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...

Cartoonists Ring In New Years!!!

 NEW YEARS 

CELEBRATED 

IN THE OLD YEARS!

by Rick Marschall

Cartoonists almost congenitally embrace holidays. Comic artists are inspired by happy events, and in turn inspire their readers. Serious artists and illustrators create commemorations. In general, a job of cartoonists is to celebrate things worthy of celebration.

There is the additional allure of holidays to cartoonists. On those days the artists do not have to scratch their heads quite so much to come up with ideas!

In any (or all) events, here are some New Years themes from Old Years. I have chosen from my collection images that -- by coincidence -- not only raise the glass to the New Year, but appeared in roughly "round number" years ago (unless you are reading this as an archive post...!)

(Above) Winsor McCay, as "Silas," drew this fanciful exception to my rule here. At the end of 1907 he drew this strip of Father Time replacing the old 1907 with a baby 1908. Where did Old Man 1907 reside? In a grandfather's clock, of course! This appeared in the New York Telegram.

We will proceed chronologically. One hundred fifty years ago, the Father of American Editorial Cartooning, Thomas Nast, introduced the New Year in his short-lived magazine Nast's Almanac.

Ten years later in Puck Magazine this greeting appeared. The drawing by Friedrich Graetz, an Austrian cartoonist who worked in the US for three years, is an original in my collection.

The prolific Dwig (Clare Victor Dwiggins) created dozens of strips from the Turn of the Century into the 1950s; and many hundreds of comic postcards in the century's first decade. This was sent in 1910. 

Almost a hundred years ago, in 1920, someone received this charming New Year card drawn by the amazing cartoonist Rose O'Neill (happy-spoiler alert: A major treatment of her life and work is in the works for the imminent arrival of NEMO Magazine!)

Also from my collection (on the wall, as you can see, of the Gibson Room in my house) from one century ago -- Charles Dana Gibson drew Life's cupid (mascot of his magazine, Life) toasting the baby cupid with the sash labeled "1925." This appeared as a cover of Life, and was then inscribed to Gibson's niece. 

The lone New Years cartoon sans smiles is also from the mid-1920s, by John Held Jr. Hoping that your own celebrations do not result in headaches -- nor, in fact, may any other activities in the upcoming Twelvemonth, we wish you a...

HAPPY 

NEW 

YEAR! 

THE STYLE IN COMIC ART -- AMERICAN STYLE, 1909 STYLE

In its November 1909 issue, The Strand Magazine published a remarkable article. We remark, that is, in admiration for its clever concept; and in gratitude for how it arranged for prominent cartoonists of the day to "speak" to us via drawings and quotations.

"Style in American Comic Art" was inspired by the magazine's English edition -- an article displaying how one premise was given to various cartoonists for them to interpret, and share with readers their approaches and conceptualizations. Despite the popularity of Punch and other British magazines (and reprint books and postcards) in the United States, most of the English cartoonists would have been strangers to Americans. So the American edition of The Strand declared it independence and surveyed Yankees.

Actually, Yesterday's Papers can declare something, too -- a "gotcha" on one of the magazine-history field's most prominent authorities, Frank Luther Mott. Respected for his five-volume History of American Magazines and other works -- essential and exhaustive, all -- the estimable Dr Mott nevertheless wrote about the American Strand Magazine that it was "wholly British" -- that is, its contents entirely reprinted from the iconic British monthly.

Not so. Indeed the American magazine was spun off the British original, its contents dated one month differently to appear to be simultaneous. And many features were imported word-for-word. However, not every article in the fiction-and-current-events journal was pertinent or even intelligible to Americans. Also, there were rights entanglements with famous authors and popular series. Finally, to appeal to American readers, home-grown articles and domestic subject-matter was essential to its acceptance.

Hence, the American Strand became a hybrid; it was not "wholly British." (By the way, several otherwise impeccable internet magazine archives confuse, and cross-identify, the British and American editions...) It ran in the US, with respectable readership, between 1891 and 1916, eclipsed by the "mother" edition, whose dates were 1891-1950.

Bibliophiles, and fans of Sherlock Holmes, will immediately associate The Strand with Arthur Conan Doyle's writing. The original appearances of many Sherlock stories were in The Strand. Eventually Doyle wrote directly for the American Collier's; but he wrote other work for The Strand. Among the writers who contributed original work for its pages of both editions were Agatha Christie, P G Wodehouse, Rudyard Kipling, Graham Greene, Georges Simenon, H G Wells, Dorothy Sayers, Count Leo Tolstoy, Edgar Wallace, Max Beerbohm, and (a personal favorite) the great W W Jacobs. 

