Fred Ludekens on Clarity and Content

Fred Ludekens was both a renowned illustrator and co-creative director of one of the world's most prominent ad agencies, FCB. He was also a founding faculty member of the Famous Artists School. In the following interview excerpt from the Summer 1964 issue of Famous Artists Magazine Ludekens shares his expertise - advice and learned opinion that would benefit both illustrators and art directors today every bit as much as it was intended to benefit creatives nearly 50 years ago...

Q: What is the most important element in a good advertising illustration?

A: I believe that the basic picture requirement is clarity, and simultaneously, the right content. Clarity and content are synonymous. It little matters how beautiful, compelling and interesting the surface of a picture might be if it does not say the right thing and say it clearly.


The volume of advertising is tremendous. The differences in most products minute. Attention is a major problem. Any time you can "write copy" in a picture using three quarters of the space - or in television clearly demonstrate or explain the idea visually - you are way ahead. You get attention and you get it centered right on the idea.


This takes illustration beyond its role of illustrating words. It becomes a language in itself. It can however only be "successful" if the picture maker is sympathetic, knowledgeable, and objective in his thinking in order to fulfill the requirements of the problem. He is interested primarily in communicating to his audience clearly and convincingly - the promise and benefit of the idea. The means by which he does it should always be planned to do only this, not to dilute the idea.


Q: What, in your opinion, is the value of the picture to the total creative effort in advertising?

A: Offhand I would say it is the instant communication of the idea. In advertising, the picture should be good copy. I believe it should do more than illustrate. It should appeal to the mind and have something to say of substance and meaning.


Often text is written describing the picture, usually saying what the picture has already said. In advertising, I think the picture has a job to do and the text should only say what the picture cannot - the reason, the benefit, the price, and so on.


Q: What contribution does a good illustration make to an advertisement?

A: Content! Content is what you are drawing. That is more important than how you draw. I observe that at this time we are on a "technique jag," which gets in the way of clear communication.


Q: How much of the fundamental copy job rests on the picture?

A: As much as possible. I believe the right picture can be very clear and convincing in setting up sales proposition and interesting people. For the average product little text is necessary. People in advertising are basically copy minded and their idea of a picture is something to illustrate their words. A good picture man with advertising sense can make an outstanding contribution to advertising.


Continued tomorrow.

* My Fred Ludekens Flickr set

Fred Ludekens, Close-up

The Summer 1964 issue of Famous Artists Magazine contains an extensive interview with Fred Ludekens (1900-1982), a member of the Famous Artists School's founding faculty.


Ludekens was born in Huoneme, California on May 13, 1900. When his father died the family moved to Canada and the artist grew up there, in Victoria, BC. After returning to California as a young man, Ludekens took a night class in art at the University of California Extension School. This would be his only formal training. Ludekens enjoyed drawing but was unsure of his ability to pursue commercial art as a profession - so he never submitted a single drawing until the last day of the class. His teacher, Otis Shepard, praised it highly, and this gave Ludekens the confidence to try free-lancing.


Ludekens worked for San Francisco ad agency, Foster and Kleiser painting billboards. In 1931 he joined another SF agency, Lord and Thomas, as an art director and moved in 1939 to that agency's New York office.


He returned to San Francisco in 1945 and devoted himself to illustration for the next period of his career.


He later became co-creative director of one of the most prestigious advertising agencies in the world, Foote, Cone and Belding (FCB).


With his extensive understanding of both the free-lancer's and the art director's perspective on advertising art, Ludeken's interview in Famous Artist Magazine provides the reader with some remarkably astute advice - as relevant today (dare I say, even more so) than when the interview was conducted nearly half a century ago.


This week, let's listen to what Fred Ludekens had to say about commercial art and artists. Along the way we will learn a little about this most distinguished mid-century illustrator - and about ourselves as well.

* My Fred Ludekens Flickr set.

Zip, Zip, Zippo!

