More Cartoonist Autographs

More cartoonist autographs from the collection of Don Kurtz.

Ernie Bushmiller

Ernie Bushmiller was born in the Bronx borough of New York on 24 Aug 1905. He landed a job as a copy boy on the New York Evening World and attended night classes at the national Academy of Design. His first published work for that paper was a crossword puzzle design which he carefully initialed.

Fritzi Ritz appeared in 1922, created by Larry Whittington, and was a quick success. Bushmiller took over the strip in 1925. In 1931 the World ceased publication and Bushmiller signed a contract with United Features. Nancy originally appeared in the Fritzi Ritz strip and eased the heroine out of the title role in 1937. Nancy appeared both daily and Sundays.

Bushmiller’s working day started around 2 o’clock in the afternoon and often carried over into the wee hours of the morning. He started drawing his strips with the final panel, the “pay-off gag,” and then worked back through the beginning panels.

Bushmiller died at his home on August 15, 1982.

*Top Jan 21, 1931

*Jan 7, 1933

*March 18, 1933

The author of the cool bottom illustration is unknown but appeared in a newspaper article about Bushmiller in November 7, 1988.

Queen's Jester

Queen’s Jester

A review of caricaturist, author, and editor Louisa Henrietta Sheridan’s annual COMIC OFFERING published by Smith, Elder & Co., (11 November, 1832) > from Barnard Gregory‘s The Satirist; or, Censor of the Times (10 April, 1831- 15 December 1849.)

“Really, Miss Sheridan, you must, judging from this and your previous offerings at the shrine of the comic muse, be a most charming companion - that is, to all who can admire female wit, and who cannot? Miss Sheridan has claims above any other authoress in our language to the long-vacated office of king’s jester; or, as that appointment might not be compatible with her sex; it would be but a matter of justice to create a new one, and establish her in all the rights and immunities of queen’s jester. The Comic Offering is full of most agreeable conceits, fantastic humours, and care-killing recipes, dished up in a rich vein, and with a just perception of the ludicrous. It would be impossible for ennui to exist in the presence of this agreeable work which to all the breadth and satire of Hood adds the delicate colouring which so distinguishes the fascinating tittle-tattle of female society. Let our readers take our word for it, that the Comic Offering will do more to chase the blue devils from the winters fireside, than any other thing that can be brought to the task.”

Women caricaturists were not plentiful in Georgian and Victorian times but there were a few. There was Mary Darly, who engraved the prints of army officer George Townsend (1723-24-1807) who has been called “the first great English caricaturist,” and illustrator the first caricature printed in the Canadian colony. Marie Duval worked on “Ally Sloper” comic pages with her husband Charles Henry Ross, editor of the penny Judy; or, the London Serio-comic Journal beginning the 1^st of May, 1867. The first number of The Girl of the Period Miscellany appeared in March 1869 (an expensive publication at 6d) with illustrations by Miss Claxton, a caricaturist. Comic Offering; or, Ladie’s Melange of Literary Mirth (1831-1835) was a yearly publication and Miss Sheridan shared the artistic duties with Robert Seymour, who lived a short and prolific life, contributing to numbers of publications, such as Figaro in London, The Pickwick Papers and nine numbers of Seymour’s Comic Scrap Sheet in 1839. There were five volumes of the Comic Offering.

Edwy Searles Brooks

I have quite a few story papers and libraries written by Edwy Searles Brooks, author of many, if not all, of the Falcon Swift stories in Boys’ Magazine. Brooks had a unique writing method for churning out fiction, which is given in the following first-hand account by H. W. Twyman, Amalgamated editor of the Union Jack and the Detective Weekly from 1921 to 1937. From “Men at Work,” in The Collector’s Digest Annual, Christmas, 1957, 11^th year.

Falcon Swift

A complete episode of Falcon Swift and “The Abbott’s Skull,” Boys’ Magazine, with which is incorporated 'Pals,' Vol. XVIII. No. 479, May 9, 1931. Published by Allied Newspapers Ltd., Withy Grove, Manchester. Edited and possibly written by Edwy Searles Brooks. Falcon Swift’s earliest adventures took place in 1922.

*Thanks to Kenneth Adcock for the gift of the periodical.

Frontier Killer

Masked Ranger, October 1954, NY: Premier Magazines, Inc., published by Lew A. Stricoff. This western story is anonymous but appears to have had the help of some “Fleagles,” Al Williamson, or Angelo Torres. It may be an early work by George Woodbridge. Even in their western comics these great cartoonists showed their Foster/Raymond influences.

John Proctor (1836-1914)

by John Adcock

“I can run a hundred yards with any man of my own age, and give a good account of myself; and though I have been drawing, first on steel, then on wood, and now in pen-and-ink (having seen steel resign in favour of wood, and wood in favour of pen-and-ink), I am quite ready to welcome any new development in the art world.” - A Chat with John Proctor, the Temple Magazine Vol 3, 1898-1899.

John Proctor was born in Edinburgh 26 May 1836. John's father was Adam Proctor, a master plumber, and his mother Eliza Roger (Proctor). The couple had nine children, three died young. John Proctor’s surviving siblings were Mary Roger Proctor, James Hutchison Proctor, Elizabeth Proctor, Thomas Proctor and William Proctor. James Hutchison Proctor immigrated to Canada in the early 1880's, homesteaded at Two Creeks, Manitoba for a time, then practiced as a Surgeon Dentist in Virden.