An enterprising Strand editor in 1909 duplicated the original British theme (since YP has international readership, we will reprint that article in coming days) and prominent American cartoonists were approached. Their challenge was to illustrate this premise: 

A large dog is rushing madly among a crowd of terrified pedestrians, who are scattering in all directions. Holding grimly to the "lead" attached to the supposedly ferocious animal is a very small boy who, far from having any control over the creature's actions, is being whirled through space at the joyous animal's pleasure. But he hangs on manfully, exclaiming as his body cleaves the air, "What's the matter with the folks? Can't they see I've got hold of the dog?"

Even granting for the changes in taste between the Edwardian Age and now, this idea promised fewer laughs than insights into cartoonists' creativity. It is interesting to note that of the nine artists, five were from the weekly comic magazines, and four were newspaper cartoonists -- a good sampling of perspectives and disciplines.

The cartoonists were Eugene Zimmerman (ZIM), Judge Magazine; the young James Montgomery Flagg, Judge and Life; Walt McDougall, various newspapers; Winsor McCay (also identified as "Silas"), the Bennett newspapers; W H Gallaway, Puck Magazine; Albert Levering, Puck; James Donahey, Cleveland Plain Dealer; William J Steinigans, New York World; and Hy Mayer, freelance cartoonist and illustrator.

The cartoonists' comments can be seen by enlarging these pages; and I will quote from them, with British cartoonists' ruminations, when we share the UK part of the story.

        

A Crowded Life in Comics –

 Winsor McCay on Election Day.

Rick Marschall.

Short and sweet this week, and I ask the indulgence of readers around the world, who might have heard that the United States is enduring another pandemic this week – a presidential election.

… followed by a quick apology for a cheap joke. Elections are not plagues; or are not supposed to be. There are plague-like aspects, as flies surround a corpse: corruption, lies,  dirty money, uncountable brochures and robo-calls. Democracy is the worst form of government, except, as Churchill said, when you consider all the others.

Elections have also kept alive the profession of political cartooning, the illegitimate father of the comic strip. I was always interested in comic strips, and the very earliest of comic strips, but I began my career as a working political cartoonist. (“Working” always seems a strange word when we enjoy it so much…)

Winsor McCay was a working political cartoonist long before he created Little Nemo. He was a working political cartoonist after he drew his last Little Nemo page; in fact when he died, he left a partially inked political cartoon on his drawing board, and his editors ran it as “finished” with touches by a cartoonist friend. His first work for national magazines was political cartoons.

A legend has arisen (“legend” being a professionally courteous word for “lie”) about Winsor McCay and his political and editorial cartoons. Scholars and fans have been led to believe that McCay was a kind of indentured servant in the employ of William Randolph Hearst; that when McCay joined Hearst after drawing for the New York Herald, he was not an unfettered star but consigned to churn out political cartoons in addition to the revival called In the Land of Wonderful Dreams. Here, the story goes, he was under the whip of the editorially eccentric Arthur Brisbane, Hearst lieutenant; and he eventually abandoned his Sunday page to dutifully produce turgid pictorial political polemics.

This version of history, itself, belongs in a land of wonderful dreams, for those who wish that Winsor McCay, fantasist, was a 21st-century flower child, mistreated by corporate overlords. Fueling such distortions, I have wondered, might be the contemporary disdain for Hearst – borne, perhaps of peoples’ affection for the Citizen Kane version of events, as well as prejudice against Hearst, whose career ended as a notable conservative (having commenced as a radical Socialist).

But Winsor McCay was his own man. He was a celebrity who was lured to Hearst, not kidnapped. It was clear he “wrote his own ticket” – when Hearst discouraged other of his cartoonists from producing animated cartoons independently, he either constrained them, or roped them into his own International Studio. But McCay fathered animation on his own, independent of Hearst, while working for him.

Brisbane was known as a brilliant and persuasive essayist, and his editorials often ran full pages on the back of newspapers in the Hearst chain and beyond. He was Hearst’s right-hand man, and books reprinted his editorials. Yet when McCay’s cartoons accompanied Brisbane’s essays (which was more than any other cartoonist) McCay was the horse and Brisbane the cart. That is, it frequently was made clear that the day’s editorial agenda was set by McCay’s cartoon, to which Brisbane added comments.

… hardly the position of a poor cartoonist chained to his drawing board., the chattel of Massa Brisbane.

And when McCay returned to the Herald (then the Herald-Tribune), 1924-27 for yet another revival of Little Nemo color Sundays… he drew political cartoons again. For syndication. Daily. No record of a gun to his head.

