PUTTING THE "EFFORT" IN THE "WAR EFFORT"

 On World War II's "Home Front"

An essential part of a nation's war effort is addressing the non-combat needs of the men and women in uniform. Healthy, balanced, and contented service personnel are better killers and defenders, presumably. And families back home need to maintain bonds, and to feel that they are parts of the war efforts themselves.

In America's Civil War, the father of Theodore Roosevelt never served in uniform, perhaps in deference to his Georgia-born wife's feelings, but he headed up the Allotment Bureau, devised with President Lincoln. He visited many camps to convince soldiers to apportion percentages of their pay to their families at home.

In World War II, one of the myriad campaigns to tend to servicemen was conducted by comic-strip cartoonists. It was not as flashy as USO Tours by singers and movie stars (and cartoonists did, and do, make USO tours to do chalk-talks and other entertainment), but it was an effort to encourage communications with those in uniform. In practice it was rather awkward... but give someone a medal for Good Intentions.

Postcards were designed with popular comic-strip characters "speaking" about what the soldiers, airmen, and marines liked, and missed, and wanted. The military members were urged to fill in the blanks -- their names, vital information, and wish-lists. These cards were designed then to be sent home, to relatives or more often, to strangers. In all my years of collecting, I have only seen ONE of these cards filled out... suggesting that the campaign was not successful.

The series included four cards each of popular strip characters. Here, Dick Tracy; the casts of Barney Google and Moon Mullins were others. None (with the possible exception of Barney Google) were drawn by the actual creators of the strips.

           

WHO'S THAT LITTLE CHATTERBOX?... AND WHO IS 100 YEARS OLD!?!

Happy Annie-versary!

We celebrate the fecund year of 1924 as the centennial of seminal comic strips and the period when the “story strip” asserted itself.

Continuity in strips was not unknown previous to 1924; and before the decade ended many fine-tuned categories developed. But a hundred years ago the narrative, sequential, day-to-day (even “cliff-hanger” mode) comic strip became a staple of daily newspapers. The actual centennial is worth noting, because daily strips – “story strips,” as designated by the National Cartoonists Society, and in the public’s perception – are virtually synonymous with the art form itself: “To Be Continued,” or in the French, “À suivre …”

We recognize the legendary comic strip Little Orphan Annie, whose significance of course extended beyond the comics page to broader popular culture, merchandise, movies, Broadway, songs, politics, and influentially, America’s cultural consciousness. No less we praise her remarkable creator Harold Gray.

Prior to 1924, the newspaper comic strip largely was a Sunday product. There had been comics in daily papers, but with some exceptions they generally consisted of random gags, revolving characters, and expanded panel-cartoon formats. Sunday pages almost obligated cartoonists to design episodes rather than continuities; daily strips begged for longer narratives, even if last-panel gags were payoffs. Daily strips also brought readers back to the funny pages every day, surely a commercial imperative. An unwritten role of the colored comic supplement had been to appeal to children, but the black-and-white inner pages of newspapers were instead the domain of adult readers. And it is interesting that only by 1924, humor – let us specify the slapstick humor of comics’ first 25 years – finally shared its spotlight with melodrama, family strips, working-women themes, sports, and other thematic preoccupations.

Heiress to all these developments in 1924 was Little Orphan Annie by Harold Gray. The “Who's that little chatterbox? The girl with the auburn locks” gathered, codified, and built upon these trends. She is significant, more than various precursors, before after Annie took America by storm, certain floodgates opened. For instance, only a year later cartoonist George Storm and writer Edwin Alger (whose name evoked Horatio Alger) drew from the well of boys’ weekly papers and dime novels and created Phil Hardy / Bobby Thatcher; other strips soon followed: pastiches of humor, pathos, adventure, mystery, and suspense (and essential appeals to younger readers, at least initially). Little Pathfinder Annie!

Cartoonist Harold Lincoln Gray married twice and never had any children… except for Annie. He was born on his parents’ farm in Kanakee IL in 1894; was graduated from Purdue University in Indiana and served as a bayonet instructor in the Great War; and secured a position with the Chicago Tribune, eventually as an assistant to Sidney Smith on The Gumps. This strip careened between humor and melodrama; it was a family strip with vaudeville gags when humor was the objective; otherwise, human-interest fare. Domestic crises were frequent and of such narrative interest (ghost-written by a Chicago jeweler named Sol Hess) that The Gumps became a sensation, first in the Midwest, then nationwide. 

