CARTOONISTS AT WORK - Bud Fisher

 When weekends are over, we (most of us) get back to work, or think of it. Some of us who freelance write or draw feel like weekends and weekdays are of one demanding sort. Think of cartoonists who draw newspaper strips. Until recently, words like "vacations," "hiatus," and "reprints" were not in their lexicons. (In fact, even "lexicon" was not in many of their lexicons.") More likely, "primal scream" was a term that tempted them.

So I will inaugurate a regular feature in Yesterday's Papers showing cartoonists at their drawing boards. In fact, here and in the imminent revival of NEMO Magazine, I will compile a different sort of trip through comics history -- a chronological compilation of informal photos and snapshots of cartoonists (that is, not promotional photos), sharing what they were like as "normal" (ha) folks; and weaving the narration of comics' growth as an art form. My good friends and great collectors (or vice-versa) Ivan Briggs and Jim Engel will collaborate.

The first subject is almost ironic, for Bud Fisher (Mutt and Jeff) was famous for hardly lifting a pen after the very first years of his strip... except when endorsing royalty checks. Many cartoonists have had assistants; and some abandoned their drawing boards early in their long careers (I will present the case Ron Goulart and I made that Alfred Andriola could barely draw at all, for instance).

Anyway, Bud Fisher was the first major strip cartoonist to employ ghost artists (separate from assistants, which was a rare thing anyway before 1907, when Mutt had his debut). Ken Kling, who later drew Joe and Asbestos, worked for Fisher; C W Kahles ghosted some licensing and ancillary items. Some folks believe that George Herriman subbed for Fisher, but during the few years they worked together Herriman was too big of a "name" to have pitched in anonymously on another strip; it was more likely that Fisher saw another style to swipe. Bill Blackbeard claimed that Billy Liverpool lent a hand, but with no evidence, certainly not in their drawing styles (typically and unfortunately -- for his assertion has made into history books) he admitted under pressure that "Billy Liverpool" was marvelous name that should be enshrined. Trust but verify...

What is true is that around 1916, Fisher hired the B-Team Hearst cartoonist Ed Mack. And Mack thereafter drew virtually every image of Mutt and Jeff -- strips, reprint books, toys and games, ads, merchandise, licensed products -- until 1933. At that point, Al Smith took over the strip 100 per cent. Al (the first cartoonist I ever met, when I was 10 years old; he attended our church, and filled in a lot of history for me) only signed the strip after Fisher's death in 1954.

So... it could be that a photograph of Bud Fisher at a drawing board is a rare thing, or an image of a rare event. 

 

MUG SHOTS

Caricature is a special category of art. It is midway between portrait and parody; reality and exaggeration; truth and...

Well, it usually can be closer to Truth, in its special manner, than a photograph. Caricaturists focus on more than likenesses, but seek to capture the essence of their subjects -- what is "beneath the surface," character traits displayed through a single image, and (more than in paintings or even photographs) the personality of the victim.

Among the first caricatures studied as such are sketches by Leonardo da Vinci. He presumably was interested in drawing some people's faces because of their bizarre or exaggerated features -- huge noses, malocclusions, warts and all. Yet Leonardo exaggerated even more than nature graced (or cursed) these people who faced the world. So to speak.

Many caricaturists are serious artists and painters. But very few artists -- not even all cartoonists -- have the gift of caricature. One needs the special talent of a discerning eye (and, some might say, a venomous spirit) to be appreciated as a caricaturist. In a further anomaly, if it be such, not every cartoonist or caricaturist can succeed in auto-portraiture -- self-caricature. Milton Caniff, for instance, could depict anything under the sun, even exaggerated drawings of others. But when he attempted a humorous self-caricature, he routinely looked more like Lou Costello. Fred Lasswell finally drew a dashing matinee idol when asked to sketch himself.

Can I go a step further? The biggest challenge of a caricaturist is choosing to draw a profile. If you are drawing someone and want to amuse his or her friends, draw a profile, but if you want to please (or be paid by) an actual victim... avoid a profile. Most of humanity never sees themselves in profile, except when being fitted by a tailor in a clothes store's multi-mirrored platform; or in the occasional photo snapped at an event. (Or when booked by the cops...)

The legendary humorist and monologist Jean Shepherd was a talented cartoonist. I once drew a caricature of him in the days when he sported a goatee (he said I made him look like "a cross between Lincoln, Lenin, and Castro...") and he gave me a valuable tip seldom expressed elsewhere. He advised me to study and depict the neck of the subject; the size, shape, tilt of the head would follow, thus to capture of attitude as well as the likeness. But he agreed: avoid profiles!

And most difficult of all, challenge upon challenge therefore, is for the cartoonist to draw his or her own caricature in profile. You cannot pose or study oneself and draw at the same time. Yet... it is not impossible. I will offer here some self-caricatures in profile -- drawings that I think have succeeded.

The upcoming revival of NEMO Magazine, with which Yesterday's Papers will connect as a web-arm, will have a running feature, "About Face!" sharing great caricatures and caricaturists. You might see some of these people in days to come: 

Peggy Bacon. If you think she might have been hard on herself, here is her word-description of herself: "Pin-head, parsimoniously covered with thin dark hair, on a short, dumpy body. Small features, prominent nose, chipmunk teeth and no chin, conveying the sharp, weak look of a little rodent. Absent-minded eyes with a half-glimmer of observation. Prim, critical mouth and faint coloring. Personality lifeless, retiring, snippy, quietly egotistical. Lacks vigor and sparkle."

