INSIDE LOOK -- THE BULLPEN OF EARLY HEARST CARTOONISTS - III: George McManus

"Let George Do It!"

And McManus Did, 

Many Times Over

We have visited, via rare archival material from King Features Syndicate archives, legendary cartoonists from the protean days of comic strips. George Herriman, Tom McNamara, and editor Rudolph Block thus far. Photographs, specialty drawings, data; the only deficiency -- out of our control, as it was "out of control" in 1917 -- is the insipid poetry that serves as promotion. But, that is why the book was produced, so we must endure. (And there are some valuable facts that leak through...)

It is interesting, and a well-known aspect of the Birth of the Comics, that commercialism played a major role. Comics were weapons in circulation wars between publishers. They received boosts -- creative freedom, vast publicity, and cartoonists treated like stars -- to assist in their acceptance by the public.

The "wars" also featured cartoonists themselves as weapons, objectives, prizes, and goals. many of the great early artists of the Funny Pages switched employers and venues, sometimes dissatisfied with their employers (we have documented that Block seriously annoyed numerous of his cartoonists to the point of their quitting Hearst)... but usually having their services bid and outbid by hungry publishers.

There is a story -- if not true it virtually encapsulates the truth of the times -- that T E Powers spent an afternoon in a Park Row bar, not working for Joseph Pulitzer of the New York World nor William Randolph Hearst of the Journal, but receiving reports from office boys how his salary was going up and up as the two publishers bid against each other for his services. (Hearst won out.)

Frederick Burr Opper drew for the New York Herald (and Puck Magazine) until purloined by Hearst. Rudolph Dirks was hired away from Hearst by Pulitzer; so was Bud Fisher with the assistance of syndicate pioneer John Wheeler. Winsor McCay drew for James Gordon Bennett's two newspapers before Hearst hired him away. George Herriman drew for the World but eventually settled in the Hearst stable. R F Outcault, whose Yellow Kid can be cited for inaugurating this crazy transmigration, worked for Pulitzer, then Hearst, then Pulitzer again, then the Herald, then Hearst until his retirement.

In the eyes of the voracious publishers (benign godfathers they were, when all is said and done; or wet-nurses) there was no bigger star in their constellations than George McManus. He had attracted the attention of Pulitzer in their original working environs of St Louis; then McManus drew for Pulitzer's New York World.

McManus the cartoonist had a short gestation as a struggling stylist; soon his artwork was polished, handsome, mannered... and funny. As a creator, he created multiple strips starring in multiple titles. His premises were funny, and his narratives flowed like stage-plays. In fact his several creations did become Broadway musicals. And his characters appeared on the market as toys and in games.

Probably the most popular of his strips was The Newlyweds, a one-premise strip (as most early comics were) about an obstreperous baby. When McManus switched to Hearst he continued the strip but renamed it Their Only Child!, finessing a sticking-point of other mutinies like Mutt and Jeff and The Katzenjammer Kids whose titles became bones of contention.

McManus created another strip for Hearst, a Sunday page called The Whole Bloomin' Family. It is curious to note that Bringing Up Father, which commenced full-term as a Hearst feature in 1913, never was a Sunday page until six years later. After that it became the major strip among Hearst and King Features' properties for years. It owned the front pages of the Hearst chain's Sunday comic sections until supplanted by Blondie in the early 1950s.

In the 1917 promotion book, McManus was allowed to illustrate the stars in his galaxy including characters he had created, and left, at Pulitzer's shop. We see the eponymous star of Let George Do It; Rosie and her Beau; and Panhandle Pete. In addition, Snookums Newlywed and his parents; the Whole Bloomin' Family; and Jiggs and Maggie of Bringing Up Father. 

 

By the way, and speaking of the Newlyweds and their only child (italics aside), we have a reprint book of daily strips from the New York World. It is from 1907. The strips appeared earlier in the year in the newspaper, not to mention the book collection -- which challenges the convention histories citing Mr A Mutt as the medium first daily strip (November 1907). More to follow in Yesterday's Papers and in the revival of nemo magazine...

