Cartoonists Ring In New Years!!!

 NEW YEARS 

CELEBRATED 

IN THE OLD YEARS!

by Rick Marschall

Cartoonists almost congenitally embrace holidays. Comic artists are inspired by happy events, and in turn inspire their readers. Serious artists and illustrators create commemorations. In general, a job of cartoonists is to celebrate things worthy of celebration.

There is the additional allure of holidays to cartoonists. On those days the artists do not have to scratch their heads quite so much to come up with ideas!

In any (or all) events, here are some New Years themes from Old Years. I have chosen from my collection images that -- by coincidence -- not only raise the glass to the New Year, but appeared in roughly "round number" years ago (unless you are reading this as an archive post...!)

(Above) Winsor McCay, as "Silas," drew this fanciful exception to my rule here. At the end of 1907 he drew this strip of Father Time replacing the old 1907 with a baby 1908. Where did Old Man 1907 reside? In a grandfather's clock, of course! This appeared in the New York Telegram.

We will proceed chronologically. One hundred fifty years ago, the Father of American Editorial Cartooning, Thomas Nast, introduced the New Year in his short-lived magazine Nast's Almanac.

Ten years later in Puck Magazine this greeting appeared. The drawing by Friedrich Graetz, an Austrian cartoonist who worked in the US for three years, is an original in my collection.

The prolific Dwig (Clare Victor Dwiggins) created dozens of strips from the Turn of the Century into the 1950s; and many hundreds of comic postcards in the century's first decade. This was sent in 1910. 

Almost a hundred years ago, in 1920, someone received this charming New Year card drawn by the amazing cartoonist Rose O'Neill (happy-spoiler alert: A major treatment of her life and work is in the works for the imminent arrival of NEMO Magazine!)

Also from my collection (on the wall, as you can see, of the Gibson Room in my house) from one century ago -- Charles Dana Gibson drew Life's cupid (mascot of his magazine, Life) toasting the baby cupid with the sash labeled "1925." This appeared as a cover of Life, and was then inscribed to Gibson's niece. 

The lone New Years cartoon sans smiles is also from the mid-1920s, by John Held Jr. Hoping that your own celebrations do not result in headaches -- nor, in fact, may any other activities in the upcoming Twelvemonth, we wish you a...

HAPPY 

NEW 

YEAR! 

A Crowded Life in Comics –

Return To Sender.

Another envelope, a large mailer, from Bob Weber. I think there never was a Moose Miller Fan Club, but there should have been. One was discussed, and the Treasurer, suspiciously signing the exorbitant chapter-registration invoice as “Web Bobber,” stipulated that board of director meetings were held each year in what sounded like “Baltimore,” but was in fact Bermuda. I had kids to put through college…

By Rick Marschall

The response was so surprising to last week’s compilation of the “decorated” envelopes, I thought I would share a few more before moving on to other recesses of a Crowded Life’s memory. I previously shared thanksgivings and huzzahs that incipient collectors along the line in the postal “service” never seized. Cartoonists’ letters with sketches and artwork on the envelopes… but how would I know?

Another anomaly pertains to cartoonists who were bold enough, or “economical” enough, to draw their characters on envelopes or the backs of post cards. Chancy, especially for recipients, right? Well, one of the first fan letters I ever wrote was to Crockett Johnson, who then was drawing a revival of Barnaby. In the second response I ever received from a cartoonist it was from him (the first was from Hal Foster), and he thanks me for liking the strip; he expressed gratitude that I was making my own Barnaby book, cutting and pasting strips every day; and he apologized for not being able to send an original. But “this will have to do” – an original inked drawing of Mr O’Malley. It did just fine!

But – Cushlamochree! – after all my worrying about the Merry Mailmen of the land swiping sketches by famous cartoonists, sometime through the years I mislaid this card. It is in my piles of ju… my archives, but not located for awhile, not in time for this column.

The others, today, are to me, but also from prominent cartoonists to others. (The collecting disease is infectious). I am not showing others of related interest – for instance all the letters Bill Watterson wrote to me do not have original sketches of Calvin or Hobbes on the envelopes (so calm down, everyone) and, very much like the hermit he is, no return address except the name “Watterson.” I cracked the code.

Enjoy.

This envelope has interesting history as its subtext. Pat Sullivan had “established” his animation studio, clearly, but Felix the Cat and Otto Mesmer were not yet on the scene. The character he displays is Sambo, of the strip Sambo and His Funny Noises, which he inherited for the World Color Printing Company’s Sunday comics from Billy Marriner, who had committed suicide in Harrington Park NJ.

R. F. Outcault could be all business. One of his many enterprises was an ad agency – mostly using his characters – run, in Chicago, by Charles Crewdson and his son-in-law, a nephew of General “Black Jack” Pershing

Clare Victor Dwiggins – “Dwig”-- sent this caricature to his editor at Henry F Coates, the publisher of some of his early books of drawings. In case the postman did not recognize the recipient by the portrait, Dwig dutifully scribbled the name. It is amazing that, even in one of America’s largest cities, the name of the company and the simple city name, was sufficient to have a letter arrive. Also, cities in those days had multiple deliveries per day – better known as “per the Good Old Days.”

