BOOO!!
Hi Everyone! Happy Halloween! Do you remember when big city dailies had LOCAL cartoonists to decorate their pages? In St. Louis in the 1930s through the 1970s we had “Vic Vac” (Victor Vaccarezza), the “Chief Artist” of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. That’s a picture of him up there in the Globe-Democrat art dept. in 1931. He’s in the middle of the photo, near the trash can. He was very adept at funny “crowd” cartoons, and usually did the holiday front covers for the “Sunday” magazine section of the paper. His aerial perspective reminds me of Dudley Fisher’s “Right Around Home with Myrtle” Sunday pages. He had a great Halloween imagination, I like the little green ghost shoving the moon aside so that the haunted house can be moved. In St. Louis, it was a relatively common occurrence for an older home to be moved from one lot to another, sometimes rolling there on large logs placed under the first floor. This cover is from October 28, 1962.
Also from 1962 is this “mystery” daily drawn by Wally Bishop. I saved a few of these because I like dachshunds (sorry, cats). Our first family dog was a dachsie named Schatzie. One day she ran away from us and never returned! My brother and I loved her, and this strip reminds me of her. The dachshund is called “Junior”, here. Anybody know what the strip’s actual title was?
Felix this time is from 2-24 to 3-1-1936. Felix continues to foil Fooy Tu Yu’s gang, and sits on the chimney to their hide out twice, once to warm himself, and once to “smoke” them out. I love Messmer’s dialog in the 2-29, “Again, I laugh at the villains.” That could be the title of a Felix strip collection. In the Sunday (3-1), Felix says Messmer’s favorite word, “Fine”, and Noah says “So!” in the last panel. Where would Otto be without “So and Fine”?
Krazy this time is from 8-12 to 8-17-1940. The strip’s mostly “for the birds”, featuring three days of bird themed gags. In the 8-15, Krazy takes the term “Watch your step”, literally. Krazy’s strict interpretation of stock phrases also is the basis for the 8-17, in which Krazy reads a barometer.
In Patrick, from 5-16 to 5-21-1966, Patrick is true to form, hitting little Suzy, his most ardent admirer, and getting close to Charlie Brown territory as the baseball game is rained out. Godfrey isn’t called upon to do the “rain, rain, go away” gag, that Linus did so well. Speaking of Peanuts, maybe some of you watched “It’s The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown” on ABC last week. I enjoyed seeing old friend Bill Littlejohn’s appealing animation of Snoopy and Lucy. I liked the staging of Snoopy’s emergence from the pumpkin patch as one cel just slides north with an eerie sound effect. If this was an ideal world, ABC would have dedicated the hour to Bill Littlejohn, who passed away just a few weeks ago. The Peanuts specials wouldn’t have been as lively without Bill’s funny drawings. Not so very long ago, we used to look forward to animated specials on television. Now they are very rare critters indeed. And I, for one, don’t look forward to them anymore. Now go out and raid your neighbor’s storehouses, that’s what Halloween is for.
Charles Brubaker says:
“Do you remember when big city dailies had LOCAL cartoonists to decorate their pages?”
I aspired to be an editorial cartoonist some time back, although I backed out when it was getting clear that the newspaper industry weren’t going to recover.
I remember reading an advice from Wiley Miller, a former staff cartoonist for San Fransisco Chronicle and creator of syndicated strip “Non Sequitur”, when he was asked how to make a living in cartooning. His response: work in animation because they pay more. Syndicated cartoonists’ income hasn’t went up since the 1970s so he’s pretty bitter about it, to say the least.
fortunato says:
the strip with the dog Junior is MUGGS McGINNIS (or MUGGS AND SKEETER) by Wally Bishop (syndicated by KFS from 1927 to 1974).
Milton Gray says:
That haunted house cartoon by Vic Vac is awesome! It’s a real delight to look at all the beautifully drawn details. And I was amazed to read that local cartoonists were being paid and published as late as 1962! How I wish that were still happening today!
Charles Brubaker says:
Milton,
There are still local cartoonists on staff at newspapers today, although that number is shrinking every year. As newspapers are crunching budgets, cartoonists are usually the first person laid off.
Why give cartoonists a salary when you can just publish syndicated editorial cartoons for dime-a-dozen?