Harold Gray’s period on the strip was marked by artwork clumsier than Smith’s own, and bad lettering of the strip’s heavy dialog. Whether it was Gray’s creative urges, or his notice of Smith’s sudden, magnificent income, he became determined to produce his own strip. As legend has it, he drew samples of a strip based on a street gamin named Otto, and showed them to the Tribune’s publisher “Colonel” Robert McCormick (or his cousin, “Captain” Joseph Patterson of the New York Daily News) and was told about Otto, “He looks like a pansy. Put skirts on the kid.” Renamed to evoke James Whitcomb Riley’s poem about Little Orphant Annie, an American icon was born.

If there was a story-strip pioneer that staked a claim before Little Orphan Annie it was The Gumps itself. Historians have not noted the fact that Gray’s initial premise was a loose approximation of Sidney Smith’s strip. It was perhaps not a mistake that Little Orphan Annie loosely was a junior version of the strip on which Gray assisted: self-contained Sunday humor; a loose daily storyline (Annie found herself in the household of characters not meant to carry over to the next episode – a shrewish wife and a rich war profiteer named Warbucks); domestic disputes and resolutions; lectures and prolix monologues.

If this premise and setting doesn’t sound especially grabbing, many readers might have agreed, so adjustments were made. Annie embraced a doll named Emily Marie, to whom she confided – soon to be succeeded by the more attentive dog named Sandy. To the extent that Warbucks was henpecked in his own house, the billionaire and his ward bonded; and he became “Daddy.” Annie eventually ran away from that home, to a next adventure. But as we know, “Daddy” remained as a character and frequent (though never legal) guardian; Mrs Warbucks disappeared from the strip altogether; and month by month Annie began to be adopted, as it were, by the reading public.

Gray’s strip grew in popularity. Through the ‘20s the premises lurched from adventures (haunted houses) to locales (desert islands) to children’s domains (circus settings). Annie was both vulnerable – her inexplicable, and unexplained, lone status guaranteed that – but fiercely independent. She asserted doses of justice for bullied kids, with a strong right hook when needed, and with stern lectures for good measure. By the end of the 1920s there were Orphan Annie dolls, toys, games, reprint books, songs, and all sorts of clothes and merchandise.

By the end of the decade Gray’s art, too, evolved to a passable level of attraction. For a strip that skirted with realism, even hard reality, Little Orphan Annie spent years ensconced in a world of humor-strip architectonics. Details were few; Gray never learned to draw his characters running in realistic fashion, for instance; props and background elements were scarce. And one of his artistic cliches was baked-in from the start: characters with empty ovals instead of eyes. Perhaps Gray was inspired by comics’ other parvenu (like Warbucks) in Bringing Up Father by George McManus. Readers seldom remarked about the eyes of Jiggs, Maggie, and company. In Annie, it became a matter of chatter. Historian Coulton Waugh wondered whether Gray intentionally sublimated the emotion conveyed by eyes so that readers would supply their own feelings.

There was nobody in America who benefited more from the Great Depression that struck in October, 1929, than Harold Gray – or, let us say, Annie herself. With hard times came a transformation in Little Orphan Annie that far outpaced new sets of premises and dramatic opportunities. The vicissitudes of life during the Depression became a virtual character itself – a motif.

Suddenly the poor girl was plausibly poor indeed; and millions of readers identified ever more keenly with her vulnerability. Annie discovered, defended, and assisted the destitute and desperate. Harold Gray revealed himself as a champion of President Hoover’s Rugged Individualism. She preached, through marvelously crafted stories beyond mere perorations and dialog, the virtues of self-reliance and integrity. Annie took on schoolyard bullies, crooked businessmen, corrupt politicians, and odious union leaders. She lectured the lazy and encouraged the dispirited. In story after story she became an inspiration for millions who endured privation during those crushing hard times.