"The Newest Gift for Modern Mothers" - I guess they mean the lady we saw in that Joe De Mers illustration on Tuesday.


I love these ads... everyone studiously lighting up with their shiny new Zippo lighters.


Both of these ads from the middle of 1957 were illustrated by "P.W."


I'm stumped by who that might be. But if you think you might know, please drop me a line.


As I wrote in a previous post, I love my Zippo. I quit smoking five years ago... but I still enjoy carrying my Zippo - especially when I go on my annual summer fishing trip up north.


There's just something really satisfying about the substantial weight of a Zippo... the metallic *schlik* of the lid flipping open, the smell of lighter fluid and the crunchy resistance of the flint against that little sparking wheel...


No wonder all these people look so content.

Seriously, if you've never used a Zippo, you have no idea what a pleasant little ritual it provides in the act of fire-making.


Oh, and one last thing: this whole "lighting-each-other's-cigarette" thing may look very romantic. But believe me...


Its a good way to get the tip of your nose burned.


Voice of experience.

* My "Smoking!" Flickr set.

Pall Mall 1941-1962: What did we learn?

Ladies, when a man shows you his cigarette is longer, what's he really suggesting?


Well, if he's your co-star in a Pall Mall ad, he's simply telling you Pall Mall's modern design allows smoke to travel a 20% longer route - and that means a smoother, cooler, less irritating smoke.

See? Sometimes a cigarette is just a cigarette.


With the exception of the 1941 Pall Mall ad above, I can't say what the cigarette manufacturer's campaign strategy was for most of the 1940's. That one ad is the only example I have.

But for the 50's decade - wow - Pall Mall was to smokes what Pepsi was to soda pop. Pall Mall's decade-long campaign was a consistent, focused strategy, appearing regularly and frequently, employing the best Cooper studio artists (and other's of equal calibre) and defining the Pall Mall smoker as sociable, physically active, young, good looking, urban, sophisticated, independent and the centre of attention.

1952 - 53.

The Pall Mall "hero smoker" is very definitely front and centre.


But each ad is designed with a detailed crowd scene to reinforce that everyone smokes Pall Mall's (the effect is almost comical - but then that's why advertising is always so consistently absurd).


1954.

The execs at Pall Mall decide to go full bore. Ads are now huge DPS scenes of large groups of people engaged in fun, energetic activity. Our Pall Mall hero smokers are still front and centre, but the super close-ups have been replaced with a more middle-distance p.o.v.



1955.

Pall Mall continues to commission gorgeous huge DPS's - but there's a subtle change of emphasis. Our Pall Mall hero smoker is now truly heroic. Previously the background crowd scenes were simply there to show that everyone and his brother smokes Pall Mall. Now the strategy shifts to turn all eyes on our hero smoker.


Pall Mall has its illustrators put them quite literally "in the spotlight."



In 1956, just as the Pepsi Sociables did, the Pall Mall hero smokers settle down in a nice suburban backsplit.


1957.

Another parallel with Pepsi: reinforcing the idea that they are the brand of the hip and sophisticated, Pall Mall seeks out hot young illustrators with a bit of stylistic flair. In fact, Pall Mall's astute art directors get bonus points for tapping Bob Peak two years before Pepsi did.


Stylized realism like this might not seem like a giant step forward from today's perspective, but for a major 1950's advertiser like Pall Mall, it must have been quite a stretch.


1958-59.

Pall Mall takes the plunge, producing easily the most avante garde ads of any cigarette maker. The group shot ad below collects what had previously been an inundation of colourful, nearly abstract single page ads executed (you may be surprised to learn) by much beloved children's book and Disney artist, Mary Blair and appearing week to week and month to month throughout 1958.


1962.

Times have changed. Or have they? The Pall Mall hero smokers have been through an awful lot since they first met; two young kids caught up in the chaos of W.W.II.

