A Crowded Life in Comics –

More Than Peanuts 

by Rick Marschall

I am capable of sharing memories wherein I am not a hero but a goat; when “the right time and place” felt like times and places I would have traded for anonymity. But the worst days in the fields of comics and cartoons and history are better than long summer days picking and chopping cotton. Almost as bad, in fact, as that analogy.

The first jobs I had in cartooning were after college, actually during college, too, freelancing – but after a passel of duties on papers in New Jersey and Connecticut where I drew political cartoons and illustrations; edited a weekend magazine; and wrote a political column, I felt it was time to climb the ladder to another goal, to edit comics for a newspaper syndicate.

The late Sid Goldberg was General Manager of United Feature Syndicate. He had been a protege of syndication pioneer John Wheeler, who had lived near me in Connecticut. “Back in the day” for John was ghost-writing newspaper columns for the great New York Giants pitcher Christy Matthewson around 1910; and stealing Bud Fisher and Mutt and Jeff away from William Randolph Hearst. At the time of this story he had just passed away, but I remained close with his charming wife Tee.

Wheeler had mentored Sid at the North American Newspaper Alliance, even so far as offering the avuncular advice during the recent (1972) presidential campaign to rein his wife in; she had committed political tricks like infiltrating the McGovern press entourage. Mrs Goldberg was, and is, Lucianne, who today manages the essential, eponymous political website, and among whose trophies was persuading Linda Tripp to persuade Monica Lewinski to record Bill Clinton’s erotic phone calls and to save her blue dress with his, um, evidence on it. (Jonah Goldberg, of National Review and cable news, is their son.)

End of tangent. Tee Wheeler warmly recommended me to Sid, and I was hired at United Features. Editing comics was only a portion of my duties. I reviewed submissions, edited columns and puzzles, and – not alone – routinely shorted the brand-new computer terminals by unwittingly generating static electricity. Hardly any papers then took electronic submissions, but UFS wanted to be in the vanguard.

One of the thrills of editing the strips (Nancy, Tarzan, Captain and the Kids) was editing Peanuts. The parsing of the word “editing” is what nearly got me canned… almost finished in the strip business before I started.

I had met Charles Schulz a few times, but not to know him. At the syndicate, people said from Day One, “Don’t call Schulz,” “Don’t bother Sparky,” his nickname. I wondered if it were his celebrity – strange, because he was always affable, even modest – and I regularly talked to other artists about gags, typos, deadlines, and such. But Sparky was off-limits.

The reason, it turned out, was that Schulz was then engaged in a battle with United Features: ownership; royalty splits; licensing; merchandising; everything. It had dragged on for 13 months. United might have folded its tent without Peanuts.

A batch of his strips arrived and a Sunday page, a classic baseball gag, featured Charlie Brown instructing Lucy to fold her umbrella in center field; of course she ignored him; a fly ball was hit to her… and it perfectly spiked itself on the top of the umbrella. She calmly walked to the pitcher’s mound and delivered it to Charlie Brown. In classic Peanuts structure, the gag had one more panel – Charlie Brown looked at the reader to say, “I can’t even criticize good.”

The printed version of the first and third versions of the 1975 Peanuts Sunday, April 20, a day that will live in infamy.

After chuckling, I wanted to save Sparky from 10,000 letters from English teachers. Any other cartoonist, I would have made a phone call. “I can’t even criticize well,” I would have said; “no offense.” BUT all those warnings to Leave Sparky Alone rattled in my head.

So I had the bullpen letter the correct word in Schulz’s style… and production began. After the engravings were made, color guides processed, proof sheets – as well as, in those prehistoric days – paper mats and zinc engraving plates, all were sent out to 2000 newspapers around the country. Postal envelopes, not e-mails or even faxes.

A week or so later there was a hubbub in the office, people racing around with frightened looks on their faces. Whispers. A succession of people handing a phone to each other. What happened was that Sparky received his set of proofs out in Santa Rosa. And he was not happy. Like a school principal or a scout master, he dressed down everyone, from the syndicate president to, eventually, me.

Of course I confessed to being the editorial bad guy; I had been fingered by everyone, anyway. Not boastfully but as a supreme logician, Charles M Schulz asked me if I thought he achieved his place in the business without knowing how to write a gag. In that moment I pictured myself as one of the kids in his strip being lectured by a blaring adult trombone – wide-eyed, mouth in a squiggle, beads of sweat flying.

There was no defense – except internally (and rather futilely) at the office – that I had towed the “Don’t call Sparky!” line. The fallout respected the Corollary: “Keep Sparky happy!” In emergency mode, United corrected and engraved the first Sunday page; made new mats and plates; contacted every client newspaper; and sent out, one by one, often Special Delivery, the corrected material. I believe there were several sovereign nations around the world whose national GDP was less than the costs of that correction.

