Mose, a raucous strip about a black musician who desperately tries to get a good gig with little success. The strip ran for just three wacky episodes, in the first of which the star wasn't even named Mose, but rather Sam. Oh well, details, details. The strip ran on January 19, February 16 and 23 1902.

Thanks to Cole Johnson for the scans!

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2011-12-04T08:09:00.000-05:00

Herriman Saturday

2011-12-03T08:44:00.000-05:00

Sunday, February 23 1908 -- The arrival of the Chicago White Sox crew is expected in just nine days, and Hen Berry's Angels are ready to meet them with open arms and great fanfare. But that doesn't mean they don't plan to play hard when the exhibition games begin!

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Calvin Fader

2011-12-02T08:00:00.001-05:00

Calvin A. Fader was born in Massachusetts on September 18, 1905, according to the Social Security Death Index and the censuses. In the 1910 U.S. Federal Census he was the second of three children born to Alexander and Carrie. They lived in Somerville, Massachusetts at 19 Ash Avenue. His father was a window decorator in the millinery industry. The date of Fader's move to Washington, D.C. is not known.

In 1920 the Faders lived in Washington, D.C. at 1434 Perry Place. The United States Forest Service publication, Forest Service Bulletin, Volume 13, 1929, reported on a new strip.

American Tree and Its Uses

This is the title of an educational features "Strip" sponsored by the National Lumber Manufacturers Association. The sketches will be drawn by Calvin A. Fader who is now featuring "American History by Motor." The sketches will appear in the newspapers for a period of one year beginning next September.

Fifty-two "commercial" trees have been selected to be featured—one tree each week for one year. Each strip will contain five panels in which will be told how each tree serves mankind. For example: In the hickory tree strip Panel No. 1 will hold a drawing of the tree in the upper half; in the lower half a map of the United States, a shaded area showing where hickory trees are to be found. Panel No. 2, drawings of hickory leaves, buds, nuts, blossoms, and bark. A study of these pictures will enable one to identify a hickory tree in the forest. Panel 3 will feature some of the principle products of hickory wood—golf clubs, axe handles, wheel spokes, etc. In Panel No. 4 pictures and text will tell the annual cut of hickory; its value, etc. In Panel No. 5 will be pictured something that will forcibly center the mind of the reader on the subject.

Ten years later most of the Fader family remained at the same address. His occupation was newspaper artist. One of the strips he worked on, in the early 1930s, was George Washington's Travels. The Springfield Daily Republican (Massachusetts) reported his upcoming wedding on June 21, 1935.

Dorothy E. M'Cray Will Wed Tomorrow

Will Become Bride of Calvin A. Fader at Home of Her Parents

Among tomorrow's weddings will be that of Miss Dorothy Elizabeth McCray, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Walter F. McCray of 223 White street, and Calvin A. Fader, son of Mr. and Mrs. Alexander G. Fader of Washington, D.C. The ceremony will take place at 11 at the McCray home and will be followed by a wedding breakfast.….

...Following a stay at Groton Long Point, Ct., the couple will make their home at Washington, D.C., where they will receive friends after July 15.

The bride-elect is a graduate of Classical high school and Mount Holyoke college. She has been a teacher at Norwich Free academy at Norwich, Ct. The groom is a graduate of the Meyer Beth College of Commercial Art at Chicago, and is a commercial artist….

The Editor: The Journal of Information for Literary Workers, 1936, published a listing for Parade of Youth, based at 1727 K Street, NW, in Washington, D.C., "Parade of Youth is a weekly newspaper for boys and girls appearing in daily and Sunday papers all over the country." Fader contributed illustrations for many of the serialized stories, such as, "A Man's Job" (December 5 and 12, 1937), and the panel, Now I Know.

Parade of Youth, 2/23/1936

The Springfield Union and Republican (Massachusetts) published his Sunday strip, Doggy Dramas, beginning on March 20, 1938, on "The Boys and Girls Page".

Debut Strip, 3/20/1938

The Springfield Union reported his in-laws 64th wedding anniversary on July 6, 1963; a brief excerpt:

…They have one daughter, Mrs. Calvin A. Fader of Silver Springs, Md., and one grandson. Their son-in-law was formerly a commercial artist for The Union. Their grandson, a recent graduate of the University of Maryland, is doing research work for the government in Italy.

Fader passed away in September 1978 in Silver Spring, Maryland, according to the Social Security Death Index.

Obscurity of the Day: Doggy Dramas Present

2011-12-01T08:08:00.001-05:00

Ed Wheelan's Minute Movies, with its unusual approach of telling short stories using a regular cast of 'actors' who acted in 'films', running in two tiers of small panels, was a hit in the 20s but old hat by the 1930s. In fact the feature was cancelled and pretty well forgotten before the end of the decade.

That seemingly obvious hint that the approach was out of favor with readers didn't slow down Calvin Fader. He must have been a fan of the series, because he stole all those elements from the defunct Minute Movies in 1938 to create Doggy Dramas Present. His nod to originality was that all his 'actors' were dogs. The dog angle gave Fader the excuse to make lots of really awful puns (we're talking 'pooched eggs and pupperoni' level). With so many awful puns to wade through, it was perhaps a blessing that the strip ran only once a week.

It was syndicated by Associated Editors as an element of their weekly children's activity page, and replaced the long-running Adventures of Peter Pen, the previous weekly strip, on March 20 1938. Stories usually ran for six to ten episodes, with occasional one-shots in between, and covered the gamut of Saturday matinee movie genres -- comedies, adventures, mysteries, westerns, short subjects and so on.

