PERCY CROSBY ASPIRES TO PLAY IN THE MAJOR LEAGUE...

 

Now that the Whirled Series

Has Ended -- 

by Rick Marschall

Percy Leo Crosby was born in New York City, on the border between Queens (where the Mets now play) and Brooklyn (where the Dodgers first played). Ironically, he died within sight of his birthplace, sadly in a mental institution where he was cruelly and unjustly assigned by his wife and daughter -- which is a story I shall share in Yesterday's Papers and in the pages of the revived NEMO Magazine. I have inside stories from Crosby's cartoonist friends who pleaded his cause; documentary material in Crosby's hand; etc. 

For the moment, however, from the beginning of his career, not the end: Around 1910-1912, one step above amateur status, Crosby contributed to Judge magazine; the New York Sunday World's FUN supplement; and in postcards. He drew series of themed and titled cards -- "Who's Loony Now?" and "Do It Now," two such. Of these series, and a baseball-themed series, there are no copyrights or publishers indicated, and he might have produced and sold these as a private enterprise.

1905-1915 was the Golden Age of cartoon and comic-character postcards. I have more than 1250 of these in my collection -- major cartoonists, frequently drawing their major characters, or ongoing-themes and observances. Dwig (Clare Victor Dwiggins) was the first among equals, producing hundreds of first-rate drawings and clever ideas.

The young (and equally as little known as Crosby at the time) C A Voight was another cartoonist of the day who produced cartoon postcards with baseball themes -- as with Crosby's cards, usually built around awful puns and wordplay.

These cards I reckon are earlier than 1912, because by that year Crosby's signature on other cards actually was legible. Dik Browne once told me that the mark of an amateur is a cartoonist whose signature can barely be deciphered and sometimes is larger than the figures in the drawing (!) In any event, this selection of P L Crosby's baseball series is interesting regarding Crosby's origins but also sports history. "Cherchez la femme" is an eternal theme, if not an extra-inning game -- but the comment about players' salaries is dispositive in context. The best players of this time barely approached five-figure paychecks, and many stars worked mundane jobs in factories and butcher shops in the off-seasons...

But after his time in the "minor leagues" of cartooning, about a dozen years subsequently, Percy Crosby called up Skippy onto his team...
           

AT THE INTERSECTION OF FUNNY AND FUNNY -- CHARLIE CHAPLIN AND BUD FISHER

 AMERICA'S FAVORITE

FUNNY-MAKERS OF THE 1910s MEET

by Rick Marschall

If a poll had been conducted in the early 'teens in America -- and there might indeed have been such surveys -- despite the heavy competition, it is certain that the nation's favorite comedian was Charlie Chaplin; and the nation's favorite comic strip was Mutt and Jeff.

Chaplin burst on the scene in 1914, and was an immediate hit. His tramp character evoked sympathy, affection, a bit of derision, and even identification, all at once. Seemingly overnight he was a major star of the nascent "movies"; there were Chaplin dolls and toys; and there would be two comic strip featuring him as a character (one would be drawn by the newcomer E C Segar, years before Popeye). In 1915 he was writing, producing, and starring in a series of shorts for Keystone; Mutual, Essanay, and United Artists in his lucrative future.

In newspaper comics, Bud Fisher was the virtual father of the daily strip, certainly the first successful one. After Mr A Mutt wowed readers in San Francisco, Fisher moved to New York, was hired by William Randolph Hearst, introduced a second-banana, Jeff; and -- where have we heard this before? -- had a national sensation on his hands. Toys, dolls, sculptures (!), lapel pins, and comics' earliest successful daily-strip reprint books flooded the nation. A coupon-clipping promotion of a Boston newspaper proved that the public would be interested in comic-strip compilations, and the Ball Publishing Company produced five reprint books during the 1910s. 

Here is the cover of Volume 4, published in 1915, the year Chaplin hit it "biggest" in moving-picture theaters... and the year that Mutt and Jeff was so popular that (thanks in part to the legerdemain of syndication pioneer John Wheeler) Bud Fisher slipped away from Hearst and drew his strip for Joseph Pulitzer's New York World.

In a "meeting of the mirths," we see in my copy of this book that the funnyman Bud Fisher inscribed it to his cinematic counterpart, Charlie Chaplin. (Even though he spelled Charlie's name wring. So, he didn't win any spelling bees...) And the book has Charlie's bookplate! This is how he saw himself at the beginning of his career -- the drawing (alas, unsigned) show the Tramp, rather more bedraggled than usual, as a new arrival in the Big City.

Chaplin recently had arrived in America from England as a member of Fred Karno's music-hall troupe (Stan Laurel, his young understudy) and this indeed might have represented his very first impressions of America. 