Pall Mall and the art directors who shepherded its ad campaign through the 50's get much respect from me. While other cigarette manufacturers zigzagged between illustration and photography and tried a wide variety of strategies to lure in new customers, Pall Mall stuck to its guns - and more importantly - consistently favoured illustration for its relentless presentation of the Pall Mall smoker heroes.

So after twenty years, two wars and a decade-long unwavering strategy featuring countless Pall Mall smokers "rewarding themselves", what did we learn...?


"Size matters."


* My "Smoking!" Flickr set.

*Addendum* Ger Apledoorn has posted a wonderful set of 1960's Pall Mall ads by Playboy cartoonist Eldon Dedini

Smokes During Wartime: Hellcats, Kittens, Kisses... and Kools

W.W.II must have been a cigarette marketer's dream. Who wouldn't want to be like Teddy Kenyon, Camel-smokin' Hellcat pilot?


And I know newspaper comic strips were tremendously popular with all ages back in the 1940's, but Camel's comic strip ads must have been particularly alluring to the younger set...


This bit of copywriting below made me smirk. Camels chose a strong female as their celebrity endorser for this ad, but pointedly reinforced that their product is "the Navy man's cigarette." We wouldn't want all those tough-guy smokers out there thinking that Camels are for dames!


By contrast, you'd never know there was a war going on from the looks of Fleetwood Cigarettes ad campaign.


Old Gold ran an amusing series of ads always featuring servicemen and their gals engaged in "I Love Lucy" - style comedic hijinks. Though usually unsigned, a previously presented Old Gold ad by Dorothy Monet can be seen here.


And let's not forget "Willie" the Kool Penguin. Willie wore many hats during his long career as a product mascot... and during "the good war" he pitched in to sell war bonds as did most every cartoon character from Mickey Mouse to Bugs Bunny.


Willy survived the war - but not the "Summer of Love". By the 1960's Willie's ever-diminishing role in Kool ads blinked out. I wrote a humorous post about Willie's demise back in 2006 .

* My "Smoking!" Flickr set

* Speaking of W.W.II pilots, our own Charlie Allen has a brand new CAWS posted over at Charlie Allen's blog. be sure to check it out!

Smokes for Mom!

This one's a gimme, right? Quick - I say "smoking", you say...

"New born baby!"

Huh?


Never has an illustration of mother and child looked so right ... and a concept for a cigarette ad looked so horribly wrong as in this Phillip Morris ad, beautifully executed by Joe De Mers.

Here's a passage from a long-ago correspondence with Barbara Bradley (who occupied the studio next door to De Mers at Cooper's):

Joe de Mers ( Incidentally, Joe pronounced his name de Marz)... My take is that his work previous to Cooper's had been so very different that, as it evolved, it became closer to Coby [Whitmore's]'s for a while. Then, his style began to reflect more and more his watercolor background, the paint became more transparent and the brushwork looser.

As for advertising work, I don't think he minded at all. Joe always seemed so jovial, casual, and laid-back. Any time an advertiser selected one of the "big boys" it was because their illustrative style was wanted so it wasn't such a great jump. Quite a few of them did ads for Pall Mall [and Phillip Morris] Cigarettes. One of Joe's, which I often show my students, (as a study in social history as much as art), features a mother holding her baby in the nursery. On the child's dresser is the ash tray and cigarette. The heading reads, "Oh so Gentle". That's hard to believe today.

Below, another Phillip Morris "Gentle" ad (this time, thankfully, sans baby!) I think this is by another cooper Studio giant - Joe Bowler.


In the same email excerpted above, Barbara wrote:

Now, Coby's work changed a great deal, I think far more than Joe de Mers', but Joe Bowler's also changed tremendously. During my years at Cooper's, Joe Bowler's work was very similar to Coby's: in genre, composition, technique, procedure, and in the loveliness of their women. Bowler had been very young when he was hired as an apprentice at Coopers and Coby must have been his mentor. They became great friends. After I left, I followed their work and saw a growing divergence.