Reflecting (or encouraging) the editorials in her home papers, the Tribune and News, Annie spoke for the “ill-feed, ill-clothed, ill-housed” but resolutely rejected the new occupant of the White House who coined that phrase. Franklin Roosevelt had no bitterer opponents (and perhaps none more effective) than Gray and Annie… which bothered millions of her fans not at all. Little Orphan Annie became a cultural colossus during the Depression, with movie serials, a popular radio show (sponsored by Ovaltine and its iconic decoder-ring promotion) and an ever-expanding plethora of toys, games, books, and licensed items.

Gray’s art took a quantum leap during the 1930s too. It coincided with the addition of his cousin Ed Leffingwell (and later Ed’s brother Robert) as assistant. It might be assumed, because their biographical details are sparse, that Ed was responsible for a remarkable improvement in Annie’s graphic maturity, but a consideration of facts suggest otherwise, except perhaps for improving the strip’s lettering. The excellence in layouts, panel composition, shading, and visual details occurred in Annie before either Leffingwell’s employment; and lasted beyond them. And such qualities existed in Little Joe – a Western strip that remains a mystery in strip history. Well drawn and written, it differed (other than setting and characters) not at all from Little Orphan Annie. Premises, outlines, dialogue, character portrayals, politics, and artwork all surely were by the same hand that produced Annie’s adventures. However… signed “Leffingwell.” Strange, a major cartoonist ghosting a separate, minor, strip; but evidently part of his cousins’ compensation.

Matching the transformed artwork in Annie was a major advancement in character delineations and mature plots. In addition to his stock players of petite bourgeoisie and corrupt bureaucrats, Gray hearkened to the siren-calls of 1930s fantasy themes: “Daddy” Warbucks recruited a cast of allies with mysterious and sometimes supernatural powers. Punjab, a vaguely Sikh giant; the Asp, a deadly Asian; and Mr Am – plausibly a representation of Divinity, a white-bearded man “who had lived forever” and exercised amazing powers – were among little Annie’s new friends.

More than an interesting cast, Harold Gray invested extraordinary literary devices into his plot construction. He named many of his characters by the tool of “personification,” the method used by writers like John Bunyan in The Pilgrim’s Progress. Like Dickens also, when he named characters Warbucks, Fred Free, Mr Pinchpenny, and Mrs Bleating-Hart, he was being clear, not bankrupt. In a unique way we find parallels between Little Orphan Annie and Twain’s Huckleberry Finn – Huck’s river, as a nonliteral metaphor, found life in Annie’s omnipresent roads… to the inevitable next town.

Further – in one of comics’ most remarkable feats of creativity – Gray took upon himself, for years, the device of having every day’s strip represent a different day’s action. In Roy Crane’s Wash Tubbs / Captain Easy, sometimes a brawl extended over a whole week. When I was a syndicate comics editor, I frequently counseled against a writer have one phone conversation in a strip last more than three days of “action” in the daily paper. But Gray managed to have every day in Little Orphan Annie represent a separate day in the narrative. Not easy; try it!

Another technique Gray mastered was seldom attempted by contemporary masters of continuity strips Raymond, Foster, Gould, or Caniff, beyond their occasional use of the universal “Meanwhiles.” In Little Orphan Annie stories, Gray often showed an occurrence that became the crux of a sequence, a mystery to be solved, a secret to be revealed. Largely through soliloquies and exchanged dialogues, he offered readers the multiple viewpoints of multiple characters… not “versions” of the truth, but insights into characters’ motivations. Gray’s stories were layered, rich, complex.

The pervasive mood in Little Orphan Annie was one of solitude if not loneliness. Annie was, essentially, a loner; and her world was filled with empty rooms, deserted streets, and lonely streets. Often at nighttime. Gray made readers aware of corners, dark shadows, and ceilings – almost metaphorically oppressive. Contextually, his figures, as Al Capp once described to me, had “all the vitality of Easter Island statues.” No mistake or shortcoming, however: Gray knew the world he constructed. Substituting narrative for action – there fewer fights in Little Orphan Annie than in almost any other story strip – readers were treated to soliloquies – “internal monologues,” in literary terminology. By this technique Gray identified with Hugo, Pirandello, and, especially when the personalities were sympathetic, Goethe.