At the other extreme, kinder to himself and possibly to humanity at large, was the great German cartoonist Wilhelm Schulz. He drew for the legendary Simplicissimus magazine from the 1920s till the '50s, was also a poet and a book illustrator.

The great political cartoonist Homer Davenport spared no invective when he caricatured Washington's movers and shakers. He was no less flattering to himself.

I watched Al Capp draw this for me, and he used no three-way mirrors, honest. He was not as jolly as pictured, however. It was near the end of his life. His wooden leg no longer fit well, and he was dying of emphysema. Yes, he chain-smoked all afternoon. "I can do one of two things," he said. "Quit smoking or stop breathing," as he lit another cigarette.

An easy formula -- bald head, bow tie, broad smile? Not automatic. But longtime political cartoonist Cy Hungerford was exactly as advertised -- jolly, outgoing, enthusiastic.

Similar angle to Cy's was Harry Hershfield. Some people believed he looked like his character Abie the Agent, but this disproves it...

The great ZIM -- Eugene Zimmerman -- drew many self-caricatures through the years, 1880s to 1920s, but few in profile and few as fun as himself at the lithographic stone, at work.

 

           

Frost Bite

In the Early Days of cartooning and illustration's Golden Era, there were a fair number of A.B.s -- A B Frost; A B Shults; A B Walker, A B Wenzell; and I suppose we can add the vintage comic-strip character Abie the Agent.

We will spend a moment here and tip our YP hat to Arthur Burdett Frost. He was an artist whose immense talents and achievements arguably are the most neglected of American cartooning's pivotal figures. He certainly was a major progenitor of the comic strip format, both experimenting and codifying the language and structure of graphic narration.

If Frost was not the father of the American comic strip, he must be recognized as a godfather, a major branch on the family tree, a prophet who entered the Promised Land he espied.

 An early version of A B Frost's most famous "series," drawn in the late 1870s. "A Fatal Mistake -- The Tale of a Cat" was redrawn in 1884 (detail below), showing the unfortunate cat eating rat poison. 

He lived between 1851 and 1928, literally spanning -- and often dominating -- the fields of illustration and cartooning otherwise identified with F O C Darley and Frank Bellew through to Norman Rockwell and John Held, Jr. He studied under the great painters Thomas Eakins and William Merritt Chase; he illustrated a Christian (Swedenborgian) novel written by his sister and then scored a national sensation with hundreds of spot illustrations for Out Of the Hurly-Burly by Max Adeler; he joined the staff of the Daily Graphic, America's first illustrated daily newspaper; he drew for many magazines including Puck, Life, Scribner's, Collier's, Harper's Weekly and Harper's Monthly; and he illustrated more than a hundred books.

Frost was not merely prolific; many cartoonists and illustrators manage to keep busy. It seemed that everything he touched was significant. The authors whose works he illustrated were among the most prominent of his day: Mark Twain; H C Bunner; Frank Stockton; Theodore Roosevelt; Thomas Bailey Aldrich. He illustrated two of Lewis Carroll's books in the wake of the latter's Alice successes. If Frost never had drawn humorous illustrations and strips he would be remembered today for his hunting and wildlife work. Or, perhaps, his gouache paintings of rural life. Or, certainly, his classic folklore and ethnic themes as exemplified in illustrations for the Uncle Remus stories; their author Joel Chandler Harris paid tribute to Frost in one of the books, "you have taken it under your hand... The book was mine but now you have made it yours." The US Golf Association was founded in 1894, and Frost was an early addict of the links; his many drawings, illustrations, and books helped popularize the sport.

But a special mention must be made here of Frost's contributions to the development of the comic strip. In (primarily) the back pages of the "literary monthlies" Harper's, The Century, and Scribner's, Frost drew what were called "series," not termed strips, in the 1880s and '90s. It is possible that these multi-panel cartoons were fashioned in order to accomodate the advertisements between which they were nestled; or perhaps they were designed to encourage readers not to neglect those ad pages.

It is more likely that Frost's multi-panel strips were an organic outgrowth of his desire to tell stories -- freeing himself from staid depictions of moments in time. The great Punch cartoonists in England invariably drew frozen images with lengthy multi-line dialogue underneath; Frost was about presenting unfolding action. And "action" was his watchword. In his series there was movement, agitation, motion, perfervid activity. These tendencies virtually dictated that a story would progress from panel to panel, bursting the confines of a single image.

Regarding the "animation" in Frost's art, it is clear that he was inspired by the photographic experiments of the eccentric genius Eadweard Muybridge, whose studies of human and animal figures in motion -- captured in thousands of images like isolated frames of motion pictures -- largely were financed by Leland Stanford and published in several weighty volumes. In the course of things, Frost flawlessly captured shadows, correctly understood anatomy, and composed his scenes as arrestingly as did any fine artist.

It was "fine art" that lured him to France and away from his pen-work and myriad thematic preoccupations between 1906 and 1914. He was charmed by the Impressionists -- who wouldn't be? -- and despite his color-blindness he painted among the masters around Giverny, hoping to capture their "feel." Ironically, Frost met one mode of expression he could not master. His attempts at oil-on-canvas Impressionism was flat and uninspired. He returned to the United States, drew some series but mostly panel cartoons in pen and ink, especially for Life in the '20s. He died in 1928 in Pasadena CA.

There is much to share of A B Frost's impressive work; and we shall, perhaps category by his various categories, in days to come. As I have said, his "series" heralded the birth of the comic strip; as precursors they usually were pantomimic, and when he employed dialog it was in traditional typeset captions, not speech balloons. But the early signs of Frost all pointed to graphic excellence and comic strips.