Fader apparently wasn't all that proud of his work on the feature, because I don't believe he ever once signed the strip. He did get a byline starting in 1940, and was credited in Editor & Publisher, but never a signature. And that's a slight problem because I have a note in my research database saying that Al Fagaly did the strip in 1938-39. Unfortunately I failed to make note of the source of that information. Looking at the art from 1938 and 1940, though, I see no difference and think the Fagaly citation is a red herring.

Associated Editors dropped the strip from their children's page on March 14 1943.

Tomorrow: an Ink-Slinger Profile of Calvin Fader

News of Yore 1914: Winsor McCay Screens Gertie the Dinosaur Cartoon to Fellow Cartoonists

2011-11-30T08:24:00.025-05:00

NEWSPAPER ARTISTS GAZE AT DINOSAUR WITHOUT A SHIVER

"High Jinks" at Beefsteak Aid Atmosphere Somewhat Jarred After Refreshments by Some of Winsor
McCay's Antediluvian Creations.

(New York Tribune, 2/23/14)

If Winsor McCay, the prominent vaudeville acrobat, hadn't announced at the newspaper illustrators' dinner yesterday morning that he was about to Introduce his latest freak, the dinosaurus, and if Arthur Hammerstein, the Broadway Adonis, hadn't walked in just at that moment, surrounded by perfume and ten little "High Jinks" girls, one illustrators' party would have gone down in history as having been held without police interference.

As it was, the sound of the applause reach the ears of the ever alert town constables, Luke Geeghan and Henry Rausch, who keep the peace o' nights in Columbus Circle, and they just had to lope over to Reisenweber's to find out what it was all about.

They were immediately placated, however, for Clive Weed, who is well known to the police, and Clare Briggs, who is rapidly becoming acquainted in the effete East, were determined that nothing should prevent the dinner from being what Mr. Hammerstein calls a "Chief Doover," and nothing did. The two officers got what they came for and departed some time after, chanting a song that Briggs picked up in the Latin Quarter of Chicago. Outside of a few minor details like the above and the fact that there was little white space in the dining room, the dinner was a huge success.

Everything that could be done was done. Beefsteak was strewn about the floor in neat mosaics; Mrs. "Bud" Fisher threw herself into the spirit of things and taught Arthur Hammerstein the "Artists' Amble"; "Hal" Coffman wrote his autograph on everybody's hat; little Miss Barnett defied her manager and said that she would dance with.any fellow she liked after working hours, and the waiters were well dressed.

When everybody had met everybody else, and when the "High Jinks" ladies had become used to the artistic atmosphere, some one—it couldn't have been a press agent—began showing moving pictures of Winsor McCay's latest creation. He, being a shy fellow, only prefaced the views with a speech of about an hour's length, but the pictures were good, even with that handicap. Even a moving picture critic from "The Mount Vernon Bee" admitted this fact. He said this, says he, not because he was a friend of Mr. Hammerstein, who is going to put them on in vaudeville, but because he couldn't witness an artistic piece of work and withhold due praise. After the artistic pictures there were some regular moving pictures, but nobody looked at them at all. Someone attacked the piano and some one else cleared the beefsteak from the floor, so that those who were awake could dance.

Contributors to Illustration: (top left to bottom right): Percy Crosby, Walter Hoban, Cliff Sterrett, Clare Briggs, Oscar Cesare, Winsor McCay, Frank Fogarty, Clive Weed, Vic Forsythe, Lou Hanlon, Darata?, A. Weil, Cesare again, Reginald G. Russom, Frank Moser.

Thanks to Alex Jay for discovering this article!

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Ralph Kemp

2011-11-29T08:00:00.001-05:00

"Ralph Kemp was born on a farm near Lewis Creek and did much of his drawing on a farm near Morristown, Indiana…." according to the book, Indiana's Laughmakers: The Story of over 400 Hoosiers: Actors, Cartoonists, Writers, and Others (1990). The U.S. Federal census records put his year of birth at 1903. In 1910 Kemp was the oldest of two sons born to Charles and Stella. They lived in Hanover, Indiana, where his father was a farmer.

In 1920 the Kemps lived in Ripley, Indiana, near other farmers. Indiana's Laughmakers said, "Kemp was a graduate of Morristown High School and attended the University of Detroit." His marriage to Crystal Hollingsworth, on May 28, 1925, was recorded in the Indiana Marriage Collection at Ancestry.com.

The couple lived in Gadsden, Alabama at 118 Stillman Avenue, according to the 1930 census. Indiana's Laughmakers said, "He tried many things but believed his great love of drawing prevented his success at other careers. Over time, drawing changed from hobby to a business. Prior to that he worked for the publicity division of the Indiana state welfare department, doing art work and photography. Over a period of eight years, he developed his characterization of Tode Tuttle."

Editor & Publisher, in its December 9, 1939 issue, made the following announcement:

Tode Tuttle to Make Debut

A new cartoonist, Ralph A. Kemp, Morristown, Ind., free-lance, will be introduced to the national syndicate field Dec. 11 when his daily one-column panel, "Tode Tuttle," lovable old character who will express the homely humor of the Indiana Hoosiers...

Debut panel, 12/11/1939.

According to Indiana's Laughmakers, "The syndicate and Kemp parted ways after a few years and the character was taken over and drawn by another artist…Kemp followed his cartoon career with careers in resort management, real estate, and as a tavern owner." [Al Woods began signing the feature shortly before it ended -- Allan]

While in Mazatlan, Mexico with his wife, Kemp suffered a heart attack and passed away on February 12, 1964, according to the Department of State Foreign Service of the United States of America record, Report of the Death of an American Citizen, at Ancestry.com. The document revealed he was retired and lived in Franklin, Indiana at 1001 East Jefferson. The Indianapolis News, (Indiana) published an obituary on February 20, 1964.