INSIDE LOOK -- THE BULLPEN OF EARLY HEARST CARTOONISTS - II: Herriman

 ... And Vintage Promotional Art, Bio, Photos
of George Herriman

by Rick Marschall 

Recent posts commenced two threads: material from a rare 1917 promotion book for William Randolph Hearst's International Feature Service, one of several syndicate operations under the umbrella of the newly organized King Features. We shared photos and bios of Tom McNamara ("Us Boys"), the cartoonist whose copy we worked from; and of Rudolph Block (Bruno Lessing), the guiding force -- eminence grise, by much evidence -- behind the first 20 years of Hearst's Sunday funnies. 

In this post, Yesterday's Papers will share the book's pages devoted to George Herriman. A photograph of the pensive cartoonist, and special art created for the book. He is credited in the text as the creator of Baron Bean, the daily strip that was separate from Krazy Kat -- starring human characters; never a crossover; never appearing in color supplements. It was a wonderful strip, as most of Herriman's creations were, of course, about a latter-day Don Quixote and Sancho Panza pair: delusional fellows drifting in, and further in, to absurd situations. As with all of Herriman's creations, comic obsessions fueled the premises of the daily strip. 

I offer apologies -- not that I had anything to do with it -- for the promotional copy the accompanied the artwork. It is more insipid than third-rate public-relations blather. And worse yet, the Hearst writer (perhaps John P Medbury, or K C Beaton, or Jack Lait, or a lesser light) fashioned the inanities in rhyme. Little that would have informed a student of the day... and certainly not scholars of our day.

The other piece is from 11 years later, from a elegantly designed and produced book touting the impressive stable of talent that could be accessed by subscriptions to the New York Journal. The "chief" it highlights is not Block but the Journal's editor William A Curley (who, as an editor in Chicago, had inspired characters in The Front Page) and Hearst's principal editorial writer Arthur Brisbane. The book appears to be a bragging-piece, perhaps issued for distribution at the annual American Newspaper Editors Association (ANPA) convention in New York. "The Journal has twice the circulation of its nearest evening-paper competitor..."; etc.

It is to be noticed that in each photograph of George Herriman he wore his iconic hat. It was once supposed, after his death, that he was embarrassed by kinky hair, leading to a belief that he was partly Black. Some years ago I shared with the comic community a piece of "news" debunking that assumption. The political cartoonist Karl Hubenthal, who knew Herriman, was surprised at that idea, and laughed as he told me that Herriman neither said nor hinted at such a thing, but was rather concerned to conceal, when he could, a wen -- a growth or sebacious cyst on his head that he could not have removed. (And in fact I own several photo portraits of Herriman without a hat.)

I love the fact that as early as 1928, Krazy Kat was already being referred to as "immortal." Surely it is. 

. 

GEORGE HERRIMAN DISCUSSED ANIMALS IN COMICS

 

... and shows how he drew his characters.

by Rick Marschall

Some people are shy; some are "reserved"; some are introverted. They are all different personality traits. The other end of the spectrum has as many variations. It is said that actors -- superficially the most outgoing of people -- tend to be very private folks, quiet and even withdrawn in their moments away from cameras and stage lights. They hide behind their characters.

Cartoonists often occupy similar cubby-holes. Dik Browne once observed to me the dichotomy: These creators who might entertain millions, making many of them laugh or be thrilled, or otherwise be interested in their creative efforts and views of life... do not live in the limelight, except vicariously. "For the most part, we are hermits, seldom even meeting the people who read what we create." Dik at the time had a studio in his basement, near the laundry machines, with clotheslines crisscrossed over his head.

One of cartooning's most famous recluses, relatively successful at anonymity, was George Herriman. That his classic Krazy Kat was notoriously enigmatic added to the interest in his essential talent, inspiration, muses. The desert opus was either psychologically deep and comprised of nuances, or simple nonsense unconcerned with discernment of logic or illogic (I am reminded of Mark Twain's epigraph in Huckleberry Finn: Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot in it will be shot.) 

