The Men Who Make The Political Cartoons –

BROADWAY WEEKLY

Feb 11, 1904 

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A Crowded Life in Comics –

Opper-Level Memories.

By Rick Marschall

Two special drawings of Mr. Hooligan – the 1907 sketch was done for cartoonist Gus Mager’s ailing sister; he arranged to have cartoonists in the Hearst bullpen send sketches in separate postcards to her. 

A couple of weeks ago I shared my affection – hagiography, really – for Frederick Burr Opper. Still my favorite cartoonist, whose work in old books attracted my interest before I could read; creator of Happy Hooligan, Maud the Mule, Alphonse and Gaston, and more than 10,000 cartoons and strips throughout his career. Political cartoonist, book illustrator; strip pioneer; and the cartoonist who codified conventions like speech balloons in progressive panels.

As I chip away at my full-length biography of Opper and his work, I will share a few more treasures here. (And in an early issue of the revived NEMO Magazine.) No need for much narrative, since I confessed my fealty already. His work did, and does, and will, speak for itself.

Opper among eight other prominent cartoonists of his day, ca. 1903. 

A card from a testimonial dinner given in honor of F. Opper, Cafe Martin, New York, April 1912. Among those present, and signing their names on this part of the program, were Carl Anderson, C. S. Rigby, Gustrave Verbeek, Albert Levering, George McManus, H. A. MacGill (The Hall Room Boys), Jimmy Swinnerton, Rudolph Dirks, L.N. Glackens (Puck), Rudolph Block (editor of the New York American comic section), Gus Mager, Al Frueh, animation pioneer E. G. Luitz, Fred Nankivell, political cartoonists William H. Walker and Charles Macauley.

Fifteen years later, another testimonial dinner – this one a massive affair where Opper, Charles Dana Gibson, and political cartoonist W. A Rogers were honored. At the Hotel Astor in Manhattan. I also have an enormous “gaslight photograph” of the entire room, hundreds of guests at their tables. (And giant drawings, hanging from the balconies, by Winsor McCay and others. Oh! Whatever happened to those drawings?) Signers of this program were the three honorees, and humorist Irvin S. Cobb, Mayor Jimmy Walker, Arthur Brisbane, Sen. William Borah, and Broadway compoer Gene Buck.

When Opper retired in 1934 (due to failing eyesight; he died three years later) he was given yet another testimonial dinner. Here he draws his old hero Happy Hooligan In the background, Harold H. Knerr (The Katzenjammer Kids) look on.

… and when the evening was over, the assembled cartoonists drew their characters as a send-off to the “The Dean of American Cartoonists.” With Opper at the easel was King Features’ newest star, Alex Raymond, who commenced Secret Agent X-9, Jungle Jim, and Flash Gordon that year.

No. 59

A Crowded Life in Comics –

A Lifetime of Opper-tunities.

A matted original drawing of Happy Hooligan, drawn for cartoonist (Bugville Life) and animal illustrator Paul Bransom.

By Rick Marschall.

I have written, recently here, of the early wellsprings and touchstones in a Crowded Life working and wandering in the comics vineyards. My father’s encouragement; my family’s indulgence; the blessings of friendships and mentoring from professional cartoonists when I was young – even to meeting some of the Founding Fathers of the art form.

A real Opper comic book, 1911.

Dirks, Swinnerton, Goldberg, Hershfield, Charles Payne, Frank King, and other greats were still alive when I began drawing, collecting, and “interviewing,” which developed from marking time once I was in their studios and presences. Natural curiosity led to natural questions.

But one cartooning great was not alive, and that fact was a literal regret to me, because F. Opper was the cartoonist whose work attracted me the earliest – almost before I could read – and was cartooning I copied, and cartoons that made me laugh. Opper died in 1937, 22 years before I was born, so the miss was as bad as a mile. He was born in Madison, Ohio, in 1857, and already in his teens he was professionally cartooning in New York City.

Leslie’s Weekly; then Puck for two decades; then the Hearst papers with countless comic strips and editorial cartoons for more than a subsequent 30 years. He illustrated many books for the top humorists of the day, including Bill Nye, Mark Twain, and Eugene Field. I can – and will – write more about Opper, here; and some of you know that I am in the process of writing a major biography of him.

One definition of hero-worship, not to mention foolish immaturity, can be my early attraction to his work (my father had an early anthology of old material, Cartoon Cavalcade, and I found other sources) that manifested itself in a fantasy. Before I knew that he no longer lived, I imagined calling on him. Did he live, in this dream, in a normal suburban home like the cartoonists I was meeting in the New York area? No… I imagined that Frederick Burr Opper would be seated on an elevated chair, almost a throne, at the end of a long room. Royalty? Yes – that was my conception: how I viewed him, and his deserved place.

Kids in school wondered why I always drew a tramp on chalkboards, one with a tin can for a hat; and “who is Fopper?” (I guess I never forged the period strongly enough after the “F.”) Well, that’s how it went. Among my first questions to Hershfield and Goldberg and the others were What was Opper like???

My tattered, surviving cover to a custom Happy Hooligan comic book – “All New Stories!” Opus from my twelfth year.

I even re-created – or, rather, created – a Happy Hooligan comic book, as if the strip were still running, or as if anyone cared, but it was complete with cover promo copy. Forty-eight pages, reviving Happy, Gloomy Gus, Montmorency, Maud the Mule, Alphonse and Gaston, et al. I think I was 12 when I embarked on the self-delusional enterprise. It was not to make money, of course; it was paying homage, but subconsciously honing the cartooning, character, storytelling chops.