The little orphan in the iconic red dress who began her career as a waif vaguely resembling Mary Pickford had become a monumental avatar, an American symbol. When the European war raged in 1939, Gray, like his editors and 80 per cent of Americans, opposed American intervention; and in their view, the despised Franklin Roosevelt was scheming to involve the United States. But when war was declared, Annie “enlisted.” Gray had her form the Junior Commandos, doing volunteer service and war work. He constructed a sequence where a Black kid suffered prejudice but – with Annie’s lecture on tolerance – he was welcomed into the club.

By that point, however, the liberal establishment in American press and politics had grown to despise Annie and her creator. Because the Junior Commandos wore JC armbands in their war-work, critics called Gray a crypto-Nazi. A popular magazine profiled Little Orphan Annie in an article called “Fascism in the Funnies.” The opprobrium of Gray as a right-winger became as common as jokes about her red dress or blank eyes.

Harold Gray and Annie powered on. The cartoonist’s politics, if anything, grew more strident in the post-War years, and when Communists were being exposed by Washington hearings and in the new medium of television. Annie’s “physical” world yet evolved – darker than ever it was: Gray substituted solid blacks for his trademark cross-hatch shading. Until self-conscious graphic-novel artists in our day, Harold Gray drew comics closer to film noire sensibilities than any artist of his time. Alex Raymond was a Romantic (in the glory years of Flash Gordon); Milton Caniff was an Impressionist in Terry; and Chester Gould was comics’ Expressionist in Dick Tracy. Harold Gray? In his last phase, the 1950s and ‘60s (he died on May 9, 1968) he produced comics noire. (I would add that Roy Crane, in his Wash Tubbs / Captain Easy, was master of the swashbuckling picaresque in comics. His strip’s centennial is also this year. We will give Roy Crane, Wash Tubbs, and Captain Easy their due in coming weeks in Yesterday's Papers.)

Little Orphan Annie was not created on an ivory tower. Harold Gray loved the people he depicted and defended. He and his wife Winifred drove round-trip every year between their homes in Westport CT and La Jolla CA. He talked to people and took notes (I curated an exhibition related to the debut of the Annie movie, for which I was obliged to research Gray’s archives in the Mugar Library at Boston University. The amazing Gray had retained virtually every original, and all notes, maybe even random receipts, from his long career).

It was rumored at when Harold Gray died, he intended that Little Orphan Annie die with him; perhaps Warbucks himself was meant to die. Despite the fact that the strip had slipped in circulation during the turbulent 1960s, it was a valuable property the syndicate would not allow to die. As syndicates often do, the Tribune-News Syndicate shamefully botched Annie’s afterlife. A succession of amateurs and miscast professional cartoonists abused her (even I auditioned at one point, trying my best to evoke Gray’s 1930s look, and revive his worldview; mercifully my work was declined). Evenetually and ironically I became Comics Editor of the syndicate, by which time they had accepted my advice, and re-ran sequences from the real 1930s.

All to no avail, commercially. When the “property” was licensed for a Broadway musical, an unconscious parody found favor with a 1970s public. Harold Gray might have spun in his grave into low-earth orbit, however. At that point the great Leonard Starr, whose On Stage had run its course, was hired to produce the Annie strip. Starring characters that resembled the originals (can I say “50 shades of Gray?), he produced a fine strip that was, however, Annie; not Little Orphan Annie. Despite the fact that they had lived only miles apart in Westport, my friend Leonard ironically had never met Harold Gray.

It is a shame that many Americans have not met Harold Gray, so to speak, or his iconic masterpiece Little Orphan Annie. I devoted an issue of my old NEMO Magazine to the strip, and I kicked off a reprint series for Fantagraphics. Arlington House and IDW are publishers that similarly assembled anthologies. The viewpoints of Harold Gray – personal and political – and the immense craft he brought to Little Orphan Annie, are irretrievably bonded. In this Centennial year, it is just that they properly find their places with the greatest of American creators and creations in any genre.

This essay, in somewhat different form, appeared in this year's digital-only Program Book of the San Diego Comic-Con International.

BRINGING UP... FARTHER

 

Before its run ended in 2000, Bringing Up Father had achieved notable success as an American comic strip. Some "obituary" writers called it the longest-running comic strip, which was not true -- The Katzenjammer Kids had commenced in 1897; Bringing Up Father began in 1913 -- but for a long time it was the jewel in the crown of King Features Syndicate.