Well, we don't really know (as if should make a difference to us: Herriman surely meant to amuse, not to befuddle) and he was not a congenital obscurantist. The majority of his creations were of homely domestic themes (Us Husbands; Alexander the Cat) or of his lifelong specialty, humorous obsessions (Major Ozone the Fresh-Air Fiend; Musical Mose). I proposed an examination -- not a psychoanalysis -- of these "fingerprints" of Herriman as elements of a biography of Herriman I proposed (along with the complete Kat) to to publishers before a major biography and several compilations actually were published, in some instances by the same publishers. But the themes remain, surprisingly, unexplored. In other books I have published and in numerous articles (including, very superficially, here) I have scratched the surface of the best-known anonymous cartoonist, George Herriman.

One speed-bump is the work of publicists of the past. By the end of the first decade of the 20th century, Herriman was in the continuous employ of William Randolph Hearst. Hosannas are due the virtual godfather of the American Comic Strip, and his treatment of George Herriman is a prime reason: benign neglect... a latter-day patronage much like the Medicis treated Michelangelo or Prince Esterhazy was  patron of the composer Haydn. After the 1920s almost no paper outside the Hearst chain ran Krazy Kat. Herriman participated in the Jazz Ballet of 1924, and illustrated Don Marquis's archy and mehitabel, but otherwise he lost money for Hearst... and created timeless works of comic art at the highest level.

But we still want to lift the veil. And there were those darn public-relations writers and publicity departments. How much of what they told us -- little enough anyway -- was true? 

I have discovered a publicity series cooked up by the King Features (Hearst) publicity gnomes in the early 1930s. They are articles "by" cartoonists like Herriman and Elzie Segar (Popeye) explaining their strips, their characters, their inspirations and views of their art. Additionally these articles present sketches including a few "how to draw" examples of their working methods.

Was this for regular newspaper readers, or solely for children? or both? Were they written by the artists themselves? (I suspect not) Were the drawings by the identified cartoonists, in this case Herriman? (I suspect so) It is possible that the cartoonists Herriman and Segar at least approved the texts... and, of course, that they did write the articles.

In any case, this is an unpublished and interesting insight into Krazy Kat's kreation, and at least how the public might have perceived the character and strip apart from the funny section.

+   +   +        

Speaking of publicity departments, in the next installment of Yesterday's Papers I will continue the publication of behind-the-scenes bios and special art circa 1917, begun with treatment of Rudolph Block and Tom McNamara. The next installment will be the focus in that material on... George Herriman.

        

AN INSIDE LOOK INTO THE BULLPEN OF EARLY HEARST CARTOONISTS - I

 "A Half-Million Dollar Feature Service."

by Rick Marschall

The history of newspaper syndication -- and specifically the distribution of cartoons and comic strips -- is a story yet to be told, and told well. 

There are many misperceptions in the tale(s), some surprising turns, and motivations of various parties. It is a tale that involved creativity on the part of innocent cartoonists having their fun... cigar-chomping businessmen... and casual decisions that set the course of an industry.

Our look at one corner of this world, as it was created by a handful of gods, lifts a curtain or two. And it will provide a look at some of the earliest of cartooning stars in the orbit of William Randolph Hearst. The newspaper mogul was in a real sense one of comic strips' godfathers. Lesser but consequential members of that galaxy are Rudolph Block, who will be represented here; and Moses Koenigsberg, a behind-the-scenes manager of the material we will share.

By the mid-'teens of the 20th century, syndication had become a side-effect of big-city newspapers and the spread of journalistic empires. But its growth was sloppy and disorganized -- or, as some historians might maintain, merely "organic." I will skate through history in generalities, because generalities are collections of truth without being adorned by details and statistics. 