His technique changed, as his medium changed. He had an exciting green period and another golden period when loose stroke filled washes covered most of a page. The biggest change came with his McCall's series of portraits of the Kennedy women and of children in fashion. They were gorgeous and led to his eventual FA work of portraits and commissioned work.


To round out this grouping, another Phillip Morris "gentle" ad, this one by Bob Levering, also of Cooper Studio.

Smokes for Dad!

A day late but -- Happy Father's Day!

Have a carton of smokes! Or two. Or three... or four...?


Times sure have changed, haven't they? I can't believe how absurd this looks from our modern day perspective. I've actually been on the planet long enough that (had my parents been smokers) I'd have considered this perfectly acceptable as a kid. In fact, a great gift idea! I certainly witnessed plenty of little kids buying cigarettes back in the 70's with no more than a "they're for my dad."


But this ad is beyond hilarious. Even Scraps, the dog is getting in on the act. I get the feeling this guy's family is hoping to cash in his life insurance policy - and soon! "Here dad, smoke your brains out. Mom's got State Farm on speed dial."


Its summer... I'm feeling lazy... and I love old cigarette ads. This week we'll dig out another batch and enjoy a chuckle or two.

* My "Smoking" Flickr set.

* Wanna see what I got for Father's Day? Click here and see why I have the coolest kids.

Keith Ward's Texaco Fire Chief Pups

I hadn't really thought about it before but Keith Ward might be able to attach his name to more cartoon product mascots than any other mid-century illustrator.

During W.W. II it was Ward who brought us the "Prophylactic Pigs" (no, I'm not kidding).


A few years later Ward's cigar-chomping, hat-wearing cartoon rhino became the thick skinned spokesbeast for Armstrong Tires...


... and he has long been credited with creating Borden's Elsie the Cow. Although Ward probably illustrated a multitude of Elsie ads (and may even have had a hand in her design), Elsie is actually the creation of David Reid, according to his obituary.


For several years in the early 50's Keith Ward produced a long series of ads for Texaco featuring "The Fire Chief Pups".


Depending on the time of year, Ward's rambunctious litter of Dalmatian puppies regularly appeared in all the major magazines, tirelessly engaged in seasonally appropriate activities.




Pau Medrano (who has provided so many of this week's scans) has a theory that Keith Ward's Texaco Pups may have been of some inspiration for the 1961 animated Disney film, 101 Dalmatians. In fact, he believes that Ward might have been connected with Disney in some manner.


Supporting Pau's theory is a really intriguing post put together by California cartoonist Will Finn on his blog, Small Room, where he shows examples from a 1945 book illustrated by Keith Ward that seem to have greatly influenced the look of the 1973 Disney version of Robin Hood.


So much about Keith Ward's career remains a mystery... but this remarkably talented and versatile artist deserves recognition for his long association with a variety of memorable cartoon product mascots.

* Many thanks to Pau Medrano Bigas for providing so many of this week's scans, as well as all sorts of interesting information.

* My Keith Ward Flickr set.

Eric Gurney's "Smart Bird": The Ethyl Owl

One of the most colourful series of ads of the 1950's was Ethyl Corporation's "Road Birds", by cartoonist Eric Gurney.




These ads highlighted the dopey and dangerous behaviour of dumb birds like "The Bent-Wing Thrasher", "The Darting Road Runner" or "The Low-Flying Loon".


Ever present near the bottom of each ad was our hero: "The Smart Bird" - the Ethyl Owl - Eric Gurney's cartoon mascot creation.


As related in an earlier post on the artist, Eric Gurney began his career in Toronto, Canada. I guess that almost qualifies him as a "Forgotten Canadian Cartoonist" -- not that Gurney is forgotten, but rather that we Canadians forgot he was one of us!


Gurney left Toronto for California in 1938. He spent the next ten years at Walt Disney Studios working on a variety of animated features. In 1948 he went back east and committed his talents to the advertising field. Not long after that, the Road Birds made their debut. Gurney won two National Cartoonist Society awards for advertising art - first in 1961, then again in 1971. During the later years of his career, he illustrated many children's books.