No, Winsor McCay was a man of pronounced political and social views. He clearly relished the opportunity to expound his views, and he poured as much work into his political cartoons – detail, anatomy and perspective, sweeping concepts – as any other work he did in his remarkable career.

And this aspect of his career would be better known, and more honored, today, if not filtered through retroactive and politically correct lenses. His views consistently were anti-war, isolationist, nationalist, anti-immigration, and Christian. When he waxed philosophical, which was frequent, he was a cynical but moralistic old-fashioned preacher.

In 1914 when war broke out in Europe, Winsor McCay drew a black and white cross-hatched masterpiece for the anti-intervention New York American. Recently I discovered a painted version that appeared on the cover of CARTOONS Magazine that I restored and copyrighted, and will be issued as a poster.

Like all of McCay’s work – but no less than his strip, animation, or illustrations – it is part of his enduring legacy. And it speaks to us especially as we plan to vote.

103

Winsor and Gertie –

...a playlet by Donald Crafton. Animation by Winsor McCay, 1914. Patricia George Decio Theatre, University of Notre Dame (Notre Dame, Indiana, USA), Friday, 6 December, 7:00 pm, with a pre-play talk by the author at 6:00 pm (Eastern time).

Before there was Wallace and Gromit, before there was Mickey and Minnie, and even before there was something called “movie cartoons,” there was Winsor and his Gertie. Here is a one-hour production that combines acting by live performers with meticulously restored classic film footage to transport us back into the turn-of-the-twentieth-century. It was a world where comic strips and variety entertainment ruled, when cinema was still young, and animated films were just becoming the newest novelty attraction... (read more HERE)

 Hat tip to Jerry Beck

Sunday with Little Nemo

IN THE LAND OF WONDERFUL DREAMS

Winsor McCay

September 8, 1912

★
★★

Comics as Art — in 2016

[1] King.

Thoughts about a large exhibition of American newspaper comics in Germany, titled Pioniere des Comic; Eine andere Avantgarde (Pioneers of Comics; A different Avant-garde), with works by Feininger, Forbell, Herriman, King, McCay and Sterrett

by Andy Bleck

ART. Are comics art? I’m not sure if it’s a good idea to answer this.

The problem is the tremendous fuss everybody is still making about fine art, because our idea of civilization is so caught up with the great works of art. Compared to fine art, other human achievements like politics or science, seem slightly grubby and ephemeral. Ephemeral, because they always can be improved upon. Art since around 1400 (and music since around 1700) cannot be improved. The masterpieces of classical Western art are perfect. Hence the fuss. 

Why shouldn’t comics be called art? you may think. Any old rubbish is called art nowadays, why not comics? Maybe because comics aren’t any old rubbish. Comics are important.

As interesting as the degree to which comics might or might not be art, is the fact that comics often aren’t even accepted as an art form. Why is almost any human activity nowadays pronounced to be some sort of art form or at least worthy of study, with museums devoted to virtually everything, except comics? Any old schlock gets a look-in. Except comics.

[2] McCay. The exhibition at the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, upon entering starts with the first Winsor McCay animation. 

[3] McCay. Little Nemo, 7 April 1909. 

[4] McCay.

[5] McCay. Dream of the Rarebit Fiend, 5 May 1906. 

[6] McCay. 

[7] McCay. Detail from Dream of the Rarebit Fiend — note the leftover pencil pre-drawing. 

[8] McCay. 

[9] McCay.

[10] McCay.

[11] McCay. Little Nemo, 1 May 1910. 

[12] McCay. Note the way McCay’s text sections are pasted in. They’re on darker, more discoloured paper. At the exhibition you can see the odd spots where he had to redraw edges of artwork around balloons.

[13] McCay. Another McCay animation is Gertie the Dinosaur (1914), shown together with an original drawing for it. Probably his only animation that reaches the quality of his comics. 

The exhibitors in Frankfurt have a theory. They think it is because comics were created as a popular entertainment, whereas art is elitist.

So, why are photography or cinema held in such high esteem then, with dozens of museums and institutions taking care of them? Cinema is even more admired today than contemporary art, literature or music. It’s true that with the emergence of more elitist (if only because less entertaining) comics, the art form has garnered more academic respect. But really — what is the problem with comics?

I have a theory.

THEORY. First you need to understand what comics are. Comics are not — exclusively — the type of picture stories developed in American newspapers (as claimed by this exhibition in Frankfurt). Comics are not visual narratives. Comics are not ‘sequential art.’ Comics most certainly are not ’a combination of text and images.’