VISITING KING FEATURES' ALL-STARS, 1928

 

MAJOR CARTOONISTS GATHER FOR GROUP PHOTO, AND ALMOST SMILE -- 1928

by Rick Marschall

Well, I am being a little sarcastic about America's most prominent fun-makers of the day displaying lassitude, if not boredom. This is a snapshot, and perhaps a moment later they all beamed from ear to ear. Plus, it was while Prohibition still in effect, and newspapermen never "wet their whistles" during the Dry Era.

Seriously, this moment-in-time is interesting glimpse into the people and activities of comics' Golden Age. I have amassed a huge collection of cartoonists' photos -- I mean candids and informal shots; not promotional portraits -- and intend to fashion a History of Comics viewed "behind the drawing board," weaving the growth of the business through anecdotes and private tales. This will unfold in Yesterday's Papers and in NEMO Magazine, maybe into book form. My friends Ivan Briggs and Jim Engel, fellow collectors of this specialized genre, have valuably pledged their help.

The occasion of this jolly gathering was related to the "Just Kids Safety Club," a feel-good promotion built around Ad Carter's eponymous strip. It promoted, obviously, safety -- like encouraging young readers to form clubs and pledge not to walk in front of moving trucks. It promoted, collaterally, the Just Kids comic strip. It lives today, among collectors, by the dozens of character-themed pinbacks that subscribing newspapers distributed to kiddies.

We could run the photo and list the names of the King Features artists and executives; but I will identify the guys, too, by their creations or credentials. Usually I am good at this, but there is one face I cannot place. I will correct in the future when my memory returns. (The photo comes from the collection of my late friend Mary Joe Connolly, daughter of the KFS president.)

I am guessing the photo was taken in 1928. All the guys are wearing Just Kids buttons in their lapels... the "Safety" campaign lasted from 1928 to about 1931... some of these cartoonists were just "hitting" at King Features (Chic Young); some would be leaving (Gene Carr); one was recently hired (Connolly, succeeding Moe Koenigsberg). After 1930, there would have been other faces. 

I will provide the guys' most prominent strip or job, not their full biographies. Left to right, standing: Jimmy Murphy (Toots and Casper); Jack Callahan (Freddy the Sheik); Chic Young (Dumb Dora at the time); Rube Goldberg; Russ Westover (Tillie the Toiler); Harry Hershfield (Abie the Agent); H H Knerr (The Katzenjammer Kids).

In the center, at a slight angle, Ad Carter himself. His role in the promotion included appearances at local newspapers. My own mentor as a cartoonist was Harry Neigher who was on the staff of the Hearst paper in Albany, the Times Union. He told me stories of being assigned the task of shepherding Carter through his appearances and propping him up when asked to draw sketches for the kiddies. (Despite Prohibition, his condition was common among cartoonista and newspapermen of the era.)

Continuing: J T Gortatowski (Hearst executive; head of the Newspaper Feature Service; connected to King Features; later an associate of John Wheeler); then... the manager of the hotel where this event was held (this according to Mary Joe Connolly); Ed Verdier (Little Annie Rooney, which he he drew only into July of 1929, another clue that this photo was taken before then); [unknown to me]; and Joseph V Connolly himself. When Koenigsberg was fired, partly for accepting a medal from the French government, Connolly was hired from the New Haven Register and immediately initiated promotions like the Banshees extravaganzas during American Newspaper Publishers' annual conventions. He guided Blondie through its early years, including the ideas of her marriage to Dagwood and a readers' contest to name their baby. And the Just Kids Safety Club was his brainchild.

Seated, left to right: Guy Viskniskki (Hearst executive, former colleague of John Wheeler as syndication pioneer); Walter Hoban (Jerry On the Job); George McManus (Bringing Up Father); T E Powers (editorial cartoons); Gene Carr (creator of dozens of strips for many newspapers and syndicates since ca. 1902, at the time drawing a daily-strip incarnation of his classic Lady Bountiful).

Speaking personally, among the carr-toonists shown here I have a couple connections. A classmate in first grade was a granddaughter of Gene Carr, and one day her mother brought a scrapbook of his work to class (the cartoonist recently had died). I met John Wheeler, mentioned here, as well as Joe Connolly; I acquired archival material from the widow and daughter, respectively, of these giants of journalism. And I many times met with Rube Goldberg and, especially, Harry Hershfield, when I was young.

A few of the pinbacks issued as promotions in the Just Kids Safety Club campaign. Children actually were encouraged, through local newspapers, to form clubs for which membership certificates and rules sheets were printed. In the strip itself, a storyline featured the character Mush Stebbins almost being injured on a city street.

