Early Work by Noted Cartoonists

I Knew Them When...
Many well-known names appeared in the pages of Judge magazine during the teens. Several got their start there. I've collected some then-and-now scans of notables from a Caricature collection that seems, by internal clues, to date from circa 1913.

John Held, Jr. would have been in his early twenties when he drew Judge cartoons in a German-block print style under the signature "Johann Hult." I speculated that, Held being the son of a Swiss immigrant, his original name may have been Hult, but I've found no evidence of this. Besides, "Hult" puts umlauts over both the "u" in Hult, where it might have a place, and the "o" in Johann, where an umlaut definitely does not belong. I presume this was a gag signature.

Held is of course famous for his quintessential 1920s flapper. Apparently he'd been cartooning since 1910. That year, according to lambiek.net, he was hired by the "Collier's Agency." At any rate thanks to his flappers he enjoyed several years of world renown.

Despite his "flapper style," Held remained interested in block prints, an art which he'd learned from his father. Coincident with the flappers he did numerous linoleum cuts in a "Gay 90's" style poking fun at both Victorian and modern mores. As the flapper craze faded Held produced many cuts for the new New Yorker magazine, which had been started by a friend ofhis.

Held later transferred his flappers to a newspaper strip. Merely Margie debuted in 1930 and ran for five years. Held continued illustrating for various publications until his death in 1958.

Percy Crosby would have turned 21 in 1913. He had already been cartooning for the New York World for two years. These two Judge drawings are rendered in a much more elaborate fashion than Crosby used in his legendary Skippy strips. The first is an illustrated pun, an old Judge standby. It's hard to recognize Crosby's later style, especially in the generic Gibsonesque woman, who appeared in everything from Little Nemo to Bringing up Father.

The second cartoon is an amusing comment on the era's fad for a piano in every home. I've seen a number of Judge and Life cartoons on this subject. Apparently there were plenty of neighbors who didn't appreciate the craze. "Try this on your piano" was a familiar sales slogan. Publishers printed the first few bars of their new songs on the back covers of sheet music folios. They hoped that once having played the introduction, the pianist would want to buy the entire song. Sort of like those MP3 download sites do today.

Percy Crosby's Skippy became a smash hit, spinning off into movies and making Crosby a household name. His career took a tragic turn, though, when a big food company appropriated Skippy for its peanut butter. In a nutshell Crosby was screwed big time. The entire sordid story is recounted in the Skippy website maintained by Crosby's descendants. Crosby spent his last sixteen years in an mental institution.

Many Skippy strips are around; instead here's Crosby's less-known topper strip. This example is from 6 October 1935.

Our next entry is from a surprising guest star: the (fortunately) inimitable Harry G. Peter, of uncertain age when he did this color half page. Hints of the H.G. to come are visible in this allegorical drawing, including the familiar Wonder Woman theme of powerful women enslaving men (okay, I know that was mostly Moulton's idea).Just to remind you where he ended up, here's Peter's cover for Wonder Woman number 10. By this time Peter had simplified his drawing style considerably (and apparently forgotten much of what he'd learned about drawing).

Johnny Gruelle is permanently linked to Raggedy Ann, his most famous creation. This fame has clouded the fact that he was a versatile illustrator who could work in many styles. I suggest image-Googling him to see for yourself. In 1913 Gruelle would have been 34. The next year he'd be replacing Little Nemo in Slumberland with his remarkable Mr. Twee Deedle. In our first example we find him doing an unusually-straight wash drawing for a typically-unamusing Judge cartoon (someday someone will have to write a monograph on descriptive character names in cartoons and comics).

Fortunately, Gruelle's more typical Judge work involved immense panels offering an aerial view of some big event. They were crammed with amusing detail and plain hard work. The one I've chosen is animal-themed, but most of the ones I have concern human happenings like escaped dogs or exploding fireworks. I want to post more of these; they're technically brilliant and very funny.
Art Young was no newcomer when he drew these panels for Judge. He was almost out of his forties, having been born the year after the Civil War ended! He had studied in Chicago, New York, and Paris. His cartooning career started in the 1880s. Around the turn of the century he became interested in socialism and left-wing causes, an interest which culminated in his stint with The Masses (1911-1918), an influential (and notorious) leftist magazine. He would have been working at that magazine at the same time he drew this atypically slick panel.

My second example is drawn more in the Masses style, which seems to be Young's "mature" style. It shows that despite the cartoonist's championing of the downtrodden he wasn't above having a laugh at the expense of a comical immigrant.

Young's savage cartoons attacked class warfare, racial and sexual discrimination, capitalism, and militarism. They also got him into a heap of trouble, for he and other Masses contributors were indicted for "conspiracy to obstruct the draft" under the Espionage Act, that era's version of the PATRIOT Act. However two trials resulted in hung juries and the charges were dropped.

Following is an illustration from The Masses in which Young pictures the magazine's cartoon staff. Note future "Ash Can" Schoolers John Sloan and George Bellows.

On a personal level, though I've always respected the content of Young's cartoons, I never thought much of his artwork. The cartoons with which I was familiar seemed crude and amateurish. Gathering material for this post I realize that assumption was based on insufficient evidence. His illustration work demonstrates that all his education wasn't for naught. While he wasn't the greatest artist of his day, he was quite competent. He may have developed the sledge-hammer style purposefully, perhaps because he felt it suited his subjects. Or perhaps he was fighting deadlines. Or maybe he just got tired! Who knows? Whatever the reason, Art Young remains an important figure in American cartooning.