I eventually met his granddaughter Nellie Anna, a delightful lady who counter-signed a portrait I did of Mr Hooligan. Late in life she married my old friend the Socialist political cartoonist Walt Partymiller. And I met Frederick Burr Opper III, a distinguished and reserved gent who also worked for Hearst, as a diplomatic correspondent.

Enough of that. Some of Opper’s footprints here. I hope he generates among the uninitiated some appreciation of his genius – the innocent mayhem, the native humor, the superb craftsmanship, such as flawless anatomy beneath his casual lines.

My “Opper Wall” down the staircase – the Hooligan drawing and several of the Opper Sunday-page originals in my collection.

As Hallowe’en approaches, and I write this, I wonder why I never did trick-or-treating as Happy Hooligan, fastening an old soup can to my head. I was a Kid; and I was Happy enough; but I was never Krazy. There are limits.

57

A Crowded Life in Comics –

A Mock Feud In the Pages of Puck.

by Rick Marschall.

Show business, sports, and politics are replete with stories of feuds. I say “stories of feuds” because many of them are manufactured for the public’s attention if not enjoyment. There are, of course, bitter and long-running rivalries that have poisoned the wells of comity, certainly within families. In other spheres of life, self-interest or self-preservation usually triumph.

The old Jack Benny-Fred Allen “feud” attracted listeners and gossip for years, but the radio comedians were friends. Likewise W C Fields and Charlie McCarthy; but it is difficult to stay angry at a piece of wood for too long.

And we remember Ralph Kramden’s threat (in The Honeymooners) to a momentary opponent: “When I see you walking down the street, move to the other side!” And Norton’s response: “When you walk down the street, there ain’t no other side!” Somehow the perfect squelch, the mot juste, resonates more than love lines do.

In the supposedly staid Victorian Era, there was an example of “inside jokes,” sarcasm, camaraderie, and a mock feud that is funny today. I will share brief details here.

Puck Magazine commenced as an English-language weekly in 1877, a few months after founder Joseph Keppler launched the German-language edition. It became America’s first successful humor magazine, although dozens had existed, with varied acceptance, since the 1840s. Puck featured lithographic color cartoons – an attractive wrinkle – on its front, back, and middle-spread pages; usually political themes. The bulk of the cartoon work, including black and white social cartoons on interior pages, soon fell to Frederick Burr Opper.

Opper (1857-1937) was a workhorse of incredible talent and native humor who followed Keppler from Leslie’s Weekly, and known to comics fans today as the creator of many seminal comic strips around the turn of the century into the 1930s (Happy Hooligan, etc).

Almost from the beginning, the fecund H C Bunner was the mainstay of Puck’s editorial columns. He wrote the paper’s editorials and provided ideas to cartoonists; he signed poems and funny stories, and contributed many anonymous works; he recruited and trained a host of talented humorists for the succeeding generation. Unjustly neglected and forgotten today, Bunner was a master of the short story in the manner of Frank Stockton (another forgotten genius). The American short story of the day was a wonderful genre, now scarcely commemorated by limp rose petals tossed toward O Henry and Saki, but whose ranks were populated by clever writers like Bunner.

Many of Bunner’s books were in fact collected short stories originally written for Puck, and illustrated by Opper (and, chiefly, by C J Taylor).

In 1884, amidst the fury of the nation’s most contentious Presidential election, Cleveland vs Blaine, Opper and Bunner conducted a sideshow for readers through a mock feud. The national election was in fact mightily influenced by the “Tattooed Man” cartoons in Puck, depicting the Republican Blaine stripped to his skin, on which was festooned his many political scandals and sins.

The editorial fusillades that season mostly were Bunner’s, but the cartoons were Keppler’s, Opper’s, and Bernhard Gillam’s. Opper, relatively young, drew cartoons that sometimes were less than polished. In a letters column – “Answers For the Anxious,”  probably manufactured within the offices – notice was taken of an awkward cartoon by Opper of politicians attempting to stop a water wheel at a mill.

Puck’s reply (surely written by Bunner) thanked the reader but also criticized his spelling and grammar. Opper the cartoonist, however, was defended with faint praise.

In the next issue, “the artist” responded, angrier at the Editorial Office’s weak endorsement than of the critical reader. And the following week, the Editor shot back in mock dudgeon, stating that it was barely worth the time to wallow in matters concerning mere mortals – cartoonists. In subsequent weeks Opper fired his shots through cartoons more than words.

It was grand fun. Claiming the dignity of an Oxford Union debate, it spilled itself before readers like a barroom brawl. As I say, grand fun – no reader would have thought otherwise. But, again, in the stuffy Victorian era, such entre-nous peeks behind the curtain of kidding and elbow-poking sarcasm was rare. Still fun.

Some day, somewhere, I will reprint all the exchanges, insults, and mock threats. Here, however, Opper’s drawing of the theatrical “truce.” Naturally, he cannot keep himself from depicting H C Bunner (with fair accuracy, trademark cigarette and pince-nez specs)  as a coiled viper; and himself as an artiste crowned with a laurel wreath.

Original art from my collection, first the half-finished pencil sketch; and the “finish” as it appeared in the happy pages of Puck through the Summer and Fall of 1884.

RM 52

A Quiet Fourth In The Country!

JULY 4TH, 1909

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Sunday With Howson Lott

F.B. OPPER

November 7, 1909

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Sunday with Happy Hooligan

by F.B. OPPER

October 24, 1909

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2

Sunday with Happy Hooligan

HAPPY HOOLIGAN

by F.B. OPPER

Chicago Examiner

May 2, 1909

HH