WHAT'S SO FUNNY? -- ANALYZING THE HUMOR COMIC STRIP IN AMERICA

By Rick Marschall

In 1988 I was invited to be Guest Curator in Salina, Kansas, for the opening exhibition at the new Art Center building. The focus of the exhibition was determined to be the Humor Strip in America, and the Art Center -- one of Middle America's premier independent institutions -- went "all out" to make it a memorable show.

Director Saralyn Reece Hardy contacted me at the suggestion of Marvel artist Kevin Nowlan, whose fine work I knew from my Marvel days and through both our work for The Comics Journal. When all was said and done, it was a six-week adventure, a grand exhibition with 64 originals from my collection (including a Yellow Kid painting, a Calvin and Hobbes daily, and the first Peanuts Sunday page). My friend Jim Scancarelli (Gasoline Alley) drew the poster.

I spoke to a variety of local groups and wrote study guides; a local chorale society sang vintage show tunes based on comic characters; a giant wall of the new center was painted in a Krazy Kat landscape; Universal Press Syndicate sponsored the appearance of Lynn Johnston as a Visiting Artist for a week; the Smithsonian Institution (through the Mid-America Arts Alliance) arranged for a two-year tour of the exhibition; and a handsome 48-page catalog was produced with Jim's fantasy of the Gasoline Alley crew and other legendary characters reading the funnies.

I filled the catalog with articles that would be informative on the subject; scholarly but not academic. I reproduced some noted essays from the past, but wrote one myself, and asked Ron Goulart, Donald Phelps, and Bill Blackbeard to write essays too. 

In the future I will share all these pieces in Yesterday's Papers, with illustrations, and with quotations from cartoonists about their craft. I hope they download legibly (click to enlarge images).  

The first essay has been reprinted occasionally since its first publication in 1924, exactly a century ago: The "Vulgar" Comic Strip by Gilbert Seldes. I secured permission from Seldes's son Tim, my friend who was a literary agent; it appeared in his father's iconic book The Seven Lively Arts.. It has never been reprinted in Yesterday's Papers here -- and since this great archive is a go-to site for scholars... here it is!

 

THE ANTECEDENTS, RELATIVES, FOREBEARS, COUSINS, AND GODPARENTS OF THE COMIC STRIP

 

... THAT IS, THE HISTORY OF THE KINETOGRAPH, KINETOSCOPE, AND KINETO-PHONOGRAPH.

Whew. A project on which I have worked for years -- whether it will be a book or several volumes, ultimately; or articles in NEMO Magazine and here in Yesterday's Papers -- will trace representational art and the written/printed word and how their functions originally were conjoined; their separation at Gutenberg's hands; and how myriad experiments, creations, inventions, even toys, reconciled the these modes of expression.

And how those expressions were manifest in the comic strip, the cinema, and the animated cartoon. Interesting to me (and confirming the evolutionary imperative that was at work) is that, at least in the United States, these three disciplines largely came into existence in a period of a half-dozen years... in a few-square-mile space in Manhattan... and except for only one or two people, by people who neither worked together nor knew each other. Remarkable, really.

The story is not of mere synchronous events and coincidences. The results of the very exciting experiments are fascinating -- inheriting the culture's patrimony of what Prof E H Gombrich called the psychology of pictorial representation; varying degrees of sophistication when story and art partnered their wares; and (what I think is an essential component) the role of commerce, business, and profiteering in their development. Commercial factors were inspirations, enablers, and wet-nurses to these art forms that both mirrored and defined Western Civilization of the 20th century. 

Thomas Edison played a part, as he did in many spheres of life, but so did others associated with him. Typically, these people did not always receive credit (hence, the man you will meet, and his sister, in a moment)... or, largely had their contributions copied, denigrated, or outright stolen. The Patent wars often were hilarious; and the slander, or worse, endured by people like Eadweard Muybridge and Nikola Tesla is sad.

The stories of the early contraptions of Edison and his assistants are fascinating. The Wizard of Menlo Park was a gifted inventor, yet his motivations frequently were commercial -- not impulses that are mutually exclusive. But his priorities were displayed in efforts like his (failed) obsessive pursuit of a substitute for butter, and artificial mother-of-pearl. Many of his dreams and experiments were devoted to exploiting his phonograph. The motion picture (in his mind) would somehow expand the appeal, and profitability, of the phonograph. And when motion pictures themselves were developed, Edison resisted theatrical projection, believing that greater profits would be realized by "peep shows" -- coins dropped into single-person devices.