… or, as I might call it, Marschall’s Editorial Dicta – always better to check; Mr Bell invented the phone for a purpose; and… Keep the Sparkys Happy.

Sid understood, indulgent as always. Whether Sparky remembered me as the specific culprit in the episode, I never knew. I never asked him in subsequent years, in many meetings, over several projects. I mean, I am dumb but I am not stupid. If you expected an ending like, “Years later I reminded Sparky of that incident, and we had a good laugh over milk and cookies...” – you will be disappointed. That is not the ending.

But, as Paul Harvey used to say, Now you know the rest of the story.

Later halcyon days. I went on to collaborate on several projects with Charles Schulz. He wrote pieces for books of mine; I interviewed him for the final issue of the old Nemo magazine (and an Italian book, pirated but with our names on the cover) and, pictured in this photograph, I flew to Paris when he was awarded the French government’s Award of Arts, ca 1988.

47

1923: The Comic Page

Shadowland Magazine, 1923

➗

A Crowded Life in Comics –

San Diego Memories

 

by Rick Marschall

I am not at Comicon International this week, and if you are reading this in Yesterday’s Papers at release time, you probably are not either. On the other hand, you might be. True cartoon and comics fans don’t put their worlds on hold when a convention like San Diego consumes 18 hours of days during the Con: they somehow fit them into their “normal” waking hours.

I have received many texts and calls, asking if I am there this year. Not this year, but I have attended most of them since 1976. Some memories here from an event whose functions including making memories, not only tracing them or collecting them.

In 1976 I attended with Bob Weber, who drew and still draws the Moose comic strip. I was living in Chicago; he divided his time between Baltimore and Westport CT. Bob loves hanging with other cartoonists and talking cartoons; and he has a fan’s enthusiasm for meeting artists for the first time, and sharing his fan perspective.

True to form for this poster child of a deadline-challenged cartoonist, Bob traveled cross-country, but was so late with his strips for King Features, he stayed in his hotel room almost every moment of the Con, drawing and inking strips. Once the Con ended, he was free, and we spent a week tooling up the West Coast, visiting cartoonists and haunting used-book stores.

A few years later, during the peregrinations between the El Cortez, the US Grant Hotel basement, the old convention center, before the monstrous current site, I was then an Editor at Marvel. To make a long story short – it is worth a separate column – the Con largely was still for collectors alone, virtually; and more and more pros and legends dropping in. My big project at Marvel at the time I recall was the three-issue process-color Weirdworld epic called “Warriors of the Shadow Realm.”

I convinced Stan Lee and Jim Shooter that the Comicon was something where Marvel should establish a beachhead. I proposed taking tables and showing the latest products. Then, since Peter Ledger, colorist, was delaying the third book – John Buscema and Rudy Nebres having finished their work – I suggested a PR gimmick of having Ledger actually paint his pages for the public. My motive was to make sure he finished the damned book, which he might not have done if we left him in New York City.

Actually my larger motive was to scam a trip to Comicon. Indeed, Marvel footed the bill for me and Ledger, and my assistant Ralph Macchio, and production wiz (and great friend) Elliot Brown, even Shooter too… to set up a large Marvel display. The pages were squeezed out of Ledger (who decided after the Con to stay in the US and not return to Australia).

Gary Groth, just having founded The Comics Journal, became an impromptu sidekick as I and Ralph and Elliot tore up Southern California, from Tijuana up to L.A., for the week afterward. We stayed out of jail; but Ledger did not; another story for later…

By the way, Comicon Board members, many of whom became very close friends, told me that the stunt I pulled off – Marvel’s presence; sales, promotion, and “meet the artists” – was the first space reserved by a comics publisher at the heretofore fan event.

Shel Dorf had founded Comicon and was always more of a strip fan, than a superhero or animation guy. Even after the Con had expanded beyond his dreams, and capacities, he always was deferential, I supposed due to my historian’s cred, and would take me one or two evenings during the Con to dinner at the Hotel Del Coronado, very gracious. That is how I met and had sane conversations with the likes of Ray Bradbury and Alex Toth (reasonably sane).

Ironically, eventually, sensible management of the Con really outpaced Shel’s vision and abilities, and a couple years Board members actually asked me to run interference if Shel erupted over being persona non grata at the event he founded. He never made a scene.

