Edwina (1893-1990)

Edwina (1893-1990), was Edwina Dumm, author of the comic strip “Cap Stubbs and Tippie.” She was from Upper Sandusky, Ohio. She went to New York and studied under George Bridgeman while working as a freelance cartoonist. Harpo Marx saw one of Edwina’s dog cartoons in a magazine and showed it to Alexander Woollcott which led to Edwina illustrating Woollcott’s book “Two Gentlemen and a Lady.” Promotions for the “Cap Stubbs”strip began with advertisements on March 2 1918 and the strip began around March 18.

EDWINA IS ACE ARTIST!

Girl Creator of Gazette’s “Cap Stubbs” One of Few of Her Sex In Comic Art Job

Edwina, the petite young artist who draws “Cap Stubbs and Tippie,” a daily comic strip, that appears in the Gazette, is one of the few successful cartoonists of her sex.

When her identity is revealed to anyone who has studied her work, the usual comment is “Impossible. A girl couldn’t draw, convincingly, about boys and dogs.”

Born in Upper Sandusky, Ohio, Edwina listened to stories about the Indians who had settled there before the town was founded. So did her playmates, mostly little boys at that time. Undoubtedly, much of her present day understanding of how the small boys mind works is traceable to this period in her childhood.

Coming from a family of journalists, she obtained her first job as political cartoonist for a paper in Columbus, Ohio. For several years she was the only girl in the country to hold such a position. Then one morning the paper folded up and she was without a job.

Her drawing attracted the attention of George Matthew Adams, president of the syndicate that bears his name, and a contract soon started the artist on her way to fame.

When asked where she gleaned fresh ideas for her cartoons, Edwina replied: “When Lily Sinbad (her cherished mutt-poodle dog) fails to supply me with ideas, I resort to memory. Sometimes I take long bus rides, and walk through central Park with Lily, and think of the kids back home. Somehow the ideas seem to come.

For many years Edwina drew “Sinbad” for Life magazine. Two pictured books of his doings have been published, and one book of “Alex the Great.” She also finds time to turn out illustrations for books and magazines.

When not in new York City, she lives in a cream colored blue-shuttered Connecticut farmhouse. Lily Sinbad prefers life in the country, but Edwina likes the tempo of a big city. Lily has to do the sacrificing!

- From the Evening Gazette, Xenia, Ohio, 19 Jan 1937.

March 2, 1918

September 6, 1918

March 11, 1918

March 18, 1918

*Don Kurtz original autograph illustration.