When I look at Gurney's Road Birds grouped together like this, I can't help but wonder if they might have been an early influence on Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, back when he was just a little hotrodder in short pants and a peddle car...

Their outsized bodies in bright colours and detailed inking, and the slightly crazed facial expressions they often sport remind me very much of the hotrod drivin' cartoon monsters Roth popularized in the 1960's "Kustom Kulture" scene.



Eric Gurney passed away in 1992. There is a website... but it seems to be kind of glitchy.

* Many thanks to Pau Medrano Bigas for providing most of today's scans!

* My Eric Gurney Flickr set.

The Provensens & Tony the Tiger

Here's a famous couple. You probably already know quite a bit about the guy on the right, but I'll bet you don't know who created the fellow on the left.


He was designed back in 1952 by another famous couple: Martin and Alice Provensen.


Tony the Tiger's birth was noteworthy enough to make it into the news briefs section of the September 1953 issue of Art Director and Studio News. The short piece mentions that Tony was not the only cartoon mascot intended for Kellogg's Frosted Flakes. There was also Katy the Kangaroo and Zeke the Zebra, and from doing a little research I discovered that Elmo the Elephant and Newt the Gnu were also under consideration.


The article further states that the Provensens worked for Kapes Studio in Chicago. I managed to turn up a late 1952 ad for Kapes - and although it lists what artists the studio repped, Alice and Martin are not among them. Perhaps they joined Kapes at some point early in 1953? We can only guess. But being relatively new in the business, it seems a safe bet that Jack Kapes or one of his sales reps (if he had any) can take the credit for showing the Provensens' portfolio to the Leo Burnett agency and landing them this plum assignment.


And plum it was! The Provensens, more used to the lower-paying fees of the childrens book market, must have earned some lucrative commissions from the extensive magazine ad campaign Kellogg's rolled out for Frosted Flakes.


Along with some decent ad dollars, Tony provided the Provensens with some decent exposure: the illustrations the Provensens created of Tony earned them their only inclusion in the New York Art Directors Club Annuals of the 50's decade. The two ads below were presented at the very front of the "Ad Layout" section of the 1955 AD Annual.

That makes them practically the very first visuals you see as you open the book. I'll bet that didn't hurt the Provensens' reputation!


If you hunt around the Internet, you'll probably find the odd picture of Tony's old friend, Katy the Kangaroo. But what ever became of all the other Provensen critters from that early "Kellogg's Zoo" is a mystery. They seem to have... disappeared.


But there is someone who was lucky enough to get to see all those animals back when they were first created. Just yesterday this note arrived on an earlier Provensen post:

"Just a little note from Alice and Martin's nephew....they INVENTED Tony the Tiger, and Katie the Kangaroo for Kelloggs, I should know, I, and my little brother in the early 50s were part of a childrens group brought together to access which charters we liked best. Tony and Katie were the winners.........Erik Provensen"

* My Alice & Martin Provensen Flickr set.

* Many thanks to Flickr friends Roadside Pictures and Wishbook, who generously shared their Tony the Tiger scans for todays post!

Robert Osborn's Uniroyal Tigerpaws

Remember the Uniroyal Tiger Paws? They had the coolest animated commercials when I was a little kid.

I had all but forgotten about this one-of-a-kind character, but thanks to Pau Medrano Bigas in Barcelona, not only are we seeing this great old cartoon advertising mascot today...


... but Pau has pointed out that the Tiger Paws was born out of the fertile imagination of cartoonist Robert Osborn.


Osborn had a knack for seeing an edgy, slightly ominous quality in his subjects. His characters were never just funny or cute. They often exposed something a bit... unsettling.

In Gene Byrnes' 1950 book, The Complete Guide to Cartooning, Osborn writes, "It seems to me that any cartoon or painting, or piece of sculpture, can do more than merely copy nature..."


"... a copy never has the 'zing' of the real thing and inevitably seems dead compared to nature. But and artist can bring out of his imagination a new and real thing..."


