A Crowded Life in Comics – Walter Berndt

by Rick Marschall

Berndt Memories

My gregarious Uncle Gus used to greet people with a salutation that began, “Shake the hand that shook the hand of...” and would supply names, invariably fantasized, ranging from Babe Ruth to Spike Jones to Weenie Phimpf.

But there is a serious side to the concept, and I am grateful, myself, to have been born and reared in a time and places, and infected with certain interests, that I can say I met many pioneer figures in cartooning and cinema history and legends from country music to jazz.

That is one of the reasons I share these memories in A Crowded Life via Yesterday’s Papers. Also, I want to record pieces of history – of people I wanted to interview “before the colors fade” – before my own colors fade. And… to encourage cognoscenti to gather all the information they can manage as they explore and learn.

As I remember my friendship with Walter Berndt, creator of the famous Smitty comics strip, I dug out a letter he wrote and tucked into a Smitty reprint book in which he drew a  sketch. A portion put me in this mathematical-tinged nostalgic mood:

“Ye gods…! Little Herby was forty (gulp) years younger then – me too! Yipes!”

Indeed. The book was printed in 1928, and this note and sketch were sent to me in 1968.  But I can say Ye gods; gulp; and Yipes, myself, as I write this precisely 50 years subsequent. So I can recall a friendship with a man whose character starred in a reprint book 90 years ago. In fact his Smitty strip itself will have its 100^th birthday in 2022.

Chicago Tribune, January 11, 1931

His strip was “vintage” in 1968, yet was popular enough – and Walt was vital enough – that the very next year he was awarded the National Cartoonist Society’s Reuben award. His colorful origins reflect the halcyon days of comic strips’ first steps. When he was 16 he secured a job as office boy in the bullpen of the New York Journal, putting him in direct contact with George Herriman, Winsor McCay, Cliff Sterrett, TAD Dorgan, Elzie Segar, and others.

Walt graduated from pushing brooms to fraternizing during breaks to inking pencil lines and filling in blacks and drawing backgrounds to occasionally submitting his own drawings.

His signature can be found on Hearst fill-in features; then strips and panels for other newspapers and syndicates around New York. In 1922 he scored with, I think, Bill the Office Boy (happy inspiration) at the Daily News. In a familiar episode of inspiration, the legendary editor Captain Joseph Patterson re-named the young hero Smitty. Eventually Smitty’s parents provided a little brother, Herby. In the cast also were Mr Bailey, the office boss, and – as Smitty matured to teen years – girl friends like Ginny.

Walt lived in Port Jefferson, in a grand house on a promontory, and I occasionally visited him after I started a job as cartoonist and editor at the Connecticut Herald. It was old-fashioned fun, actually, to take the Bridgeport-Port Jeff ferry. Once my fiancee Nancy joined me (Sagamore Hill was on the agenda that day too) and she was charmed by thye old boy.

The only people who were not charmed by the warmth and friendliness of Walter Berndt were those who had not met him.

When I became Associate Editor / Comics of the News Syndicate, it was just after Smitty was retired, in 1973. Walt lived until 1979. The Long Island chapter of the NCS meets in formal honor of Walt, calling itself the “Berndt Toast Society.” Fitting, for its conviviality. (Walt pronounced his name in the manner that invited a pun, but the German pronunciation – there is a German couple in my church sharing the surname – is “bairnt.”)

Another aspect of his name: his signature. And it returns us to the happy headwaters of comics lore. Walt shared how TAD Dorgan, the legendary sports and panel cartoonist, befriended the office boy who aspired to draw newspaper comics, too. Dorgan supposed that Walt’s signature could be a tad (sorry) more distinctive, and he invited the boy to appropriate the “T” from TAD’s own famous trademark. Thus are torches passed!

“Shake the hand that shook the hand...”

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