The End of Captain Vincible

2011-11-28T08:01:00.012-05:00

We discussed Captain Vincible as an Obscurity of the Day last week; Mark Johnson very kindly sends us the complete final week of the strip. Funny, poignant stuff. Thanks Mark!

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2011-11-27T08:08:00.000-05:00

Herriman Saturday

2011-11-26T08:00:00.000-05:00

Saturday, February 22 1908 -- Today is the middleweight championship between Stanley Ketchel and Mike 'Twin' Sullivan up in San Francisco. The younger Ketchel defends his title against veteran Mike Twin, who is for the first time moving up from welterweight to middleweight class (though for some reason Wiki calls him the defending middleweight champ). The move turns out to not be wise, as Ketchel will knock him out barely a minute into the first round.

News of Yore: Luther D. Bradley

2011-11-25T08:00:00.000-05:00

Photo from Cartoons by Bradley

Entry in The Book of Chicagoans (1911)

BRADLEY, Luther Daniels, cartoonist; born New Haven, Conn., Sept. 29, 1853; son Francis and Sarah Beaman (Ruggles) Bradley; ed. Evanston pub. school, 1865–6; Northwestern Preparatory Acad., 1867–70; Northwestern Univ., 1870–3; Yale Coll., 1873–5; married Evanston, Ill., Oct. 31, 1901, Agnes Floyd Smith; children: Francis, John Freeman, Elizabeth, Margaret. Upon leaving Yale, 1875, entered business in employ of Baird & Bradley, real estate, Chicago; went to Australia, 1882; cartoonist for Australian Tid Bits, 1884; later cartoonist and editor Melbourne Life; cartoonist Melbourne Punch, 1888–93; returned to Chicago, 1893; cartoonist Chicago Journal, 1894, Inter Ocean, 1894–8, Chicago Daily News and head of art dept. since 1899. Independent Republican. Episcopalian. Residence: 822 Michigan Av., Wilmette, Ill. Office: The Daily News.

1914 (British wartime security)

The Philadelphia Inquirer (Pennsylvania), 1/11/1917

Luther D. Bradley

Chicago, Jan. 10—Luther D. Bradley, for many years cartoonist of the Chicago Daily News, died of heart disease at his home last night [January 9]. Mr. Bradley's political and war cartoons have attracted international attention. Some of his original drawings hang on the office walls of foreign Cabinet Ministers.

Bradley was born in New Haven, Conn., in 1853. After a course in Northwestern University, and graduation from Yale in 1875, he entered his father's real estate office in Chicago. In 1882, however, his ambitions underwent a change. After traveling extensively he became interested in newspaper work in Australia. He drew cartoons for Australia Tid-Bits, Melbourne Life and Melbourne Punch. Bradley was fond of athletics and was of athletic build. While at Yale he was a member of the rowing team. He is survived by a widow and four children.

(In the 1860 U.S. Federal Census, Bradley was the oldest of two children born to Francis and Sarah. They lived in Chicago, Illinois. Ten years later he was the oldest of seven children. They lived in Evanston, Illinois. In 1880 the family remained in Evanston; Bradley's occupation, like his father, was money loaner. In 1900, Bradley's mother, a widow, was the head of the household. They lived in Evanston at 1624 Hinman Avenue. Bradley's occupation was artist. The 1910 census recorded Bradley, his wife, three children, sister and two servants in Wilmette, Illinois at 822 Michigan Avenue. He was a newspaper cartoonist. Four months after Bradley's death, Cartoons by Bradley was published. The book, an appreciation with a biographical sketch, includes seven photos and a wide selection of his cartoons from Australia and Chicago newspapers. You can download the book here. A Bradley profile is here.)

Bradley was eulogized in Cartoons Magazine in their March 1917 issue:

Happy Thanksgiving!

2011-11-24T07:45:00.000-05:00

Happy Thanksgiving from Stripper's Guide, and thanks to Cole Johnson for this 1903 Mr. Jack turkey day strip!

Obscurity of the Day: Captain Vincible

2011-11-23T08:02:00.081-05:00

Ralph Smith had a pretty darn brilliant idea when he came up with Captain Vincible, his daily and Sunday strip. He knew that the put-upon nebbish everyman character is a favorite of newspaper readers -- from George Bungle to Ziggy, people seems to enjoy a character who always seems to be the butt of the joke, draw the short straw, and act as a poster-child for Murphy's Law. The challenge is to set your character apart, to make readers remember him.

Smith found an innovative solution by dressing up his everyman in superhero garb, of all things. The conceit was never really explained in the strip -- Captain Vincible just seems to fit naturally in his otherwise pretty normal world despite wearing long johns, a cape and goggles over his tubby little frame. He never demonstrates any superheroic powers, and he doesn't fight for the downtrodden or anything -- he just is. That costume, however, gave the strip a memorable visual. Combine that with concise dialogue and polished minimalist art and you have what ought to be a winner. King Features certainly thought so, and they were rewarded with a pretty decent list of subscribing papers when the strip debuted on April 25 1983.

Although the strip is a little too amiable and easygoing for my own tastes, the Ziggy-loving masses should have loved this stuff (try visualizing Ziggy replacing the Captain in most any strip -- it's an almost perfect fit). Maybe it was all just a little too high-concept, maybe readers were confused by the tights, I dunno. Anyway, the strip never really set the world on fire, and Smith, who was also employed at the Sarasota (FL) Herald-Tribune as editorial cartoonist, put the strip out to pasture sometime in July 1989 (exact date unknown).