Frank Godwin, Illustrator (2)

Why I (heart) Frank
I'm due for a return visit to the library tomorrow for some more Godwin scans. In the meantime I offer a couple of fine samples I found on the Internet. I want to share them both because they're great reproductions and because they show off the many sides of this versatile illustrator. First up is an original Godwin painting from Illustration House. It came without source information.
While a little slicker in finish than many of Godwin's paintings, this presentation of an immigrant family demonstrates that Frank painted as well as he penned. I get a late 1920s vibe from the costuming, though the smooth painting style foreshadows late-1930s and early-1940s illustrations. The husband's face captivates me. His expression tells volumes about his thoughts, his experiences, his personality. A beautiful piece!

Also from Illustration House came this penanink rendition of Christ giving the money-changers what for:I believe this is part of a series Godwin illustrated for Collier's in the late 20s. This is Frank at his black-and-white best. Though Jesus' pose is a bit stiff, it's offset by everything else in the picture. The play of light against dark, the posing of the money-changers, the swirling drapery sculpted by seemingly hasty but actually carefully-drawn pen strokes, the handling of the high- contrast lighting on the men's faces...who could ask for more? This man was born to draw!

There's a lot of Rusty Riley to be found online, of which this is just one.It's a shame the scripts on Rusty Riley were so mundane...Godwin poured all of his skill and experience into the strip . Some of his Rusty drawings are as good as anything he ever did. This particular daily doesn't fall into that category. Technique-wise it's more of a "B/B plus" sort of original. I chose it because of the way it hearkens back to Godwin's Judge days, with the flamboyant caricatures of the painter and the mustachioed art buyer, and their exaggerated poses. I also like the "time lapse" effect of the last two panels. It's a rarity for Godwin. Like most cartoonists of his day he treated panels as a series of tableaux. The trick is really effective here. It's almost like looking at a flip book. Speaking of posing, the two crooks by the window are as lively as the foreground figures.

I saved this one for last...a real find. And a frustrating one! The site I took this from offered scans of a number of obscure early comic strips, mostly Sundays. Many seem to have come from Canadian papers. But there was no info on the pieces and no way to contact the owner. Here is the link to the main page. I recommend following all the sub-links. This magnificent page is surely one of Godwin's early syndicate jobs. In old newspapers there were countless examples of these "montage" pages in which the cartoonist suggested variations on a theme with a series of vignettes. Often these pages seemed like an excuse for the artist to draw his favorite stuff! They certainly brought out the best in many cartoonists--like this one did in Godwin. I'm guessing this was from the late teens or early twenties, as William
S. Hart's star had faded by the mid-1920s.

From the scribbled background lines and the sketchy treatment of the lion it's clear Frank knocked this out in a hurry. The fact that this knocked-out montage is still a knock-out technically demonstrates how great a command Godwin had of his medium and his drawing skills. Little marvels appear everywhere you look. The turbulent drapery on the "nice little spinster" (some spinster!) and her royal suitor...the Kley-like vigor of the thunderstruck Monte Carlo gamblers...everything about that lion!! And check out the hands. As one who's had trouble all his life drawing hands, I'm mesmerized by the way Godwin indicates them with the merest of gestures, yet they burst with convincing life.

Oh, geeze...I'm gushing again. Forgive me my purple prose, I just cain't get enough o' Frank!

George Carlson's Film Fun

Down in Front!
George Carlson (1887-1962) is best known to comics fans for his work in the Jingle Jangle comic books. He had a long career illustrating children's books, including the Uncle Wiggly series. But my favorite Carlson work came from the beginning of his career, when he created "movies" for Judge and Film Fun magazines.

Judge was a humor weekly created in 1881. Its founder was James Wales, who had worked as a cartoonist for Joseph Keppler's Puck magazine. Judge was so similar to its rival that it had trouble catching on. Four years later Wales sold the magazine to millionaire William J. Arkell, who solved the problem by hiring away two of Puck's top people. Arkell was a staunch Republican who used the magazine to trash Grover Cleveland and the Democrats. The formula must have worked, because eventually Judge boasted a circulation greater than Puck's. New talent, including James Montgomery Flagg, Richard Outcault, Art Young, and Frank Godwin joined the magazine. Judge flourished through the early 1920s, but the magazine was dealt a body blow by the Depression from which it never recovered. It went monthly in 1932 and limped to a long-overdue demise in 1947.

In the 'teens Judge began covering the world of (silent) movies, running photos, capsule reviews, interviews and celebrity articles. These features eventually spun off into Film Fun magazine, which had begun as a Judge reprint mag called first Judge's Library, then The Library of Fun. Film Fun is best remembered today for the long series of pinup cover Enoch Bolles painted beginning about 1921.

While George Carlson's comic strips did poke gentle fun at the movies, they were mostly vehicles for his gags. His funny drawings were interspersed with dead-serious title cards and sometimes (as in the case of Lady Godiva's ride), interference by the audience. And of course each film was approved by the Board of Censorship.

These two Carlson movies came from one of Judge-Leslie Company's collections entitled Caricature: the Wit and Humor of a Nation in Picture, Song, and Story, Illustrated by America's Greatest Artists. These hardbound books reprint a mix of cartoons, jokes, and columns from Judge and Film Fun. They often show up in used book stores, usually not in very good shape. Most of the volumes of Caricature I own seem from internal evidence to date from 1911-1919. None of the books have dates and I've seen many content variations. Occasionally some material appears in more than one book. I don't know if anyone has attempted to index them. Could they be, like the old comic book annuals, simply leftover Judge "insides" bound together?