"... which can stand on its own feet and isn't an imitation of something else."


Osborn could easily have been talking about his Tiger Paws creation.


Talk about 'zing'! This bizarre hybridization of aggressive predator and aggressive muscle car, born out of Osborn's seemingly limitless imagination, was unlike any other cartoon mascot ever conceived.


Cartoon mascots are typically friendly and inviting. Not Osborn's Tiger Paws. They were designed to appeal to those looking for the cool, the aggressive, the powerful. No cartoonist of the day could have been a more perfect choice to design such a character than Robert Osborn.



And here's a first for Today's Inspiration: video! I found a couple of those tv commercials from back in the day. Now that I know the Tiger Paws character was created by Osborn, it gives seeing these again a new depth and perspective.


Enjoy, youngsters! They don't make 'em like this any more!


*Over on Drawger, Stephen Kroninger shares a multitude of examples of Robert Osborn's work. Well worth taking a good long look.

*Robert Osborn's biography on Wikipedia

* My thanks to Pau Medrano Bigas for his Uniroyal Tiger Paws scans which appear in today's post.

Ad Boy: A Celebration of Cartoon Product Mascots

Advertising mascots are near and dear to my heart. As a kid I loved to study them - whether they were on the rows of gumball machines at the supermarket or on the box of cereal I was working my way through at the breakfast table or on the backer cards of the many boxes arranged along the candy counter of my local convenience store. But I never imagined that one day I'd grow up to draw many of those same iconic characters.

Over the last twenty years I've designed, redesigned (or simply drawn new artwork of) dozens of cartoon mascots for advertising and packaging clients...


So when Warren Dotz asked me to review his new book, Ad Boy, which collects "more than 500 ad characters, industry icons and product personalities from the 1950's, 60's and 70's" I was happy to do so.


Warren Dotz and Masud Husain previously released a similar volume, Meet Mr. Product. Ad Boy is a sort of Meet Mr. Product 2.0 - bigger and brighter, designed with more of an emphasis on "eye-candy" appeal, and containing many new surprises from the authors' seemingly bottomless collection of mid-century product mascot artwork.


The authors have collected images from a diverse range of products into a multitude of categories like "Cats & Dogs", "Chefs", and "Devils". each category includes a brief write-up that provides some context of pop culture trends the authors have observed as they assembled their images.


These descriptions are concise and insightful... if perhaps a bit abbreviated for my tastes. Mind you, I might be a bit of an odd case since I'm perhaps more interested in the history of mid-century commercial art than the typical reader would be. I won't fault Dotz and Husain for deciding to give more space to the visuals than they did to the words. The purpose of this book is to showcase the art of the cartoon mascot, and it does the job admirably.


Of all the areas in which an illustrator might choose to specialize, I doubt there is one in which the artist works with such anonymity. I mean, let's face it, you don't generally sign a cereal box! So I was not surprised when Warren told me he has no real information on the creators of the characters in Ad Boy.

Happily, over the last few years we've discovered the identities of some of these cartoon mascot creators right here on this blog. For example, only last week we learned the story of Bob Jones and the Esso Tiger (who makes an appearance in Ad Boy - how 'bout that).


Late last week TI list member Pau Medrano Bigas very kindly sent the beautiful selection of Esso Tigers below for us to enjoy. And with Pau's help, we'll spend this week looking at the work of several creators of mid-century cartoon product mascots.


Pau, who lives in Spain, did his Doctoral Thesis in Graphic Design on the subject of "character trademarks and promotional characters in advertising" - specifically the advertising of automobile tires in America from 1880s to 1940s. *Whew!*


Pau writes that he has "hundreds and hundreds (well, thousands) of old ads about my theme of interest" and we are grateful that he will share some of these with us - as well as his expertise in this area.


So, picking up on the topic explored broadly in Warren Dotz and Masud Husain's terrific bookAd Boy, let's narrow our focus and celebrate a handful of that group of nearly-anonymous creators (and I'm proud to count myself among their number)...