I have several letters – some silly; some flirtateous – from George Herriman to Louise Swinnerton, ex-wife of Jimmy. The envelopes, with his distinctive signature and full home address in Hollywood, was always there. And some envelopes – or large package wraps, like this in butcher paper! – had sketches too. Here, a self-caricature.

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A Crowded Life in Comics – Dwig and Billy Marriner

by Rick Marschall

1– Book illustration by Billy Marriner, from Billy Burgundy’s Letters (1902)

Dwig’s Rime Of the Ancient Marriner

(Clare Victor Dwiggins and Billy Marriner)

★

“Dwig” is a signature that was commonly seen in American comic strips, book illustration, and other cartooning venues during the entire first half the 20^th century.

Clare Victor Dwiggins (1874-1958) drew magazine cartoons for Judge; a multitude of Sunday funnies for the New York World, Ledger and McNaught Syndicates, and various McClure syndicates; serious book illustrations and humorous drawings for books of aphorism and poetry; hundreds of comic postcards; a Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn feature that was licensed by the Mark Twain Estate; color strips for the Farm Journal and Ford Times; poster designs and sheet music covers; comic-book work, including in Supersnipe; and several children’s books written by August Derleth.

Some of his book illustrations and postcards (with his version of Gibson Girls) were racy for their day, but the consistent flavor of his work bespoke “native humor” – insouciant themes, freewheeling lines, and casual compositions. His top strip Footprints On the Sands of Time predated the birds-eye views and dotted passage lines of Bil Keane’s Family Circus.

2– Photo of one of the 17 x 20 inch letters from Clare Victor Dwiggins. 

As his work was figuratively all across the comics landscape, so were the places he hung his hat through the decades. He was born in Pennsylvania, and spent the formative years of his career, and those of the comic strip itself, in New York. He spent his last years in Pasadena (where he lived near the ranch of his friend, cartoonist J R Williams) and he died in North Hollywood. A fine treatment of Dwig and his work can be found by Jay Rath in Nemo magazine number 11.

During his time in New York he admired the work and became the friend of a fellow World cartoonist, Billy Marriner (1873-1914). Marriner, who earlier had drawn for Puck, was a public favorite and influential with other cartoonists. His wispy lines and  big-headed, good-natured characters, particularly kids, were trademarks of his style. Among his many strips for the World and the McClure syndicates were Foolish Ferdinand; Mary and her Little Lamb; Wags, the Dog that Adopted a Man; and Sambo and His Funny Noises.  

Responding to a fan letter in the 1950s, Dwig remembered Marriner: “Billy Marriner was tops. He tried to refine my ‘line’ and was responsible for the style I used in [the book] Crankisms, and the several books, similar, which I did at the turn of the century. The delicate line. I worked out of it, however, as I rolled along, to wind up with a heavy, black treatment, more like the beloved Zim [Eugene Zimmerman], who is my Hero No, 1. McManus, too, was influenced by Marriner’s light line. And he stuck to it.”

3– Portion of letter by Dwig, and two caricatures of Billy Marriner – full, pie-eyed, face; and at drawing board.

Dwig’s letters were as peripatetic as his his drawing style. He seemingly reached for, and wrote on, any paper nearby. One letter, also from the 1950s, was scribbled in  pencil on an enormous sheet of newsprint – 17 x 20 inches, then folded to fit an envelope.

I will trust to the miracles of new scanning technology, and the skills of YP’s good John Adcock, and hope that the images and scrawl of two “captures” are clear and legible. I share three drawings by Dwig of Marriner: a face and Billy at the drawing board; also a sketch of the diminutive Marriner trying to get his arms around his latest “big woman.” A photo of a wall-to-wall letter is on the subject of pen nibs, pencil types, and brushes he preferred through the years.

In the caricature of Marriner at his drawing board, you will notice that Dwig drew a bottle or flask on the floor. He was, unfortunately, as addicted to booze as he was to gargantuan wimmen. Unlike the innocent and friendly characters he drew, Marriner met a violent and horrible end. In Harrington Park NJ (the next town to where I grew up) he was in a frenzy about his missing wife, and was heard by a neighbor threatening to burn down the house and himself. Apparently drunk, he fired gunshots as his house indeed burned to the ground.

4– Dwig’s sketch from memory of Billy Marriner trying to get his arms around one of his large girlfriends – having fun at her expense.

Marriner’s strips were continued, in his approximate style, by the neophyte Pat Sullivan, a few years before Felix the Cat was created.

Them was the happy days, all ways around, as Dwig wrote.

5– The original artwork for one of Dwig’s glamour girl postcards.

★

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