One possible explanation for the strip ending is that Smith's good friend Dik Browne had just died. Smith is known to have assisted him in some capacity on Hagar the Horrible, and he may have needed to take a more active role on that strip upon Dik's death.

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Larry Antonette

2011-11-22T08:00:00.001-05:00

Lawrence Jospeh "Larry" Antonette was born in Washington on August 31, 1909, according to the Social Security Death Index and the 1910 U.S. Federal Census. The census recorded him as the only child of Joseph and Florence. They lived in Tacoma, Washington at 4051 South Tacoma Avenue. His father emigrated from Italy and was a grocery salesman. They family remained at the same address in 1920.

In the 1930 census, the family of three lived at 1912 South M in Tacoma. Antonette's father was a salesman for a mining company. According to Lambiek, "…He graduated Washington State University in 1931 and attended the Grand Central School of Art [in New York City]". The date of his move to New York City is not known. In 1935 Antonette produced three strips. The first was Bozo and the Baron for the Van Tine Features Syndicate. The Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 1, Group 2, Pamphlets, etc., 1935 New Series, Volume 32, Number 9 had this entry:

Antonette (L.) Bozo and the baron. v. 1. © July 16, 1935; AA 184135; Van Tine features syndicate, inc., New York. 27211

Marysville Tribune (Ohio), 11/17/1936

His second strip Biff Baxter's Adventures, syndicated by Lincoln Newspaper Features, followed in December 1935. The Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 1, Group 2, Pamphlets, etc., 1935 New Series, Volume 32, Number 12 recorded the registration:

Antonette (Lawrence) Biff Baxter's adventures, by Bob Dart [pseud.] © Dec. 6, 1935; A 69964; Lincoln newspaper features, inc., New York. 37491

Key West Over-Sea Sunday Star (Florida), 4/12/1936

Less than two weeks later, Dash Dixon was the third strip, also syndicated by Lincoln, to be copyrighted. The following entry is from the Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 1, Group 2, Pamphlets, etc., 1936 New Series, Volume 33, Number 1:

Antonette (Lawrence) Dash Dixon, by Dean Carr [pseud.] © Dec. 19, 1935 : A 70681 ; Lincoln newspaper features, inc., New York. 204

Key West Over-Sea Sunday Star (Florida), 4/12/1936

Since Antonette's name was on Van Tine's Bozo and the Baron, two pseudonyms were used for his strips from Lincoln Features, which was operated by H.T. Elmo. It's not known who came up with the pseudonyms "Bob Dart" and "Dean Carr"; my guess would be Elmo since he was the owner. Another artist, Jack Kirby, drew Facts You Never Knew for Elmo's syndicate and signed the strip as "Bob Dart".

A few years later, Antonette found work in the comic book industry. An overview of his comics career can be viewed at Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928–1999. Some of his comic book work is identified at the Grand Comics Database.

He collaborated with fellow artist Carl Pfeufer; their work was recorded in the Catalog of Copyright Entries, Part 4, Works of Art, etc. 1945 New Series, Volume 40, Number 10.

Antonette, Lawrence J. & Pfeufer, Carl T. 11466, 11467

Pfeufer, Cart T. :

This feature, assuming it was a newspaper comic of some sort, has not yet been found running in any newspaper.

Eventually, Antonette returned to Tacoma, Washington where he was the director of the Northwest School of Art at 3605 South 52nd Street. The school offered classes in commercial and fine art, and was advertised in American Artist magazine.

Antonette passed away on February 23, 1997 in Tacoma, according to the Social Security Death Index. His wife Eileen predeceased him by 22 months. The date of their marriage is not known. Their Social Security numbers were issued in New York state, so it's possible they met and married in New York City. They are buried at Calvary Cemetery in Tacoma.

Obscurity of the Day: Newsy Movie Notes

2011-11-21T08:01:00.002-05:00

A popular sub-category of the 'weird facts' newspaper comics genre focuses on the world of movies and movie stars. One of the earlier examples of it is Newsy Movie Notes, a local feature of the Chicago Daily News. It ran in their Midweek feature section on Wednesdays, where it proffered news items from Hollywood accompanied by cartoons and photos. The writer/cartoonist was a fellow named MacArthur, of whom I know nothing.

The weekly feature began sometime in 1928 and ended on November 6 1929. I missed the 1928 start date in my microfilm indexing because it was a rush job at the Library of Congress, leaving me with yet another item on my seemingly endless to-do list.

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2011-11-20T08:02:00.002-05:00

Herriman Saturday

2011-11-19T08:12:00.010-05:00

Friday, February 21 1908 -- Herriman takes a break from boxing cartoons for a day and heads out to Santa Anita racetrack to make some sketches of the colorful horsey crowd.

Herriman also keeps the Hen Berry weasel-skin hat story moving along, now clearly off in the realm of fantasy.

News of Yore: John Paul Arnot

2011-11-18T08:00:00.007-05:00

John Paul Arnot, Formerly of Reno,

Dies in S.F. After Long Career as Cartoonist

Nevada State Journal, 12/6/1951

John Paul Arnot, native of Markleeville, and former resident of Reno, died in San Francisco, recently after a long and successful career as a cartoonist, an funeral services were held in that city early this week.

Mr. Arnot's career as a cartoonist started soon after he left the University of Nevada in 1907, and during the intervening years it covered a wide variety of activities.

He was born at Markleeville, where his father, N.D. Arnot, was an attorney, and the family later moved to Placerville when the elder Mr. Arnot was named judge for that district. John Paul Arnot came to Reno to attend the University of Nevada, where two sisters and a brother already had graduated. Another brother, Percy A. Arnot, attended college in California, and is now a physician and obstetrician in San Francisco.