John Proctor married Harriet Joanna McCallum in 1861 in Scotland and moved to London the same year where he listed his occupation as an “artist in wood” on the census. John Proctor’s children were John James Proctor, Adam Edwin Proctor, William Sawyer Proctor (named after John Proctor’s editor at “Funny Folks,” William Sawyer,) George Smith Proctor, Annette Violet Proctor, Crowell V. Proctor, Robert Carlisle Proctor, and Mayland Proctor. In addition John Proctor had an illegitimate daughter by one of his maid servants.

His son Adam Edwin Proctor (1864-1913) was a noted genre and landscape painter in the eighties and nineties and another son, John James Proctor, drew political cartoons around the time of the Boer War. John James’s style and subject were very similar to that of his father. He apparently contributed to sporting newspapers as well.

John Proctor began his career in London with the “Illustrated London News,” then became resident artist for the firm of Cassell, Petter and Galpin which became Cassell and Co. His illustrations appeared in George Stiff’s “London Journal” and “The Seven Days Journal” which was incorporated into the “London Reader” in 1862. Frank Jay wrote in “Peeps into the Past” that “Most of the illustrations in the earlier volumes were the work of John Proctor.” I found no illustrations signed ‘Proctor’ in the “London Reader” but the most prolific artist on the main serials was ‘T. H. Wilson,’ which I believe may have been a pen-name used by the artist.

More illustrations were done for Charles Stevens periodical “The Boys’ Book of Romance” in 1867. Proctor contributed a few full-page illustrations to George Emmett’s boys periodical “Sons of Britannia,” in 1870, signing them “P.O.P.”

From 1867 to 1868 he drew the two page centerfold cartoons in “Judy; or, the London Serio-comic Journal,” and they were continued by the equally talented William Boucher when Proctor moved on to the centre pages of “Moonshine,” where he remained nine years. Proctor’s most impressive work was done for James Henderson’s penny weekly “Young Folks,” illustrating the works of Roland Quiz (pen-name of Richard Quittenton,) and Walter Villiers (pen-name of penny dreadful author Walter Viles,) in the seventies. Those workd he signed “Puck.” He contributed color cover cartoons to Henderson’s “Funny Folks,” considered to be the first British “comic,” and also to “Fun,” “Cassell’s Saturday Journal,” “Illustrated Bits,” “Sketch,” and “Will O’ the Wisp.”

The artist was a member of the Savage Club, and was pictured in a painting by W. G. Bartlett along with Henry Irving, Toole, Pinero, G A Henty, Harry Furniss, Luke Fildes, and E.J. Gregory. The singer is Franklin Clive. John Proctor is pictured seated at the table to the left and reaching for the wine bottle. John Proctor died 10 August 1914 at Heathend, Little London, Albury, Surrey.

*Many thanks to Allan Proctor Gray, Canadian descendant of John Proctor’s brother James Hutchison Proctor, for sharing family information and scans. I have also found another descendant's website useful, and more photos can be found HERE.

Book of Genesis Illustrated

Considering the pictorial possibilities of the subject, Crumb’s depiction of the supernatural qualities of the story of Genesis is less than awe-inspiring. God’s creation of the earth, the sky and the waters is depicted in chunky visual shorthand. In his Haight-Asbury days the subject would probably have inspired brain-melting acid-inspired pyrotechnics from the creator of Mr. Natural and Flakey Foont. The animals in the garden remind this reader of the cute does and bunnies of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, and Crumb's cartoon God is a grumpy, petulant old man walking through His creation wearing a pinched face, looking more or less like a street-bum suffering from bleeding hemorrhoids. The art is ham-fisted, precisely feathered, and cross-hatched to the point of obsession.

Crumb’s non-fiction work brings to mind previous attempts at illustrating the Bible from Gustave Dore’s masterworks to M. C. Gaines “Picture Stories from the Bible.” The most immediate connection that comes to mind would be Basil Wolverton’s over-worked illustrations of the destruction of unbelievers at Armageddon, and sure enough Crumb’s work has been received so well that *gasp!* Wolverton’s Bible has been announced for publication by Fantagraphics. What’s next in comic books; Dante’s Inferno, Pilgrim’s Progress, the New Testament, or the Talmud?

The work I found coming to mind most often, however, was not a Biblical work at all but Jack Jaxon’s “Comanche Moon,” “Los Tejanos,” and his various stories depicted in Last Gasp’s “Death Rattle” comic books. Jaxon was a pioneer of the non-fiction historical comic in the underground sex, violence and drugs style. Jaxon’s artistic influences are apparent throughout his western historicals, mainly John Severin and Robert Crumb. Crumb in turn may have been unconsciously inspired by Jaxon's minute attention to the historical details of costume, weaponry and facial variety.

The good news about Robert Crumb’s seriously funny “Book of Genesis Illustrated” is that you don’t have to be a biblical scholar to enjoy his adaptation; it works just fine as a comic book. The lowbrow look, and earthly feel, of Crumb’s "Genesis" actually works to the comic’s advantage. God skulking about the Garden of Eden peering at Adam and Eve through the bushes is not to be missed. I expected to be underwhelmed and instead spent an enjoyable half-hour with Crumb’s odd adaptation of bronze-age history and myth.

The first five pages, on the Creation, can be found HERE. One of the highpoints of the book, the bizarre story of Lot and the destruction of Sodom can be found HERE.