... the real Ad Boys (and Ad Girls), the illustrators of cartoon product mascots.

* Ad Boy can be ordered from the Ad Boy website

* Attention Picture Makers: Jeff Andrews of Sugar Frosted Goodness is running a contest for a free copy of Ad Boy. This week's SFG Challenge: simply submit a piece based on the theme "Vintage Advertising Characters." Sounds like fun - sharpen your Wacom tablets and give it a try!

* My thanks to Pau Medrano Bigas for his Esso Tiger scans which appear in today's post.

* my Bob Jones Flickr set.

Bob Jones: Of Mice and... Mendola (oh, and Mad magazine)

From The Art of Humorous Illustration by Nick Meglin:

In 1957 Jones worked up a full color illustration of a cute mouse with a hammer breaking a Christmas candy jar. He brought the design to the Book-of-the-Month Club. Besides their vast book-by-mail operation, this organization also produces their own line of Christmas greetings for sale to Club members. The Club purchased it. Since that time Jones has sold a new animal painting for this purpose each year developing a series.


The second design depicted a mouse-dog situation, the third and fourth a mouse-cat,


... and finally, from the fifth design on, the mouse-cat-dog trio.


This "family" of characters has proven to be a favorite with the club members year after year.


Nick Meglin's interview with Bob Jones for The Art of Humorous Illustration resulted in a lucky break for the artist. Bob told me, "After we finished the interview, Nick said, "Why don't you bring your portfolio to Mad and we'll see if we can get something for you."

Below, the first cover Bob ever did for Mad. Bob said, "That was my body, where he's holding the rabbit." He laughs, "Of course I put Alfred E. Neuman's head on it!"


Bob initially did some interior art, but says, "I never got into the stuff like Mort Drucker and those guys. Jack Davis and all those guys doing these huge things with thousands of figures! I never got into that."

Although work for Mad did not pay as well as Bob's advertising clients, he emphasizes "that style of art was extremely popular in the 60's, 70's and 80's... and I got a lot of work because of the stuff I did for Mad. I was more than happy to work for them. You know, sometimes there's that void in your work schedule... and I was grateful for Mad being there to fill that."


As well, Bob fondly remembers the Mad artists with whom he attended the famous Bill Gaines annual trips the publishers threw each year for his "usual gang of idiots."

Bob tells me, "They were all wonderful people."

In the years after leaving the Cooper studio Bob says, "I did a lot of stuff for General Foods. I did Fred Flintstone on the back of cereal boxes for years. Coco Pebbles and all that stuff? -- for years -- and boy, that was good money!"

He chuckles, "Nothing lasts forever, let me tell you that!"

Art by Bob Jones? Perhaps..., with thanks to grickily. This scan is from his Flickr collection.

"At that time," says Bob, "I had Exxon, General Food, I was working for Mad... and I had other freelance stuff. I was working so hard... and I loved the stuff, but... I was working so hard I was killing myself. I was thinking, "How do I get out of this?"

Bob's workload during those years might explain why, when I asked him about the album cover below, he couldn't remember ever doing it. "Did I sign it?" he initially asked, and even when I sent him the scan, he replied, "I have absolutely no recollection that I did that. But my name on it tells it all----oh well."


Bob said he only did 4 or 5 album covers, and (with the exception of this forgotten one) they were all humorous in nature. "Incidentally, the head art director of RCA Records was also named Bob Jones," he chuckles, "and they used to call him 'Bob Jones Sr.' and me 'Bob Jones Jr'."

During those post- Cooper days, Bob was represented by Joe Mendola but, he says that eventually "for some reason that Mad magazine style of stuff started dropping off. So I left Joe, because I wasn't making any money with him."



Peter Schlegel, a former Mendola salesman, became Bob's next rep. "Peter left Joe and I went away with him," says Bob. "Peter was also interested in landscape painting which I was doing at that time (and which I'm doing now)."