In his college days, Mr. Arnot's skill with pencil and pen were recognized. He and Silas E. Ross were chosen to publish the 1908 Artemisia, with Mr. Arnot making the cartoons and art work, and Mr. Ross writing most of the text and supervising the editorial work.

Started WIth Hearst

Mr. Arnot did not graduate from Nevada, but went to San Francisco where he became a cartoonist on the Hearst newspapers. Later he and some of his workers formed their own feature syndicate. In 1913 he worked for the San Francisco Chronicle as sports cartoonist, then returned to the Hearst organization by joining the King Features syndicate, working in the east for a number of years. He returned to the west coast in 1933 as sports cartoonist for the San Francisco News, and a year later became associated with Eastman Kodak Co. in San Francisco.

Surviving are his widow, Mrs. Hope Beach Arnot; a son, John Philip Arnot; two sisters, Mrs. May Arnot Rice, who graduated from the Nevada university in 1900, and now resides in Berkeley; Mrs. Laura Arnot Leavitt, member of the Nevada class of 1904, and now living in San Francisco where she operates a women's wear store; three brothers, Stanley L. Arnot of Sonora, Calif., Nathaniel D. Arnot and Dr. Percy Arnot of San Francisco. Another brother, the late Edwin P. Arnot, graduate of the University of Nevada in 1902, was a mining engineer.

[John Paul Arnot was born in Markleeville, California on September 16, 1887, according to his World War II draft card. In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, he was the fourth of eight children born to Nathaniel and Anna. The family lived in Markleeville. His father was a superior court judge. In 1910 the family lived in Placerville, California on Nob Hill. Arnot was a miner. The Mountain Democrat (Placerville, California) reported Arnot's cartooning success on February 14, 1914.

Some Cartoonist.

John Paul Arnot, son of Judge and Mrs. N.D. Arnot, is making quite a reputation as a cartoonist on the San Francisco Chronicle, where he has been employed for some months past. In the issue of the journal of Sunday Feb. 8th, young Arnot presented a full front page with cartoons summing up in comic style various news features of the week, and it was certainly a cleverly worked out scheme of burlesque and pointed criticism. Placerville is proud of the young genius—who claims this as his "home town."

On August 18, 1915, Arnot married Hope Beach, according to the Mountain Democrat on August 21. The newlyweds moved to New York City, where he worked for King Features Syndicate. Later, he registered for the draft. According to Lambiek Comiclopeida, his strips, this decade, included Old Doc Gayboy (1913-1914), And So It Goes (1916), Sinned-Against Samuel (1916), Miss Pippin (1917), That Squares It (1918-1919), How Do They Do It? (1917–1927) and The General (1919–1922).

San Diego Evening Tribune 2/26/1917

In 1920 the couple lived in Placerville at 66 Mill Street. He was a cartoonist. In a couple of years they returned to New York City. Arnot produced Helpful Henry from 1925 to 1926. The 1930 census recorded them and their son in Manhattan at 220 Northern Avenue. Arnot's occupation was newspaper cartoonist. A few years later they made their home in San Francisco.

Arnot signed his World War II draft card on April 26, 1942. He lived in San Francisco at 385 Moncada Way. He was employed at the Eastman Kodak Company. His description was height and build, 5' 8.5", 190 pounds, with gray eyes and brown hair. Arnot passed away on December 1, 1951, in Agnew, California, according to the California, San Francisco Area Funeral Home Records, 1895-1985 at Ancestry.com. He and his wife were buried at Cypress Lawn Memorial Park in Colma, California.]

Obscurity of the Day: Miss Pippin

2011-11-17T08:01:00.001-05:00

Single women more and more were making their presence felt in the workforce in the 1910s, and strips about their experiences in the working world were starting to pop up. By the 20s and 30s they were well on the way to being a comics page staple, but in the 1910s J.P. Arnot's Miss Pippin, the tale of a lady school principal, was still at least a little bit of a novelty. Better yet, Hearst bullpenner Arnot didn't react to the continued rise of women's rights advocacy in the 1910s as most of the male breed did, with indulgent sugar-coated derision.

Arnot's strip didn't make fun of this working woman the way most did. The typical jokes about women having no head for business, being too frail of spirit and too tender of heart to survive in the world of men were seldom used in Miss Pippin. Arnot's protagonist was portrayed as an intelligent and resourceful woman who effortlessly turns aside male chauvinism with her demure good manners and wit.

Perhaps newspaper readers in the 1910s weren't ready for this 'foremother' of Brenda Starr, because the strip didn't run for long. Hearst strips from the latter half of the teens are devilishly hard to track, but I believe the strip began on September 29 1917 and seems to have sputtered out by December of that year. I have yet to find a paper that printed the strip on a consistent daily basis, so it may have been one of the last of what I term 'weekday strips', daily-style strips that were not issued on a regular 6-day per week basis. If anyone has located a true daily run of it, please let me know.

Obscurity of the Day: Mr. & Mrs. Pippin

2011-11-16T08:16:00.000-05:00

Before Frank Willard hit it big with Moon Mullins, he was a productive staffer at the Chicago Herald. The Herald had visions (more like delusions) of grandeur with their comic strip offerings, which were offered in syndication to few takers. Although they did have some good material to offer mixed in with the bad, the cartoonists were mostly kids, and there was no firm editorial hand to guide the neophytes. There was also an unfortunate lack of attention to printing quality. You can see the terribly off-register color, the type lice and the ink blotches in the samples above. I spent a lot of time cleaning these up so that at least the word balloons are legible -- they were just masses of type lice before I took the virtual scrub brush to them.