Comics sites often have cited BUF as an "instant hit," but in fact it was not until April of 1918 that the strip was deemed popular enough to have life as a Sunday page too. (Ironically it supplanted Rosie's Beau, which eventually became the top-strip in the Sunday funnies.) McManus, as an inventive cartoonist, however, had notable celebrity since leaving St Louis and dominating the New York World's comic section for almost a decade before he switched publishers, from  Joseph Pulitzer to William Randolph Hearst. In the last major moves in "syndication roulette," between 1911 and 1914 or so, the New York Herald lost a major star (Winsor McCay and Little Nemo) to Hearst; the New York American of Hearst lost Bud Fisher and his Mutt and Jeff as well as Rudolph Dirks of The Katzenjammer Kids to the World; and George McManus, creator of many popular strips, moved from the World to the American. 

Whether it was a daily or a Sunday comic, Jiggs and Maggie, the stars of Bringing Up Father, inspired a plethora of licensing and merchandising items, as well as attracting readers. There were several Broadway musicals; popular songs; toys and figurines; reprint books; and animated cartoons. 

The premise of the strip, of course, was the comic tension between Jiggs, an immigrant hod-carrier who won the Irish sweepstakes, and his shrewish wife Maggie, who became an overweening parvenu. Jiggs adopted spats and a top hat, but preferred life in the rough-house eatery of Dinty Moore with his old friends. For decades this premise, laced with slapstick and McManus's impressive Art Deco drawing style, maintained the popularity of Jiggs and Maggie. 

King Features President Joe Connolly standing behind his star cartoonists, 1929, l-r: George McManus; Jimmy Murphy; and caricaturist Henry Major, holding the drawings he did of the quartet. From my collection of KFS archives.

The strip was so ubiquitous that a comic reference of McManus's invention -- that Jiggs craved the humble dish of corned beef and cabbage -- cemented its association with the Irish. Grocery stores still market corned beef and cabbage before every St Patrick's Day, thanks to the strip; and American tourists in Ireland frequently are frustrated that the Irish themselves seldom combine or serve the dish.

Jiggs and Maggie, once finding life as a Sunday page, was the invariable front page on all the dozens of newspapers in the Hearst chain, and in other newspapers too. This status held until around 1950, when Blondie became King Features' line-leader.

In future YPs we will document the "other" lives of Jiggs and Maggie -- maybe in several installments or an eventual book, so many were the versions and spin-offs and variations of McManus's strip. We can linger here a moment on the motion picture and stage (not musical) versions, however. 

George McManus with various KFS executives (Comics Editor Sylvan Byck, second from left), ca. 1950. McManus was short, but not that short: he is seated at the desk....

In 1946-50 a series of theatrical movies brought Jiggs and Maggie to life, barely. The plots and action were threadbare; McManus himself made one cameo appearance, but the movies are notable because Jiggs was played by the old vaudeville actor Joe Yule... the father of Mickey Rooney. Renie Raino played Maggie, with Tim Ryan as Dinty Moore.

Even earlier, in 1928, MGM released a feature film, silent but in the dawn of the talkies, with the mid-level star Polly Moran as Maggie. J Farrell MacDonald played Jiggs; Jules Cowles was Dinty Moore.

I recently have come across an item that can answer the question that, I would guess, not one in a thousand comics fans can answer. What was the last name of Jiggs and Maggie? Or Was Jiggs his first names or last name? There were different hints through the years, and changing suggestions, but nothing definitive. It is not unusual for fans -- even creators! -- to be ambiguous or even clueless about such things. After all, whether Krazy Kat was male or female... depended on the gag or its exigencies of the day. And John Dirks claimed to me that he did not know which was Hans and who was Fritz. (It takes a detective to discern the answer from his father's years of work.)

A sketcth drawn by George McManus for Mary Joe Connolly, young daughter of King Feature Syndicate's President Joe Connolly.

But a play, officially licensed by King Features in 1936, answers that question. Logically titled Bringing Up Father, the Book (dialogue) was written by Bruce Brandon, who was a playwright with other credits for Samuel French, the licensor and publisher of this play. The bound script includes, for performance assistance, the play's premise; the cast of characters and their descriptions; notes from the creators including suggestions on how to stage the production; suggested publicity and press releases; and a list of costumes and props necessary for a stage presentation.