Around 1884 the publisher S S McClure introduced the modern concept of syndication by securing agreements from authors like Robert Louis Stevenson to serialize chapters of new books to newspapers. The idea simultaneously promoted new books and attracted newspaper readers, especially if they bought papers to satiate their curiosity about each next episode. Charles Dickens and W M Thackeray had serialized their books in English publications in the same manner, but for weekely and monthly periodicals.

In the United States, small enterprises follow, modestly, McClure's lead, nut major syndication began in earnest almost by accident when newspaper titans Hearst and Joseph Pulitzer distributed their own material, generated by their flagship papers (in, respectively, New York and San Francisco; and New York) to other of their properties in between. The next step: the practice morphed into sales in smaller cities. Rural papers that could not afford their own high-salaried cartooning stars, or print full-color comic supplements, could sign syndication deals that gave them big-city patinas.

Smaller operations were de-facto syndicators: the World Color Printing Company and (ironically) several McClure-owned properties offered pre-printed material and full color sections to rural newspapers.

Another irony, or anomaly, is how the larger concerns of Hearst, Pulitzer, Col McCormack of the Chicago Tribune, and others, long regarded income from syndication as a minor consideration versus publicity, covering their costs of salaries and production, and consolidation of territorial monopolies.

(In a 1952 letter to Al Capp, Harold Gray recalled that long-held priority of syndicates. And in a 1937 King Features Syndicate internal corporate report, it held that even licensing and merchandising income was secondary compared to the publicity that accrued to client newspapers.) 

Back to the mid-'teens. 

The competition, particularly among their comics and cartoons, between Hearst and his rivals, had become so intense that some services had a surfeit of talent. By 1917 his comics operation filled the daily and Sunday pages of the dozen papers in the Hearst chain.  A few years earlier the Hearst organization had spun off Buster Brown, Little Nemo, Polly and Her Pals, and other strips under a purportedly rival umbrella, the Newspaper Feature Service. This enabled Hearst papers to run two comic sections every weekend, perhaps one on Saturday, or to provide Hearst rivals in certain cities with their own comic sections that didn't appear to be generated by Hearst! (In New York City, for instance, Hearst's deadly competitor the New York Tribune was able to run a four-page NFS color comic section that appeared to readers to be the Trib's own.)

By 1917, Hearst's lieutenant Moses Koenigsberg split up the syndicate operations even further. Eventually there was King Features, a sort of holding company or sales agent for all the syndicates; Central Press Association; International Feature Service, Newspaper Feature Service; and others. The material we will be sharing here and over subsequent weeks is from a rare book published for prospective clients by the International Feature Service.

The book in my collection was once the property of the Hearst cartoonist Tom McNamara, whose bio and drawings are featured therein. His name and address (in the Bronx) are featured on the cover, and Tom designed a colophon in colored pencil and affixed it to the cover. 

There is also a page devoted to a brief bio and a photograph of one of Hearst's chief lieutenants, an architect of two decades of Hearst comic-strip activities. Rudolph Block was editor of comic sections and cartoons; he suggested many ideas for the cartoonists; and directed promotions and themes. He might be better remembered today if he had not been -- evidently -- a bastard to work with. Some time ago in Yesterday's Papers I wrote about him:

 

Rudolph Block was a de facto director of the Comic Art departments in the Hearst enterprises. He was talented enough (in his "other life" he was a short-story and Yiddish-theater writer as Bruno Lessing) and Hearst relied on him. But by a lot of evidence in my research I could find no cartoonist who did not bristle under his tutelage. Block was the real reason that Rudolph Dirks took Hans and Fritz, and his Katzenjammer Kids, to Hearst's rival, the Pulitzer chain. I have a letter by Frederick Opper (Happy Hooligan) to Block's successor expressing relief that Block was gone. When I interviewed the daughter of R F Outcault (The Yellow Kid; Buster Brown) the sweet, diminutive, 96-year-old lady responded to my question about whether she knew anything of her father's relations with Block. She leaned forward and said, "My father though he was a son of a bitch."

And a similar story about why Frank Willard did not remain with Hearst as Billy DeBeck did: Ferd Johnson told me that Block interfered and criticized Willard so much that one day "he punched Block in the face." Of course the cartoonist parted from Hearst; returned to Chicago, and, now with the Tribune, he created Moon Mullins.