What does shine through on these samples very clearly is that Frank Willard, long before Moon Mullins, was already fascinated with the comic possibilities of the lower classes and the seamy underbelly of life. These strips are very raw-boned and tough-minded, with Willard giving no quarter to the miserable and most likely cuckolded Mr. Pippen. His wife is a tart, a brat and a harridan with no redeeming qualities. The cops, who figure large in their misbegotten marriage, are arrogant and moronic. In short, the strip is uncomfortably realistic -- played for laughs like a funhouse reflection, but leaving the reader with the troubling sensation that Willard knows whereof he speaks.

Mr. and Mrs. Pippen ran in the Chicago Herald starting on April 1 1917, and ran through April 28 1918. The title changed to Mrs. Pippen's Husband on July 1 1917. The strip was sold by some outfit in reprints, as I've found it running in the Ogden Standard in 1919.

Thanks to Cole Johnson for the samples!

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Jim Navoni

2011-11-15T08:00:00.001-05:00

James Angel "Jim" Navoni was born in Napa, California on November 18, 1887, according to the California Death Index at Ancestry.com. In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, he was the oldest of four children born to Bert and Mary, both Italian emigrants. The family lived in Napa where his father was a farmer. In Artists in California, 1786-1940, Edan Hughes said, "While in San Francisco in 1907-11, Navoni studied at the Institute of Art." Navoni attended the University of California, Berkeley in 1908; his name was found in the yearbook The Blue and Gold. According to The Call (San Francisco, California), he was a contributor to the school paper, Pelican, as reported on September 25, 1909.

In the 1910 census, the Navoni family lived in Napa on Berryessa Road. The September 15, 1910 edition of The Call reported the following:

Staff of University Funny Book Chosen

Berkeley, Sept. 14.—Editor G.J. Adams of the Pelican, the comic paper of the students, has announced his staff for the publication, which on Friday will make its first appearance for the term replete with cartoons and satires. Adams will be assisted by H.E. Mills and James Navoni as associate editors….

Navoni found work at the The Call; he was one of several artists to work on the local strip Alonzo. The paper promoted its children's section, The Junior Call, with a party, as reported on April 11, 1912.

The Call, 4/11/1912.

Alonzo and Pup to Appear at the Junior Call's Party

...Artist Jim Navoni, who draws Alonzo and the Pup and their funny doings in The Junior Call every Saturday, will be there with large sheets of paper and plenty of charcoal pencils. And between Mrs. Olsen's great stories Artist Navoni will make motions on the paper with his charcoal, and lo! there will be Alonzo and the Pup smiling at the youthful audience.
It will be worth a whole lot just to see Navoni make the two famous dogs come to life before your eyes. After the audience has seen him do it, all the boys and girls will able to draw Alonzo and the Pup—maybe!...

The Call, 4/14/1912.

Three days later The Call said:

…there were two interesting features, one being the piano solo by Stefan Vucosavlievich, the boy pianist. The other was furnished by James Navoni, the clever Junior Call artist, whose pictures of Alonzo and The Pup are known from one end of the juvenile San Francisco to the other. Navoni, in the interests of Alonzo and his small brother, who unfortunately were unable to attend in person, presented their regrets and drew their smiling faces on an improvised board, much to the delight of the assembled audience….

Cartoons Magazine, March 1916, published news of Navoni's whereabouts.

Navoni Heard From

James Navoni, formerly of the San Francisco Call, has for several months been in the employ of a travelogue concern, and has been zigzagging here and there across the country.
"During my travels," he writes, "it has been my good fortune to come into contact with people of all types and classes. You can't deny that Mr. Knock-about-a-bit is quite a valuable teacher. At any rate, he has helped me toward a better understanding of human nature, the cartoonist's greatest assets."

Cartoons Magazine, May 1916.

He signed his World War I draft card on May 29, 1917. He resided in Napa and his occupation was cartoonist. The description of him was tall height, medium build with brown eyes and hair. The date of his move to Chicago, Illinois is not known.

The 1920 census recorded Navoni, a lodger, in Chicago at 61 Delaware Place. His occupation was cartoonist. A cartoon of his was published in The Judge. He is credited with Charley the Chump and Looney Land (1926 Wheeler-Nicholson dailies) [Allan's note: Charley the Chump has not yet been found appearing in any newspaper; Looney Land has, but just barely, with a little over a week's worth printed in Lowell Sun].

Navoni returned to his roots. In the 1930 census the cartoonist lived with his parents in Napa at Rural Route 3. Eventually he gave up cartooning and opened a tavern. The Oakland Tribune reported this incident on September 27, 1939:

Night Prowler Seized in Roof of Tavern

Strange sounds from the roof of a tavern at 2969 San Pablo Avenue aroused James Navoni, 2937 [sic] San Pablo Avenue, early today and soon led to the arrest of George Fava, 31, 3213 Filbert Street.

Police Sergeant J.J. Reichel said he found Fava on top of the tavern roof, with the skylight removed and a knotted length of rope stretching through it from the roof to the floor. Fava wore socks on his hands as gloves and admitted, the officer said, he had intended to rob the tavern.

Navoni signed his World War II draft card on April 27, 1942. He lived at 2973 San Pablo Avenue and was a store owner. He passed away on April 19, 1975, in Napa, according to the California Death Index.

Ink-Slinger Profiles: Herbert Morton Stoops

2011-11-14T08:00:00.005-05:00

Herbert Morton Stoops was born in Parowan, Utah on May 28, 1887. His place of birth was recorded on his World War I draft card and on two passenger ship lists at Ancestry.com. The year of his birth was recorded as 1887 in the 1900 U.S. Federal Census and his World War II draft card. His first World War draft card had the year 1888. The Presbyterian Ministerial Directory, 1898 recorded the Stoops family living in Salina, Utah as late as 1892. The date of their move to Idaho is not known.

