The Men Who Make The Political Cartoons –

BROADWAY WEEKLY

Feb 11, 1904 

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Circulation magazine – 14 covers from early 1921 to early 1927

   

[1] Circulation #29, April 1927, King Features Syndicate’s worldwide newspaper services — cover by Dan Smith.

Of the 1920s Circulation magazine little more remains than rumours. Published almost a century ago by King Features Syndicate, Inc. in New York, its 1921 subtitle was ‘A Magazine for Newspaper-Makers.’ Its contents hovered between gimmicky and entertaining. Its tone was highflying. But its press run was a modest 5,000 issues per number — sent via direct mail ‘to every newspaper executive in the country, and to hundreds of advertising agencies and national advertisers’ — and its numbers were published at irregular intervals with gaps of several months at a time. For some years Circulation was edited by Sidney Loeb. The four sides of its front and back covers were printed in colour, the interior pages in plain black and white; the printing was of ordinary quality but the journalists and comic authors and artists clearly enjoyed contributing to it. The magazine was reportedly the idea of journalist Moses Koenigsberg (b.1879), the man at the helm of several Hearst companies: Newspaper Feature Service, Universal Service, and finally King Features Syndicate since 1915.

[2] Universal Service — M. Koenigsberg, President.

The greatest mystery at present is why the KFS company in the year of its centenary celebrations still hasn’t been able to retrieve any files on Circulation magazine — not even back issues.

[3] Circulation #4, September 1921, ‘Circulation Chat’ editorial page, illustrated by Joe McGurk.

The rumours about it are as yet hard to prove. Collector and historian Bill Blackbeard mentioned it in 1986 as ‘…the old Hearst trade magazine Circulation…’ But no specification of the total number of issues had and has been found yet. Blackbeard’s research in the mid-1960s, when he’d found only one issue of it, led him to the New York Public Library, which seemed once to have owned ‘a full bound run’ of Circulation. As it turned out these bound issues had mysteriously disappeared from the library’s shelves already.

[4] Circulation #3, July 1921, “Wuxtry!” — cover art by Nell Brinkley.

In January 2001 in Angoulême, France, comics historian Robert Lee Beerbohm surprised and excited me and other interested researchers with xerox copies of ten Circulation issues, of 44 or more pages per issue. Not one of us had ever seen it. (We were all invited by Thierry Groensteen for his international symposium ‘Comics in Europe,’ my lecture about the Dutch shenanigans at the time was titled The Comic Strip: the Incredible Shrinking Medium.)

[5] Circulation #9, September 1922, “Forty-five Minutes Ahead!” — promoting the fastest newspaper news by telegraph, supplied by Universal Service, Inc.

Up to now just 15 numbers have resurfaced of Circulation magazine (11 full issues, plus from 3 issues only the covers, and from 1 issue only the interior). Issues are downright rare. My present estimate is that at least 29 issues were published. The earliest I saw is from 1921, the latest from 1927. Of one — number 4 of September 1921, with the McGurk “Wings of Circulation” cover — I have not been able to find an original full-colour version.

[6] Circulation #4, September 1921, “Wings of Circulation” — cover art by Joe McGurk.

[7] A 1925 photo of comic author-artist George McManus in front of a Persian rug made after his Circulation cover art.

[8] The resulting Persian rug — made after the cover of Circulation #6, February 1922.

[9] Circulation #18, February 1925, the Persian rug article.

[10] Circulation #9, September 1922, “Please page Barney Google!” — cover by Billy DeBeck.

[11] Circulation #11, March 1923, Barney Google on his horse Spark Plug — cover by Billy DeBeck.

[12] “Barney Google Fox Trot” — 1923 sheet music front cover by Billy DeBeck.

[13] Circulation #12, April 1923, ‘The Picture Folk’ — a poem about the soul of the Sunday Funnies.

[14] Circulation #12, April 1923, Bringing Up Father — cover by George McManus.

[15] Circulation #13, July 1923, “Hey Boob!” Boob McNutt prepares for the 4th of July— cover by Rube Goldberg.

[16] Nemo, the classic comics library #24, February 1987, cover for a special issue on Rube Goldberg.

[17] Circulation #18, February 1925, St Valentine’s Day — cover by James H. Hammon.

[18] Circulation #19, April 1925, Bringing Up Father — cover by George McManus.

[19] Circulation #4, September 1921, comic author-artist Elzie Segar ‘…getting ideas at home where all is quiet…’ — strip cartoon by E.C. Segar.

[20] Circulation #20, Augustus 1925, five bathing beauties present “Front Page Marine News” to Neptune, the god of water and of the sea — cover by Alexander Popini.

[21] Circulation #22, December 1925, Polly and Her Pals, wooden christmas tree and puppets — cover by Cliff Sterrett.

[22] Circulation #25, July 1926, Abie the Agent and friends blown away from the author’s table, with a self-portrait of their maker — cover by Harry Hershfield.

[23] Circulation #26, September 1926, “The Magic Carpet of the Comics” — cover by Louis Biedermann.