... and so forth!

So to an extent this book was a panegyric to Block / Lessing. However, after the first spread, the pages were devoted to the cartoonists (and feature writers) of IFS. 

Out of deference to Tom McNamara, this installment will feature his page, his bio and photo. McNamara was not the most accomplished of cartoonists, and his several strips through the years were only of moderate success. Us Boys, On Our Block, and other titles for Hearst were minor presences in the daily and Sunday sections. He later drew Teddy, Jack, and Mary for the Chicago Tribune Syndicate with less credit, losing in a famous poll of readers.

But McNamara was accomplished in other fields. He scripted many plots on the Hal Roach lot, most notably many Our Gang comedies. And he was a great friend and frequent companion of cartoonists. I have letters that Hearst Editor Arthur Brisbane wrote him, suggesting gags for his strips; and George Herriman was a particular friend. He addressed his letters to McNamara "Dear Rubber Nose," and this book was acquired from Herriman's daughter among letters, sketches, and photographs in my collection by the creator of Krazy Kat. 

One regret about this great book is the space taken up by the awful drivel of text. What could have been valuable documentary information is a minimum of that, and awful poetry carrying promotional foofaraw. We will, however, take what we can get. After all, this represented a "half-million dollar feature service." 

The blank spots and the penciled Xs suggest that McNamara was supposed to draw more of his characters, besides Skinny Shaner and Shrimp Flynn. Perhaps he was out on a bender at deadline time,or simply overslept. He was one of Us Boys in the Hearst stable.

Christmas Presents!

 UNWRAPPING SOME CHRISTMAS SURPRISES

by Rick Marschall

It is not surprising that cartoonists would send Christmas cards, nor that they would, in the spirit of holiday cheer (not to mention proudly sharing their best efforts to friends and fans), draw special designs... and expend extra effort to impress. 'Tis the Season!

What will be surprises, in a few Yesterday's Papers posts, are treasures not widely known. We will share vintage cards by prominent cartoonists and illustrators -- scarce because they were not produced a la Hallmark, for the general public, but for family and friends, as we say, but occasionally for selected fans.

 

This is a card drawn by Krazy Kat's kreator, George Herriman, not to the Hal Roach family, but possibly for them. The stout fellow in the double-breasted suit is the legendary producer himself; he embraces his son Hal Junior; his wife Marguerite; and daughter Margaret. Herriman did not sign the drawing... except as a self-caricature, lower right, where he labelled himself "the Squatter." For years Herriman maintained a studio on the Hal Roach movie lot in Culver City, Los Angeles, making the location the true "fun factory."

An accomplished painter and illustrator, J Allen St John is best remembered for his painted covers, chapter headings, and illustrations for the Tarzan books of Edgar Rice Burroughs. This family Christmas card was drawn seven years after that famous collaboration commenced.

This card is thought to be an advertisement for Flit insecticide, which was a client of Theodor Geisel (Dr Seuss) for many years. He produced hundreds of cartoon ads for the corporation. This was, however, produced as a separate card and I suspect was Ted's personal card, mentioning Flit as a major aspect of his professional work, even after the success of And To Think I Saw It on Mulberry Street, his first "children's books" for all ages of readers. "Better Times" refers to hopes against the Great Depression.

Harrison Cady is best known for his cartoon animals, so this messenger of holiday cheer is appropriate in the card he sent to  friends. Cady was a social cartoonist for Life Magazine in the 'teens; drew hundreds of illustrations for the "Mother West Wind" children's tales of Thortnon W Burgess; and drew the Peter Rabbit Sunday page that appeared in many newspapers and comic books. 

If you have a strange urge to eat breakfast cereal when you see this card, it might be because Vernon Grant was the creator of the little imps Snap, Crackle, and Pop, who were the advertising mascots of the Rice Crispies cereal. A wonderful stylist, those ads and cereal-box art is what he best remembered for; but through the years he designed many magazine covers and illustrated storybooks for children.