In the 1900 census, Stoops was the oldest of five children born to Philip Dexter Stoops and Eliza (Lila G. Morton). His father, a ranch employee, was doing home missionary work in Utah since 1881, according to the Biographical Record of the Alumni of Amherst College, 1821- (1901). The family lived in Kilgore, Idaho. Some time after the census, his mother moved the children to Logan, Utah. The Salt Lake Herald (Utah) reported, on May 12, 1903, that Stoops had graduated from the New Jersey academy of Logan. The budding cartoonist was noted in the Deseret Evening News (Utah) on November 28, 1903, "Prof. Stutterd…is…developing a cartoonist in the person of Herbert Stoops. Some very credible work from the pen of Mr. Stoops appeared in the last issue of Student Life."

On June 9, 1906, the Logan Republican said, "…Stoops, who has been one of The Republican force between college hours, left for the Stoops ranch in Idaho yesterday." The Ogden Standard Examiner (Utah) reported in its October 15, 1922 edition, "Herbert Stoops received his early art training at the Utah Agriculture college where he showed marked ability while still a boy. At this time his talent was so noticeable that he daily attracted groups of students to the studios to watch him work." (The college was renamed Utah State University in 1957.) The Republican edition of November 27, 1907 reported:

Herbert M. Stoops leaves today for San Francisco, where he will probably be employed by the Pacific Construction Co., with which Mark Pendleton, formerly of Logan, is now associated. Young Stoops, who undoubtably has marked ability as a cartoonist, goes to San Francisco that he may have opportunity to attend an art school there at spare times. He is a fine young fellow with many friends here who wish him well.

An update was published on December 7, "Herbert Stoops is located at Berkeley, Cal., rather than San Francisco as originally intended. He is employed in a book store, attends a night school for art students, and is living with the Stovers, formerly of this city." It continued to chart his progress in this March 14, 1908 report.

Herbert M. Stoops, formerly of Logan and the "Student Life" staff, is doing things out in San Francisco, where he spent last fall. In recent issues of The Bulletin, one of the Golden Gate city's big papers, he has had two cartoons, and just other day came near winning a big prize offered for the best cartoon welcoming the fleet of battleships soon to arrive there [you've read about this event in our Herriman Saturdays as well -- Allan]. Out of ninety cartoons submitted, twelve were considered very satisfactory and of these one was by our own Herbert M. Stoops. A closer grading than this is sufficient to show that the confidence and expectations of Herbert's friends is not misplaced. Some day Logan will be glad to say that she know Stoops.

His first newspaper staff job, in California, was with The Call (San Francisco), beginning sometime in 1908. The front page, of the September 2, 1908 issue, of The Call published his photographs; the caption credit said, "Photos by Artist H.M. Stoops of The Call staff." On November 21, 1909, The Call's art reviewer wrote:

Too much can not be said in praise of the annual newspaper artist's exhibition now going on in the red room of the St. Francis. In many respects it is the most interesting of the year not only because of the divers talent displayed, but also because of the wide range and scope of subject and of style done in pencil and brush, in water color or oils, in pastel or charcoal as the fancy of the artist suggested. Nearly all of the local newspaper artists are included in the list of exhibitors, among them being T. Langguth, Walter Francis, S.C. Armstrong, M. Lustig, M. Del Mue, Lafayette Houchin, G.C. Stanton, J.A. Cahill, Leroy Ripley [Robert "Believe It or Not" Ripley], A.L Scherzer, Herbert M. Stoops, Ray C. Schulmann, Randal William Borough, John C. Terry, Paul Terry, V. Nahl, J.H. Litchfield, Stanley F. McNeill, Dan Sweeney, Percy Gray, M. Spero, W.R. de Lappe, Sylvan Schuhl, L.J. Rogers, H.R. Chapin, G.A. Bronstrup, R.C. Westover [Russ "Tillie the Toiler" Westover] and F.O. Fleming.

Stoops was counted twice in the 1910 census. He "lived" with his mother and siblings in Logan, Utah at 126 South Second East. He was an artist at a newspaper. The whereabouts of his father has not been determined. In San Francisco, California Stoops was a lodger at 428 Broderick Street; he worked as a newspaper artist. The Arts Magazine (Volume 22, 1947) obituary said, "…he worked as feature artist on the Morning Call and later joined the Examiner, along with Maynard Dixon and Harry Raleigh." The Society of illustrators named the San Francisco Chronicle as one of his employers in 1910, but that seems unlikely, in my opinion.

Stoops provided art for a Valentine's Day card produced by the Paul Elder & Company. The Call, January 29, 1911 said, "Cupid will be featured in a biplane…One of the prettiest designs…depicts the winged messenger of love as an aviator bearing a captivating young miss as a passenger…." Later that year on June 20, The Call published his cartoon on law breaking at beach resorts. He was one of several artists to do the local strip Alonzo; his stint was in 1912 from June to September. When Stoops worked at the San Francisco Examiner has not been determined.

There are two different dates for his move to Chicago. He moved in 1914, according to the Society of Illustrators, "where he took classes at the Art Institute while working as a staff artist for the Chicago Tribune." Arts Magazine said, "In 1916 he became part of that great Chicago group that included, among others, McClelland Barclay, Ben Hecht and Charles MacArthur." In American Art Analog: 1874-1930, Michael David Zellman said 1916 was the year Stoops moved. He signed his World War I draft card on June 5, 1917. He lived at 4950 Kenmore Avenue and worked as an artist for the Daily Tribune. His description was medium height and build with blue eyes and light brown hair. The Society of Illustrators said, "…the…artist enlisted in the Army, serving in France as First Lieutenant in the Sixth Field Artillery of the First Division. Stoops sent drawings from his sketchbook back to the home front…."