[14] Feininger.

[15] Feininger.

[16] Feininger.

[17] Feininger. 

[18] Feininger. These are not preparatory drawings, but second versions Feininger made for possible publication in Germany. Unfortunately nothing came of it.

[19] Feininger.

[20] Feininger.

Comics are a very specific type of sequential art. They consist of static images which work as a group but also do not work as a group. The reason they don’t is because when you look at comics, one after the other, they suggest to the viewer the passage of time. They do this by pretending that a picture that follows another picture is not really an entirely new picture. It pretends to be the same picture again, but different. When the viewer understands this underlying relationship between the pictures in a comic, he will no longer view them as separate entities. He understands that a picture following another is not an additional picture. It is a replacement. He can still see the preceding picture. Indeed, only by constantly comparing the pictures that follow each other, can he understand that they are not supposed to be viewed as a group — the focus is on one picture, and then the next. The shift of focus from one picture to the next is in fact replacing one picture with another. Most people reading comics do not realise the iconoclastic brutality of this.

[21] Forbell. Most of Forbell’s 18 Sunday pages are shown. It’s hard to believe the publication date (1913) — you’d expect twenty years later at the earliest.

[22] Forbell.

Comics are too inventive, even for that great inventor Leonardo. He compared painting to poetry and — surprise, surprise! — valued painting higher, because poetry could not conceive a work in its entirety at once — each part only results from the preceding part, which then dies. Leonardo must have disapproved of medieval comics in illuminated manuscripts. (Read ‘decorated in colour’ for ‘illuminated,’ and google Cantigas de Alfonso el Sabio as a good surviving sample.)

This technique of brutally replacing one picture with another only became possible after the image-worshiping culture of ancient Greece and Rome was confronted and suffused with the image-despising culture of Judaeo-Christianity, when the emperor Augustine adopted the new religion.

The reason comics are the only art form not given any respect is because comics are the only art form not practiced by the ancient Greeks.

Photography and cinema may seem more technically advanced than the first comics in early Christian manuscripts, but they can be understood and ‘dealt with’ as a variation of painting and theatre. The brashness and ubiquitous deluge of photography and the fast-paced complexities of film may seem more aggressive than a meek little picture story. But in terms of what they do to the concept of the sanctity of the image, it is the little comic which is the iconoclastic ruffian.

When you understand this, you can see the dangers of viewing comics as yet another variation of fine art.

[23] Sterrett. Surrounding wall decoration composed of Cliff Sterrett panels from various pages. Very spectacular, although I would have preferred a complete story. A comic. 

[24-25] A round red reading couch with German translations of McCay, Sterrett, Feininger and Herriman, and the exhibition’s catalogue. 

[26] Sterrett.  

[27] Sterrett. An afterwards coloured-in original of Polly and her Pals, 26 Sep 1926.

[28] Sterrett. 

[29] Sterrett. Polly and her Pals, 21 Sep 1958. Three of Cliff Sterrett’s originals from the 1950s impressed me by their slick professionalism and sheer size. Very inspiring.

Comics are not a subsection of fine art or of literature. The reason people need to make an effort to embrace them is because they are uniquely new: a few hundred years as opposed to hundreds of thousands for every other art form. Children have no problem accepting comics for what they are, because their assumptions about other art forms — or the world in general — are far less fixed or developed.

Does that mean comics shouldn’t be exhibited in fine art galleries? Actually, no.

Making cultured and probably influential people understand that comics are an art form is almost impossible. Because, to some extent, it contradicts the aesthetic demands of sanctified forms of expression like painting or literature, while at the same time it provides a venue for artistic expression that isn’t just another art form — like pottery, cooking or shoe design — a venue that’s possibly similar in potential to the big four: Art, Architecture, Literature, and Music.

Suppose you wanted to teach comics in a school. Would you try to persuade the teaching profession to create a new subject, comics? Or would you rather try to sneak it into art classes or the literature curriculum perhaps? More urgently, comics need to be preserved for future generations. This may include not just storage, but complicated de-acidification. Which takes serious money. So, even though it would be preferable to let dedicated comics institutions take care of comics, one must be realistic. If declaring comics to be art means they have a better chance of survival, let’s pretend they are.

[30] Herriman.