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. 

 

The Great Horse Hoax –

 LEO CARILLO

‘The First Reader’, by Harry Hansen, The Pittsburgh Press, August 13, 1943

Horseplay doesn’t get much attention in this soberly serious town nowadays. Practical jokes are considered amateurish and foolish antics, symptoms of a fading mentality. A man can’t stand on his head in front of the Public Library without giving his wife grounds for divorce. Obviously, we have grown up, but the crazy cavorting of the old days must have been fun for spectators.

Leo Carillo, Variety 20, 1910

I don’t doubt that one of the liveliest of hoaxes was that of the horse lost in the subway, which Harry J. Coleman, the veteran newspaper photographer, describes in his rambling and rattlety-bang reminiscences, “Give Us a Little Smile, Baby.” This happened in 1903, a long time ago, surely, but as important to some people as Washington’s farewell in Fraunce’s Tavern and the Big Blizzard that tied up the Long Island Railroad. The horse, as Harry Coleman describes it, was the invention of a vaudeville comedian named Leo Carillo, who could imitate the call of a wild stallion on the lone prairie, hitherto unheard in the New York subway.

Leo Carillo, Variety 18, 1910

You have to take into consideration two elements now missing: the practice of making the rounds of “the better bars,” which was being built and there was Harry Coleman and the two cartoonists – TAD and George Herriman, and the fact that the subway was just being built and there was every likelihood that a horse might fall into it. TAD and his pals put on an act at a subway tunnel and Carillo bellowed and neighed, and soon a crowd collected. “The police reserves arrived with ropes, ladders, and sappers.” Shovel bearers arrived from the white wings. The fire department arrived with ladders. It was early dawn and there were plenty of alcoholic celebrants afloat. Carillo sped up and down the subway whinnying and neighing.

Its one of those stories that gains in the telling, and at the end Coleman says the scene was “an inextricable mass of fire department equipment, police squads, milkmen, and drunks, all engaged in the largest horse hunt in history and the most frustrated.

I am not one to deny that it happened. I wasn’t there. Moreover, Coleman is yarning about the exploits of the past, and that’s good even in these days, when drinks come high. In that day, long ago, when “drug stores sold drugs,” TAD (He was the late Thomas A. Dorgan) was quite a joker.

 —♠—

A Crowded Life in Comics –

Krazy Kittens.

 by Rick Marschall.

To the extent that this essay will be personal – accounts of a “Crowded Life in Comics” – it will be an account of lifelong journeys and inquiries and contacts, and questions solved and unsolved, accepted wisdom and disputed history. All about a man we wish we knew better, but know well enough through his work… which seemed to suit the famously reclusive George Herriman just fine.

When I was young I knew his work from a couple glimpses in the few comics-history books then published, The Comics by Coulton Waugh and Cartoon Cavalcade by Thomas Craven; precious few examples. The rare 1946 Holt anthology, found in a used-book shop. Then some reprints from Woody Gelman; then some reprints from the Netherlands (Real Free Press) and France and Italy.

In 1959 Stephen Becker wrote Comic Art in America and I received a copy as a Christmas present. Steve (we eventually became friends and I acquired his collection of illustrations for the book) devoted most of one chapter to Herriman and Krazy Kat. Steve was an award-winning fiction writer and translator and the passage was so eloquent that it floored me. Not needing to, I memorized it as a 10-year old.

Fast-forward to a few years ago. I helped with Michael Tisserand’s biography of Herriman, sharing archival material and hosting him far from his New Orleans so he could pick my brain and pick through old papers. I asked only two things in exchange: to address, even if he disagreed and dissented from, my thesis in several of my books that the key to Herriman’s creative expressions, his thematic preoccupations, could be understood as “comic obsessions.” Of the many, many strips he created, they were not merely funny characters in humorous situations and comic endings. They were variations on a theme – characters with bizarre, even surreal, motivations; played out against an unsuspecting world or putative (and “normal”) antagonists.