As the industry grew, in the hands of inevitable rivals, his rejection of theater-projection slowed him... but he caught up with a vengeance, and became a major producer of movies and movie stars in the first years of the form. 

The history's cast of characters is as interesting as any primitive cliff-hangers (often filmed in Fort Lee NJ, the "first Hollywood") --  Muybridge; the cartoonist and film pioneer J Stuart Blackton; Albert E Smith; Grey Latham (one of cartoonist Rose O'Neill's husbands) and... world-wide readers take note, I am well aware of parallel developments, particularly in France at this time; I am focusing on the American aspects of this creative revolution. But an assistant of Edison named William K L Dickson was responsible for many innovations claimed by and developed by Edison.

Dickson (1860-1935) was a Scottish-American inventor whose work for Edison was fecund and entreprenurial... perhaps too ambitious for him to want to remain under Edison's wings. But before he left Edison to pursue his own movie concepts and inventions and partnerships, around 1895, Dickson was either grateful enough, or hero-worshiping, or wily, to kiss up to the Wizard of Menlo Park.

In an article in The Century monthly magazine, subsequently printed as a slim book, Dickson -- or rather his sister Antonia, who was a better writer and promoter -- explained to laymen the theory of moving pictures (we learned of it as persistence-of-motion), the technical challenges of photographing action, the challenge of inventing cameras and projectors, the need of malleable film, etc. He praised Thomas Alva Edison to the skies; and Edison wrote a commendation of Dickson, and himself.

I reproduce here the cover of my copy of his book, printed in 1895. For all of its persiflage and self-promotion, it is a remarkable record the challenges, experiments, solutions, and technical variations undertaken by Edison, Dickson, and others in the 1880s and '90s. Shortly after publishing his paeans and promos, Dickson left Edison's employ and worked with varying degrees of success and accomplishment, on the fringes of the emerging industry.

Meanwhile, across town so to speak, other inventive people were doing with drawings what Edison and Company were doing with photographs -- comic strips in newspapers, and animated drawings on film and in flip-books.

Beneath the cover is a link to the Dicksons' entire short book, a PDF with illustrations including the methodical frame-by-frame sequences of humans and animals in motion. 

       

https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=mdp.39015002595158&seq=62            

'WE WUZ DOGPATCHED!'

 A vignette, a step back in time, regarding a legendary cartoonist, a neglectful studio, and the Golden Age of comics collecting.

More than (gulp!) half a century ago, I was cartoonist, columnist, and editor at the Connecticut Sunday Herald. In college I had been active, during the turbulent '60s, in conservative student publications and campus politics across the country. In that capacity I got to know Al Capp a bit -- the Li'l Abner cartoonist was enjoying his new "home" on the Right (he had been a liberal icon for years) -- with more contacts than through the comics world.

And within a couple years, I became Al's editor at the New York News Syndicate. And I conducted what would be the last interview with him. On the basis of that interview I was contacted by Al's nephew Tony (his agent) and Simon and Schuster to write, or ghost-write his biography. That never happened: a story for another column.

But while I was at the Herald, the legendary columnist and my mentor Harry Neigher said that he spotted a classified ad in, I think, Saturday Review of Literature. Someone was selling vintage original artwork, send for info. Li'l Abner and Popeye piqued our interest. Someone named Don Brown offered original daily strips ca 1935 for, if I recall, $35 each -- even then, ridiculous bargains.

The "list" was minimal; no reproductions or specific dates; and the seller was a Don Brown, no phone number listed, at a PO Box number in Cambridge, Massachusetts. I sent a check for all the available cash I had and trusted to fate (there was the feeling that Don Brown was cover, perhaps for someone who knew, or preferred to hide from, Al Capp, whose studio was in Cambridge).

Vintage Popeyes primarily floated my boat. None arrived, but a few Abners did... but short of my blind order. Then followed months of inquiries, complaints, networking with other collectors. Since I knew Al, I threatened to make inquiries... at which point "Don Brown" sent a stack of Li'l Abner Sunday tabloid tearsheets from the mid-1930s. Fine, but nothing rare or special, nor desired by me, not negotiated by the mysterious Brown.

I wrote to Al about the whole affair -- never undertaken with any hint of his involvement: quite the opposite -- and received the note from his secretary. In essence, they frequently cleaned the office, and disposed of such treasures (um, not her characterization of 1930s Segar and Capp originals). A few months later I appeared with Al at a conference... asked him directly about a Don Brown and stacks of Abner and Popeye originals. He was supremely uninterested, and didn't even remember why he had multiple Segar originals.

If "Don Brown" is still alive and out of jail, he might be the only person, even among many swindled collectors of the 1970s, who has more regrets than we do. Those original drawings have increased in value a little bit since the Good Old Days...