          Four historians share a moment at SDCC: R C Harvey, Shel Dorf, Rick Marschall, Ron Goulart

Before movie madness and video games and red carpets consumed Comicon, there was another-world aspect each year, of casual meetings becoming special; and special moments occurring routinely. So I will share three sketches that became special to me:

          Russ Manning drew Tarzan at and on the old El Cortez Hotel.

          I asked Noel Sickles, Milton Caniff’s onetime inspiration and studio-mate, to draw a sketch. “Of what?” he asked. I should have requested Scorchy Smith… but I suggested an impression of San Diego. 

          Everybody’s favorite gentleman, Batton Lash, was an old friend of mine from School of Visual Art days; before he and Jackie Estrada were wed. Bat, sadly, died this past year. He drew this page featuring his classic Wolff and Byrd characters.

We all have ‘em. Sketches and memories. Jackie Estrada published a great book of Con photos she took over the decades, fun and “candid” surprises on every page.

For a few years after launching Hogan’s Alley magazine, I held get-togethers – usually lunches or dinners at a local Mexican restaurant – for Friends of Ol’ Hogan as Tom Heintjes would call them. Here is a group of such friends on the steps. Good ol’ John Province would have been in the shot, except that he took the photo:

          Gene Hazleton; Rick Marschall; Shelly Moldoff; Ron Goulart; Dick Sprang; Vin Sullivan.

Whether attending as a fan, or speaking or interviewing, strolling or displaying at a booth, Comicon always provided memories. Friends from Europe would attend and hope that I would play Tour Guide afterwards to Hollywood, the deserts, Tijuana, Palm Springs, Julian… and I was always happy to oblige. Friends I made at the Con sometimes blossomed into greater friendships and extra-curricular activities. For a while I sought to establish a formal alliance with the Angouleme Festival in France, arranging for guests to attend San Diego; and helping Fay Desmond and Jackie Estrada navigate the communications, including room service at rural hotels, in France…

I hope the multitudes are manufacturing many memories this year too…

⧭

46

A Crowded Life in Comics –

Serendipity

– Coy Watson (left) co-starred with Jackie Coogan in Buttons (1927) –

By Rick Marschall

When I began these “Crowded Life” memoirs for Yesterday’s Papers almost a year ago, I promised, or threatened, that the stories would not all be about cartooning and comics history. One of the byproducts of a long life and careers in several fields has been to accumulate many acquaintances; make many friends; and thank God for the consequential people I have met along the way.

I could actually call it a hobby to have collected friends and acquaintances – never my intention, but I am grateful for the fact. It has almost been a Forrest Gump-like existence, during which rambles through cartooning, politics, music, religion, and old-fashioned luck, enabled me to meet great and/or significant players in fields of culture and popular culture.

So: not strictly cartooning this week, but people who populated some of my Crowded Hours.

In 2001 I took a job with Youth Specialties, a company that provided resources for church youth workers. I was editor, occasional speaker, and Director of Product Development. YS was located outside San Diego – friendly territory for me; I had attended Comicon since 1976, and had many friends in Southern California. I found a condo in Alpine, 30 minutes west of the Pacific coast and 30 minutes north of the border. It is the last major (?) town west of San Diego before the faraway El Centro, in the “high desert.” I chose it partly because my wife was born in Alpine NJ; but also because the beautiful setting combined the flavors of frontier life and the atmosphere of gated celebrity neighborhoods.

When I became acquainted with locals, enough of them asked or assumed whether I knew Coy Watson Jr. I admit I had never heard of him. I did a little research and remedied that situation. The modest man who lived two streets from me was in fact a Hollywood legend and was a motion-picture pioneer in several ways. It was not difficult to become friends with Coy.

He was in his 90s when I met him. His kind manner and youthful smile, dimples and all,  made him look younger than his years. The early history of Hollywood is inextricably related to the story of the Watson family – which has its own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – including the father, five brothers, and three sisters. A virtual cast of thousands.

– In later years, Coy Watson Jr., at the monument on the grounds of the Edendale (Hollywood) lot where film comedy was born… and so was Coy. The plaque reads: This is the birthplace of motion-picture comedy. Here the genius of Mack Sennett took root and grew to laughter heard around the world. Here movie history was made – here stars were born – here reigned, and still reigns, “The King of Comedy” Mack Sennett. –

Coy Senior was a prop man for Mack Sennett, therefore often in demand at the laugh factory. So much so that the Watsons’ home was on the actual Sennett lot. Coy Junior appeared in a Sennett comedy when he was only nine months old – much as the baby Mendel Berlinger (eventually Milton Berle) was a baby in Tillie’s Punctured Romance with Charlie Chaplin and Marie Dressler only a year later.