These comic obsessions were Herriman’s treasure map, from Major Ozone’s fresh-air crusade to Ignatz’s brick. Essential facets of Herriman’s creative genius, not crutches. Seemingly, every other scholar’s views on every other subject were debated in the book, including the obligatory genealogical speculations, but not this. Oh, well, such is my comic obsession, I suppose. And not my book.

The other favor I asked was to include that wonderful brief assessment by Stephen Becker. Surely it could find a place. For those who unfortunately lost the opportunity, too, to read it, I would like to quote it here:

Here, if ever, was a marriage of the man and the material. It was poetry – i.e., thought – that made Krazy Kat great; and no other human being could have been expected to think like George Herriman. In the truest sense of the word he was a genius. Between him and the universe of men there was a kind of love affair, and the allegory he gave the world was unique. With him the world took on a new dimension; without him it was reduced to reality. There will be no more Krazy Kat, and we are all of us the losers; but how much we have gained because he existed at all!

If I could understand a comic strip, and its creator, and explain them like that… I could die happy.

But in the meantime I will describe some of the routes I have taken on my pilgrimage. Of course I started collecting all the old material I could find. I asked old-timers like Harry Hershfield and Rube Goldberg what Herriman was like. Through Ron Goulart, who knew Herriman’s daughter, I acquired drawings and proof sheets of her father. I acquired photographs and letters that Herriman shared with Louise Swinnerton, Jimmy’s ex, whom George courted. In the course of building a library of Judge and the Sunday funnies of the New York World and the World Color Printing Company (no relation) and the McClure syndicates I unearthed hundreds of drawings still unreprinted

.

One of the sources of the theory about Herriman’s black lineage was the fedora he always wore, allegedly ashamed of his “kinky hair.” And one of Herriman’s friends I asked was Karl Hubenthal, who knew Herriman when he began his own career in Los Angeles. As everyone else has, he expressed astonishment and made clear he was not bigoted. But he said it was common knowledge among friends that Herriman had a “wen” on the back of his head. I had to ask what that was – a random but prominent lump, perhaps a sebacious cyst, one Herriman never chose to have surgically removed. He wanted to cover the wen, Karl said, but not cover an African-American background.

And I guess some readers know that I have written about Herriman in books and articles (never yet as a big-game hunter, till here); a chapter in my book about America’s Great Comic-Strip Artists (I forget the title); and two full-color anthologies of Krazy Kat Sunday pages. (Regarding an artist whose genius was so associated with color, on the page that is, it is strange that a full biography has not one color panel.) But my Sunday kolor reprints were co-published in the UK, Germany, France, Portugal, even Finland. I was privileged to “spread the gospel”; and there was one contemporary cartoonist, virtually everyone’s favorite, who told me he discovered Krazy Kat through my projects. A life well lived, there…

From the superb to the meticulous: what illustrations to run with these recollections? I have pulled out some early and obscure Herriman work featuring cats. Not yet kats; I understand.  But beyond his comic obsessions in the various themes of his various strips, it can be noticed that Herriman made characters of cats with some frequency. Sometimes in corners, peeking from behind furniture; sometimes as a focus of a gag; sometimes as the star of its own strip.

Alexander the Cat was a long-running feature (bequeathed to Frink, of Slim Jim fame), and he was about as “normal” – non-speaking – as Herriman ever drew. But some of his cats spoke… occasionally in dialog apart from the main strip… and once, under The Family Upstairs and George Dingbat, a kat poached its own place in the funnies.

And history.

1. George Herriman and his best friend – on the steps of his studio on the Hal Roach movie lot

2. Major Ozone, the Fresh Air Fiend – frightened by a cat

3. Rosy Posy, Mamma’s Girl, 1906

4. The Dingbat Family’s Joke Book, 1912

5. Rosy Posy, 1905

6. Alexander the Cat, 1910

7. The Dingbat Family, 1911 – Krazy and Ignatz banished by the Family Upstairs

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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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