[31] Herriman. Krazy Kat, 28 August 1938. The original drawing of a Sunday page compared with the printed version

There are nevertheless some reasons for not pretending comics are art, or some disadvantages one should be aware of. The exhibition in Frankfurt has chosen types of comics which seem to surpass fine art in the degree of avant-garde inventiveness, such as expressionism or surrealism. It was this which made it easier to invade the hallowed ground of an exhibition space normally reserved for fine art. Clever. But I wonder if it was McCay, Feininger or Sterrett who were the innovators. The real invention came just before, some years earlier, when Dirks, Opper and Swinnerton infused the picture story format, that had existed in American weekly magazines for decades, with a new vitality, changing its character so much that many people (including the exhibition organisers) came to think: here we have a completely new art form. But it’s not all that new. Only when you understand that comics are neither as old as is sometimes claimed (like cave painting and similar well-meant but misleading suggestions) nor as new as sometimes claimed (like the works of Outcault or Töpffer), can you appreciate what’s interesting about comics in terms of their placement within the arts in general. Comics exist in parallel to what is nowadays perceived as modern developments in fine art. (Time will tell whether the history of 20th century art will be revised somewhat.)

[32] King. Original dailies by Frank King, good to see, but less beautiful as artwork than his coloured Sunday pages, especially his ‘one-image-devided-up-into-12 panels’ stories.

[33] King. 

[34] King. Gasoline Alley character dolls.

This Frankfurt exhibition shows that certain comics are also part of that modernism. But what’s really liberating about comics is that their slapdash attitude to ‘the image,’ their technique of constantly replacing something you’ve just admired, has a similar devil-may-care attitude towards the exigencies and restraints of academic modernism.

Claiming comics are art because some of them are even more avant-garde than fine art, could sideline a majority of superb comics. A similar danger lies in regarding comics as literature, complete with awards and reviews, and recognition given to comics with ‘relevant’ subject matters. Again sidelining titles that seem less worthy.

I have no clear answer. If this exhibition makes it possible for more comics exhibtions to take place, let’s call comics art. But always remember that they are also both less and more.

[35] King. A Sunday page original with an instalment of Frank King’s Bobby Makebelieve, 8 Dec 1918.

HOW. One more thing. How come these supposedly avant-garde artists were published in popular newspapers?

Herriman and Sterrett started out with perfectly ordinary cartooning styles. They came up with sensationally arty shenanigans only after having established their comic characters. McCay and King were not drawing in an avant-garde or experimental style. McCay was using Art Nouveau for his line work and the Beaux Arts style for his architectural fantasies. King used some of his Sunday pages to play around with the format. Only Feininger and Forbell jumped in at the deep end, with striking formal inventions from the start, but the characters and stories didn’t have time to mature. Actually, Feininger is not a fluent read. Not because of the European-style artwork, but because it has no comic character you’re particularly interested in, no comic character you could identify with. 

Forbell’s strip is a variation on Swinnerton’s Little Jimmy (1904-58) and C.M. Payne’s S’Matter Pop? (1910-40). The little chap is full of zest and it would have been great to see the strip grow into more intricate stories. Presenting a complete unknown like Forbell with only 18 Sunday pages to his name (15 of which are displayed here at the Schirn) acts like a silent accusation, because if the comics readership from 100 years ago had shown a greater appreciation of Forbell’s outstanding ‘art’ qualities, his Naughty Pete might have resulted in one of the great comic strips.

Lyonel Feininger 1871-1956

Charles Forbell 1884-1946

George Herriman 1880-1944

Frank King 1883-1969

Winsor McCay 1869-1934

Cliff Sterrett 1883-1964

Panoramic photography by Andy Bleck, 2016

Andy’s Early Comics Archive is HERE.

[NOTE]  McCay did not invent animation. Search YouTube for Humorous Phases of Funny Faces 1906, and Fantasmagorie 1908 by Émile Cohl. A lo-res version of McCay’s first animation can be found on YouTube too. Search McCay or Winsor McCay, the Famous Cartoonist of the N.Y. Herald and His Moving Comics.

•••

EXHIBITION. The exhibition is curated by Alexander Braun and shown in the Schirn Kunsthalle, in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, from 23 June to 18 September, 2016. With original and printed works supplied by a variety of private collectors in Germany. On display are original and printed artworks by six American author-artists: Lyonel Feininger, Charles Forbell, George Herriman, Frank King, Winsor McCay, and Cliff Sterrett.

A catalogue is published in German, 2016, Pioniere des Comic; Eine andere Avantgarde, Ostfildern: Hatje Cantz Verlag, 272 pp. in hardback, edited by Alexander Braun and Max Hollein, with a foreword by Max Hollein, and essays by Alexander Braun, David Carrier, and Thomas Scheibitz.

[36-37] The Schirn Kunsthalle in the centre of Frankfurt. 

[38] Subway poster for Pioniere des Comic; Eine andere Avantgarde.

•••