         

THE FAMILY JULES

 Jules Feiffer, the 95-year-old cartoonist inhabited by the 7-year-old joyful kid.

A couple of profiles and interviews with the great Jules Feiffer recently have appeared in various outlets. The occasion, or excuse to luxuriate in his insights, charm, and wisdom, in Jules' latest book Amazing Grapes, a graphic novel for children.

Predictably, the best interview has been conducted by Steven Heller in his PRINT Magazine blog, Daily Heller -- 
https://www.printmag.com/daily-heller/the-daily-heller-jules-feiffer-at-95-doing-the-best-work-of-my-life/  

(Do you know Steve Heller's site? He has written more books on graphic design and illustration than the fabled library at Alexandria could have held; and has been Art Director of consequential publications; and was a fellow faculty member of the School of Visual Arts. Yesterday's Papers readers should follow his essential work!)

Jules Feiffer is a national treasure, a polymath whose station-stops in the comics world have been mere details, perhaps his most cherished, in a busy life. Comic books (The Spirit), strips (his mononymous Feiffer), books (many collections, and original titles like Passionella and Other Stories), children’s books (including A Barrel of Laughs, A Vale of Tears), animation (script for Munro, 1961 Oscar),graphic novels (Kill My Mother and others), illustration (The Phantom Tollbooth), musicals (The Man In the Ceiling), plays (Little Murders), screenplays (Carnal Knowledge and Popeye), novels (such as Harry, The Rat with Women), histories (The Great Comic-Book Heroes), and autobiography (Backing Into Forward). Jules has collected so many awards and honors that he had to move from Manhattan to Shelter Island, just to make room. 

I have been blessed to have known Jules for many years, and occasionally to work with him. When I was Comics Editor of Publishers Newspaper Syndicate I technically was his editor... but with certain cartoonists like Jules and Bill Mauldin and Herblock under my wing, I was taking money under false pretenses. What was there to do but sit back at every creation and marvel at their craft? 

I visited Jules in his Upper West Side apartment during a visit from Chicago, when I was the nominal editor of his weekly Feiffer. It was, more, an excuse for a meet-and-greet, and I had a grand time. I knew that Jules was a historian of early comic books, and learned that he loved vintage newspaper strips too. (In fact, during our visit I agreed to sell him an early Gasoline Alley Sunday original that I had acquired from Vaughn Shoemaker, the Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist and friend of Frank King. 

I had had dinner, that evening, with Maurice Horn, who had hired me to write entries for his World Encyclopedia of Comics. He waited in a local coffee shop for word that he could join us; I asked Jules if that would be OK. It was not. Horn was cordially despised by the National Cartoonists Society, the Newspaper Comics Council, and individual cartoonists -- in fact this even before his imputed offenses in the WEOC; there were controversies stemming from an exhibition at the New York Cultural Center and, well, himself. So Maurice languished in the coffee shop, like one of Edward Hopper's Night Owls.

But my contacts with Jules remained cordial. He wrote an introduction to one of my Popeye reprints volumes for Fantagraphics; and for a Terry and the Pirates reprint book under my Remco imprint. He signed copies of his Barrel of Laughs book for each of children, treasured by them and their father.

In the 1990s I was living in Abington PA. One day I received a call from my friend Tony Auth, the Pulitzer-winning political cartoonist of the Philadelphia Inquirer. He was to host Jules Feiffer and ferry him to an appearance at a Temple in the neighboring town of Cheltenham; would I be interested to have them visit beforehand? I rtaised the ante and invited them for dinner. We spent most of the afternoon looking through books and old magazines and drawings in my collection; then Nancy made a wonderful dinner; then, with a teacher from France who was staying with us at the time, we drove to the packed house in the town's high school.

Now, Abington and Cheltenham are toney communities in the Philly suburbs. Bill Cosby lived in the latter town then, and on the high school's wall of celebrity graduates was Benjamin Netanyahu (if you ever wonder why he speaks like an American). So, it was a sophisticated and literate audience that evening. Jules had his slide-show (note to younger readers: slides were the primal ancestors of PowerPoint...) and talked about politics and art and drama, but kept returned to what had him buzzing -- this cartoonist, that drawing, those great days of graphic satire, that he had just seen at Rick Marschall's. Amazing grapes of my own, that day and evening.

As mentioned in Steve Heller's interview, Jules is having macular problems. Well, his drawing just fine; perhaps a little onerous to produce. His mind is just as facile... and our own eyes and ears and hearts and minds are as open as always to Jules Feiffer's wonderful work.