A Crowded Life in Comics –

With the Goo-Goo-Googly Eyes

(Barney and Snuffy; DeBeck and Lasswell)

 

Christmas Sketch - DeBeck Barney and Bunky, 1930s

by Rick Marschall

One of my collecting specialties is the Sketch. There is as much charm, and insouciant skill, in a lightning sketch as there is, or can be, in a finished work of art. As an artist I am often happier with my preliminary work than my finishes; I say that I tighten up, but a lack of ability is the likely culprit, daring me to show work to the world.

So I have several albums of sketches, quick-draws, caricatures and self-caricatures, “roughs” and “comps.” Some are ancient; some were done for me.

I will share some sketches by Billy De Beck here; and work of his successor Fred Lasswell too.

1930 Drawing of Barney Google on DeBeck stationery

Billy De Beck was a cartoonist’s cartoonist. His earliest work, in Pittsburgh, seemed professional from the start, unlike his contemporaries whose work we see in retrospect followed natural evolutions from amateurish to polished. His early political cartoons owed something to J H Donahey of the nearby Cleveland Plain Dealer. Especially his background shading and the types of pretty girls both drew.

While he yet was scarcely known, DeBeck launched a correspondence school for aspiring cartoonists, replete with lesson books of “action sketches.” Little advice, except to copy his drawings. An odd practice – in the ‘teens and ‘20s many cartoonists started similar mail-order “schools,” but, curiously, many of the cartoonists were rank, and clearly needed lessons themselves. (I will be doing a book for Fantagraphics on these correspondence courses.) But… among the many, DeBeck’s books were useful – polished, mature, worthy of study.

He graduated from political cartoons to strip work in the late ‘teens in Chicago. After several false starts, he created So This Is Married Life, then Take Barney Google, F’ r Instance. Soon the tall featured character lost half his size, lost his shrewish wife, acquired a race horse named Spark Plug… and literally was off to the races. Barney Google became, and remained, one of America’s most popular strips until DeBeck’s early death in 1942, aged 52.

Those early “DeBeck School” lesson drawings presaged his lifetime style. While still drawing political cartoons that were a little stiff and formal, in these published sketches he drew with a loose pen, fluid lines, and lively exaggeration. This “look” became the visual trademark of his art. Barney (and the later Snuffy Smith when the hillbilly walk-on dominated the strip) was forever a melange of action, reaction, motion, crosshatching and detailed shading.

Envelope of DeBeck, 1930

I recently acquired a sketch Billy did for a fan in 1930. Its charm – particularly its curiosity – is the cartoonist’s stationery. The letter page embossed with his solitary signature is typical enough.  But the envelope reminds me of the business cards of Newman and the Postmaster General in a Seinfeld episode – the return address is “DeBeck, New York.” Maybe the postmen knew all about him; he was a celebrity.

DeBeck Christmas Sketch, 1930s

I share, then, two Christmas greetings DeBeck drew. Sketches, as loose and charming as one could wish.

We can fast-forward to a photo of me and Fred Lasswell, who succeeded DeBeck on the strip (after a wartime fill-in by Joe Musial); just as the terrific John Rose carries on today.

Photo of Fred Lasswell and Rick Marschall, 1995, making fashion statements
 during the US Postal Service’s 100 Years of the Comics celebration. 

Fred and I were at an event celebrating the US Postal Service’s issuance of 20 stamps commemorating the centennial of the comic strip. The year was 1995, almost (gulp!) 25 years ago. Barney Google was one of the stamps’ stars, and Fred attended events with the Yellow Kid on his tie. As I was the USPS’s consultant for the project (providing many images; an 11-city speaking tour; writing the 100-page book they produced, etc) I invariably wore a tie with the Yellow Kid, hand-painted by Robin Doig of San Diego Comicon fame).

We are showing off the ties in the photo – not really a competition between the Yellow Kids, since they each were in a tie – under which, on a subsequent visit, Fred drew a portrait of ol’ Snuffy. A good ol’ sketch, dadburn it; good enuff fer me!

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