Coy’s movie debut was followed in quick succession when babies and toddlers were needed in Sennett’s Keystone comedies, leading to the nickname he had ever thereafter: The Keystone Kid. He was co-star to Mabel Normand, Gloria Swanson, Billy Bevan, Wallace Beery, Chester Conklin, Ford Sterling, Lloyd Hamilton, Fatty Arbuckle, and Marion Davies. Eventually he appeared in feature films with Mary Pickford, Douglas Fairbanks, Jackie Coogan, Thelma Todd, John Barrymore, Mae West, and Cary Grant.

His father (and uncle) graduated from props and carpentry to acting (mostly in Westerns)  and even directing; but Coy Senior’s major contributions to early movies was inventing special-effect tricks and illusions. His handiwork enabled Fairbanks to “fly” the magic carpet in Thief of Baghdad.

In 1921 little Coy starred in his own comedy, A Nick-Of-Time Hero. Otherwise, through the years, Coy appeared in more than 60 movies, including Stella Dallas; The Hunchback of Notre Dame; Puttin’ On the Ritz; and I’m No Angel. Counting the credits of all the Watson Kids, as they became known, they collectively appeared in a thousand movies.

Eventually Coy moved from in front of the camera, and exercised the inventor’s genes of his father, and developed cameras and lenses. In the early days of television in Los Angeles, he invented equipment that allowed for remote broadcasting. For a while he served as one of TV’s first cameramen, assignment reporter, and mobile weatherman.

Many cartoon fans are interested in early movies and film comedy. So when I got to know Coy I invited him to address the Southern California Cartoonist Society when I was Program Director. The show-and-tell, and Q+As, went on forever; and Coy loved every minute of it. And so did I – my neighbor was History Before My Eyes. Amazing.

After California, I moved to Michigan; our daughter, then a youth pastor, hoped we would move nearby, and we did. We joined a little Assembly of God church most of whose members were from the South – or whose parents and grandparents were, yet every member retained thick accents of North Carolina, Georgia, and Kentucky. “Automotive Alley” had many such migrants, white and black alike, who had been drawn north by the auto booms of World War II and the ‘50s and ‘60s.

After a few Sundays I got to “visitin’” with a white-haired fellow and his wife in the pew next to me. He was older than Coy back in California: 97 at the time; and I dared not believe the coincidence when he told me his name – Wade Mainer.

Yes, it was Wade Mainer, who back in the 1930s was a major RCA Victor recording star; he and his brothers fronted Mainer’s Mountaineers, after which Wade struck out as a solo artist. He was a famous banjo player, in the old-fashioned three-finger drop-thumb style. Back in North Carolina in the early ‘30s his style was popular, and he influenced a local picker, Smith Hammett. In turn, Smith influenced his cousin who developed a variation.

That cousin was named Earl Scruggs. His variation of Wade’s picking became the “sound” that gave birth to Bluegrass.

Wade never changed his style, and in fact rejected the term Bluegrass: he was proud to play Traditional or Mountain music. After RCA, he recorded on other labels; formed ensembles with other pioneers (once he declined a feeler from Mac Wiseman, who wound up with Bill Monroe’s original Bluegrass Boys); performed on Broadway with Woodie Guthrie and Burl Ives; and was invited to play at the White House for Franklin Roosevelt.

Musical tastes changed, of course, especially when rock ‘n’ roll and folk music dominated charts, and Wade sought other work. He joined the migration north and took an assembly-line job with General Motors. He also got saved and his faith prevented him any more from playing secular music, in his view. Years later the legendary Molly O’Day (partly responsible for discovering Hank Williams) visited Wade and persuaded him that God would not have graced him with talent only to have it lie fallow. Afterwards he performed gospel music – locally, before he died at age 103, at grand birthday get-togethers – and he continued to record.

Serendipity again. I had written four books on country music, two with passages about Wade Mainer, never dreaming that he still was alive; that I would worship with him, become a friend, and pick and sing in his living room. His delightful wife Julia, by the way, still played a great guitar in the Mother Maybelle Carter  / Riley Puckett style. She had been a star in the 1930s also, under the stage name “Hillbilly Lilly,” at the mention  of which she would wince.

I usually drew portraits of Wade and Julia for birthday fans to sign, or as presentation pieces. Here is one I painted when Wade was past 100.

Forrest Gump was an amateur, ya think?…

🎵

45

Maxfield Parrish –

New York Tribune

Dec 22, 1918

🍀

Caran d'Ache –

The Father of the Comic Supplement,

The Literary Digest, Mar 13, 1909

𐍉

A Quiet Fourth In The Country!

JULY 4TH, 1909

🧨🧨🧨