[24] Circulation #26, uncropped xerox copy of the front cover.

[25] Circulation #18, February 1925, “A Scribe’s Lament” by William F. Kirk — illustrated by James H. Hammon.

You have now seen fourteen surviving Circulation covers, most over ninety years old, finally shown together here — some in damaged state, some xeroxed, some too closely cropped, but, one excepted, all in their original colours.

Any lead, or any more background information to solve this Circulation mystery is welcome.

Huib van Opstal

[ to be continued ]

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This is part 2 of a series — see Part 1 HERE.

THANKS TO

[all issues] Robert Beerbohm & BLB Comics       

[10] [14] courtesy of Brian Walker 

 [1] courtesy of Hake’s Americana & Collectibles 

[20] courtesy of  Carsten Laqua & Galerie Laqua 

[4] courtesy of Craig Yoe & I.T.C.H.     

[17] courtesy of Rob Stolzer  

Allan Holtz & Stripper’s Guide

Rick Marschall

Leonardo De Sá
Paul Tumey

Mark Johnson

KFS Comics Kingdom

Cyril Koopmeiners

Ianus Keller

Told in Pictures – Dan Smith’s Old Testament

June 23, 1934

“The only man to whom the gift was given to draw accurately a scene merely glimpsed was Dan Smith, who came later upon the World to enormously raise the prestige and status of the downtrodden but patient toilers, not only by his piety and sobriety, the same being the son of a parson, but by his marvelous technique. He did not need to make sketches, this wizard of the pen and brush, one swift squint at the scene was enough. He is going strong still, but I wonder that our envy did not poison him in early life!”

    — Walt McDougall in This is the Life, 1926

DAN SMITH was born in Greenland, of Danish parentage, in 1865, and moved to America while still a boy. He returned to Copenhagen to train at the Public arts Institute when he was 14. Back in America again he took further instruction at the Philadelphia Academy of Fine Arts. He joined Frank Leslie’s concern about 1890 and contributed artistic reportage of the Indian situation at Wounded Knee and drew cowboy subjects in New Mexico and the Southwest.

Frank Leslie's Weekly 1893

Smith was well known as a painter of animals and beginning in 1897 worked as a war artist for Hearst in Cuba during the Spanish-American war. His illustrative work appeared in the humor magazine Judge, Frank Leslie’s Magazine and The Metropolitan. Smith ended up doing marvelous color pages and pen-and-ink illustrations for the World Magazine Section for twenty years. One of his original Magazine Section illustrations is HERE.

July 15, 1933

July 22, 1953

In 1933 Smith began his last work, a muscular and romantic retelling of Old Testament stories in weekly comic strip format. The text was adapted from the King James Version of the Bible. Smith may have been a pious man but he didn’t shy away from the violent and sexual aspects of the stories. Smith was one of the few comic strip artists to use the high illustrative style also in use at the time by Hal Foster and Alex Raymond.

February 24, 1934

The Bible was perfect food for an illustrator’s imagination with its tales of wars, plague, pestilence, horror and the supernatural. Smith’s image of a David eyeing a naked Bathsheba in her bath was quite daring. He even hinted at a nipple. Hal Foster honestly pictured Tarzan naked in his early comic strips so it was not without precedent. His extensive use of widescreen panels looked forward to the origins of CinemaScope.

‘Tarzan of the Apes. A Romance of the Jungle.’ by Hal Foster, 1929

Dan Smith died on December 10, 1934, aged 69. He was working on The Story of Moses when he died and the last strip I found was dated February 9, 1935, marked “To be continued.”

A Whitmanesque portrait for
 the Syracuse Journal in 1910

July 1, 1933

June 9, 1934

Jul 7, 1934

January 26, 1935

June 20, 1934

SERIES:

The Life of Sampson Strong Man of the Bible, Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Saturday, March 11, 1933

The Story of Esther Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Apr 29, 1933

The Story of Joseph Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Jul 8, 1933

The Story of Ruth Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Sep 30, 1933

The Story of David Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Nov 4, 1933

The Story of Jezebel Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Apr 21, 1934

The Story of Solomon Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Mar 17, 1934

The Story of Salome Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Jun 2, 1934

The Story of Elijah Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Jul 7, 1934

The Story of Jael Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Aug 4, 1934

The Story of Abraham Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Sep 8, 1934

The Story of Cain Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Nov 3, 1934

The Story of the Holy Child Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, Dec 8 to 29, 1934

The Story of Moses Told in Pictures by Dan Smith, beginning Jan 12, 1935, last strip appears to be dated Feb 9, 1935, marked “To be continued.”

Two panels from The Story of Abraham

*Biographical source: Kansas Historical Quarterly, Volume XIX, 1951, pp. 235-237. New York’s Frick art Reference Library has an Artist’s file containing reproductions and photographs of Smith’s Western art. A variety of Smith’s Magazine Section illustrations in color can be found at Stripper’s Guide HERE. Yesterday’s Papers previous post about Dan Smith HERE. Special thanks to Michel Kempeneers.