Seattle Daily Times 7/3/1918

Rocky Mountain Weekly News 7/18/1918

[Stoops caption] "To two of the three musketeers of the western front—the Englishman and the Frenchman (to whom the war is familiar)—the landscape is flat and the sky uninteresting save when dotted with aircraft; but to the third—the Yank‚every battered landmark spells history, and the heavens above France sing of the romance of the sky."

Seattle Daily Times 10/7/1918

[caption] The doughboys, in their event rushes "over the top," shouted this slogan, singularly free from cant or hypocrisy. Mr. Stoops, who drew this vivid sketch, is a Chicago newspaper artist who went to the front. He was wounded in action.

Stoops also contributed a patch design as reported in The Progress (Clearfield, Pennsylvania) on September 29, 1955:

Brash Young Man Gave 'Big Red One' Its Patch

Fort Riley, Kan.—A brash young lieutenant of World War I artillery is responsible for the present shoulder patch of the First Infantry Division, rotated here from Germany under Operation Gyroscope—the "BIG RED ONE" on the olive-drab background.

The World War I version of this patch has the same color combination but the numeral, worn on the left sleeve, extended from the shoulder almost to the elbow.

Lieutenant Herbert Stoops of Battery C, Sixth Field Artillery, saw the oversized numeral on his commanding officer's shoulder and remarked that it looked like the colonel's red underwear showing through a wire-rip.

The colonel had a sense of humor and gave his junior officer no rebuke other than to tell him to come with a better design—or shut up. The lieutenant did.

Clipping a piece of red piping from a German infantry officer's cap, he fashioned a "one" and placed it against the gray mass of the cap. The design was approved with the substitution of olive drab for the German gray. The only source of the gray cloth would be German uniforms and no one imagined that Germans were going to surrender just to provide First Division patches.

The division's distinctive emblem was officially recognized on October 28, 1918. However, the first "members" of the outfit to wear the "BIG RED ONE" were the trucks, not the men. In February, 1918, some unknown doughboy put the numerals there to distinguish U.S. Army from British vehicles in the same area.

The Society of Illustrators said, "After the war, Stoops moved to New York City and married Elise Borough. Under the tutelage of Harvey Dunn, Stoops applied his early experiences to canvas and paper, becoming one of the most sought-after illustrators of his day. By the early '20s, oils by Stoops were featured in Cosmopolitan and Good Housekeeping alongside the works of illustration giants. He began painting covers for The American Legion Magazine, a publication for which he would work constantly in the years to come." Stoops has not been found in the 1920 census.

In January 1925 Stoops and his wife returned from Bermuda. The passenger list recorded their New York City address as 10 East 9th Street. His mother passed away on September 23, 1925. On the same day, a death notice was published in the Oakland Tribune. She was survived by her husband and five children. The Amherst Graduates' Quarterly (Volume 16, 1926) noted the whereabouts of his father, "Philip Dexter Stoops, whose name has for some years been unaccountably omitted from the Address List, is living at Mason's Island, Mystic, Conn." The date of his death is not known.

In the 1930 census, Stoops and his wife lived in Manhattan, New York City at 42 Barrow Street, in Greenwich Village. He was a freelance illustrator. In The Illustrator in America, 1860-2000 (2001), Walt Reed wrote:

After the [first world] war, Stoops began his illustration career and his association with Blue Book. He did not confine himself to those pages alone; he illustrated for Collier's, This Week, Cosmopolitan, and many others, as well as painting for exhibition. His picture. "Anno Domini." won the Isador Medal at the National Academy Exhibition in 1940.

Stoops served as president of the Artists Guild in New York, was a member of the Salmagundi Club, the Society of Illustrators, The American Artists Professional League, and highly prized his honorary membership in the New York Association of Veterans of the French Foreign Legion.

Stoops' drawings and paintings were exhibited in the Society of Mystic Artists exhibitions in Mystic, Connecticut, where his father once lived. The Springfield Republican (Massachusetts), on August 31, 1941, wrote, "Herbert M. Stoops presents a powerful portrayal of human misery in war called 'Current History.' " On August 2, 1942, the Republican said, " 'Chalk Cliffs,' by Herbert M. Stoops, is a dignified and decorative record of watchers against a searchlight-sprayed night sky." He signed his World War II draft card on April 25, 1942. The self-employed artist lived at 42 Barrow Street in New York City. His description was "5'9", 160 [lbs]" with blue eyes and gray hair. "During World War II he did several posters for the office of War Information," according to the Society of Illustrators. Stoops passed away at his Greenwich Village home on May 19, 1948. The New York Times reported his death the next day.

More profiles can be read at AskArt.com, Pulp Artists (photo of Stoops), and Arts Magazine. In American Illustration, 1890-1925: Romance, Adventure & Suspense (1986), Judy L. Larson wrote, "He signed his work either 'Raymond Sisley' or 'Jeremy Cannon.' "

Jim Ivey's Sunday Comics

2011-11-13T08:08:00.000-05:00

The Cartoon Museum in 1967

Herriman Saturday

2011-11-12T08:15:00.018-05:00

Thursday, February 20 1908 -- Battling Nelson, coming off a string of losses, is desperate to have a win under his belt, especially against Jimmy Britt, who has beaten him twice. He begins his serious training a scant two weeks before the fight, finally laying off the high life. His sparring partner, Kid Dalton, finally has to earn his keep.

In the saga of the weasel hat crack, Hen Berry has now apparently gone so far as to accuse Mayor Harper of having started the rumor.