Official? And -- officially? -- the names of the characters. Perhaps definitive; approved if not dictated by George McManus.

Jiggs Mahoney. And Maggie Mahoney.

A few "dramatic licenses" were taken. There is no Nora; there is a different Rosie; and no mention of the son of Jiggs and Maggie... who only made the briefest of appearances in actual strip...

Here is a sample page from the Book. A synopsis for theatre troupes.

 

               

THE STYLE IN COMIC ART -- AMERICAN STYLE, 1909 STYLE

In its November 1909 issue, The Strand Magazine published a remarkable article. We remark, that is, in admiration for its clever concept; and in gratitude for how it arranged for prominent cartoonists of the day to "speak" to us via drawings and quotations.

"Style in American Comic Art" was inspired by the magazine's English edition -- an article displaying how one premise was given to various cartoonists for them to interpret, and share with readers their approaches and conceptualizations. Despite the popularity of Punch and other British magazines (and reprint books and postcards) in the United States, most of the English cartoonists would have been strangers to Americans. So the American edition of The Strand declared it independence and surveyed Yankees.

Actually, Yesterday's Papers can declare something, too -- a "gotcha" on one of the magazine-history field's most prominent authorities, Frank Luther Mott. Respected for his five-volume History of American Magazines and other works -- essential and exhaustive, all -- the estimable Dr Mott nevertheless wrote about the American Strand Magazine that it was "wholly British" -- that is, its contents entirely reprinted from the iconic British monthly.

Not so. Indeed the American magazine was spun off the British original, its contents dated one month differently to appear to be simultaneous. And many features were imported word-for-word. However, not every article in the fiction-and-current-events journal was pertinent or even intelligible to Americans. Also, there were rights entanglements with famous authors and popular series. Finally, to appeal to American readers, home-grown articles and domestic subject-matter was essential to its acceptance.

Hence, the American Strand became a hybrid; it was not "wholly British." (By the way, several otherwise impeccable internet magazine archives confuse, and cross-identify, the British and American editions...) It ran in the US, with respectable readership, between 1891 and 1916, eclipsed by the "mother" edition, whose dates were 1891-1950.

Bibliophiles, and fans of Sherlock Holmes, will immediately associate The Strand with Arthur Conan Doyle's writing. The original appearances of many Sherlock stories were in The Strand. Eventually Doyle wrote directly for the American Collier's; but he wrote other work for The Strand. Among the writers who contributed original work for its pages of both editions were Agatha Christie, P G Wodehouse, Rudyard Kipling, Graham Greene, Georges Simenon, H G Wells, Dorothy Sayers, Count Leo Tolstoy, Edgar Wallace, Max Beerbohm, and (a personal favorite) the great W W Jacobs. 

An enterprising Strand editor in 1909 duplicated the original British theme (since YP has international readership, we will reprint that article in coming days) and prominent American cartoonists were approached. Their challenge was to illustrate this premise: 

A large dog is rushing madly among a crowd of terrified pedestrians, who are scattering in all directions. Holding grimly to the "lead" attached to the supposedly ferocious animal is a very small boy who, far from having any control over the creature's actions, is being whirled through space at the joyous animal's pleasure. But he hangs on manfully, exclaiming as his body cleaves the air, "What's the matter with the folks? Can't they see I've got hold of the dog?"

Even granting for the changes in taste between the Edwardian Age and now, this idea promised fewer laughs than insights into cartoonists' creativity. It is interesting to note that of the nine artists, five were from the weekly comic magazines, and four were newspaper cartoonists -- a good sampling of perspectives and disciplines.

The cartoonists were Eugene Zimmerman (ZIM), Judge Magazine; the young James Montgomery Flagg, Judge and Life; Walt McDougall, various newspapers; Winsor McCay (also identified as "Silas"), the Bennett newspapers; W H Gallaway, Puck Magazine; Albert Levering, Puck; James Donahey, Cleveland Plain Dealer; William J Steinigans, New York World; and Hy Mayer, freelance cartoonist and illustrator.

The cartoonists' comments can be seen by enlarging these pages; and I will quote from them, with British cartoonists' ruminations, when we share the UK part of the story.

        

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.