"Peter was a wonderful agent and a wonderful guy. He was terrific. He passed away about five years ago."


Bob's tireless interest in seeing what he was capable of is the reason he has enjoyed such a varied career. His beautiful landscapes are the latest example of how he enjoys rising to the challenge. "Its why I took up painting," he says. His attitude has always been, as he puts it, "Let's see if I can do this."

Bob pauses thoughtfully and concludes, "Its been a great career... I've had a wonderful time."

* My Bob Jones Flickr set.

* Many thanks to Nick Meglin for allowing me to excerpt a passage from his book, The Art of Humorous Illustration. A revised edition, Humorous Illustration, is available and contains much more about Bob Jones, including sections on Bob's materials and techniques!

* My thanks to Heritage Auctions for allowing me to use the two Mad magazine cover scans in this post.

* Finally, thanks to Dan Goodsell for the use of his Fruity Pebbles scan in this post.

Bob Jones and the Esso Tiger

"It was 1964," Bob begins, "and I was working at Cooper's. One of the salesmen came to me and said, "Exxon wants a tiger."


"This was on a Friday... and they needed it on Monday. I said, "Oh, god, I can't do that - I'm working on another job." ( I was doing a paperback cover). But he said, "Come on, just give it a try." So I went home and I made this sketch of a tiger, and I gave it to the salesman on Monday... and for, like, 4 or 5 weeks we didn't hear anything."

"Finally, we get a call to go down to McCann-Erikson... and I go into this room and there's this room full of tiger drawings pinned to the wall! Every artist in the city (or, I dunno, the country) tried out for this... anyway... they picked mine!"


He chuckles, "And I said, "wow, to think I almost didn't do it!"

"Well, I was kind of with Chuck at the time (when I did the initial sketch)... and then we didn't hear anything... and then I had left Chuck, because work had really fallen off at the studio. And then all of a sudden the Exxon stuff started pouring in."


"One day it occurred to me... I had started this when I was with Chuck, and it was advertising work. So I said, "I owe Chuck some money." So I went to him... and I can't remember what it was exactly but in a couple of months I made something like 8 thousand bucks. And I went to give Chuck half of it... and he wouldn't take it."

"He said, "Bob, you keep it"... and then he took me out to lunch."


"Chuck was a helluva guy. He was like a father to us."

* My Bob Jones Flickr set.

* Thanks to Nick Meglin for allowing me to excerpt the b/w sketches above from his book, The Art of Humorous Illustration. A revised edition, Humorous Illustration, is available and contains much more about Bob Jones, including sections on Bob's materials and techniques!

Bob Jones: "Drawing is drawing, whether it's realistic or not."

Considering the many examples we've looked at so far this week of Bob Jones' cartoon styles, today's images present a startling contrast. Most illustrators are pigeon-holed into producing the same sort of thing over and over. A lot of artists like it that way, sticking to their preferred 'signature style' and (often) subject matter. Not Bob Jones.

When I spoke with Bob earlier today he said, "I enjoyed doing everything. I enjoyed the challenge of saying, "Let's see if I can do this."


When Neil Shapiro interviewed Bob for his thesis on The Cooper Studio (a version of which later appeared as an article in Illustration # 16) Bob said:

" I started out as a kind of a cartoonist/decorative/humorous artist. Then I saw what these other guys were doing -- Coby (Whitmore), Joe (Bowler), Bernie D'Andrea, Jon Whitcomb -- & I thought well, if this boy/girl stuff is what they are doing at the studio, I'd better get with it. Frank Kilker, the art director at The Saturday Evening Post, for whom I'd done some work, said, "You can draw, you can paint -- why don't you try this more realistic look?" So I did some samples. They said "this is fine", & the Post sent me a manuscript. I worked for them for about six years doing realistic stuff -- all from the influence of the Cooper Studio. It was done out of desperation -- I had a mortgage & four kids. I had to do something to get work."


What Bob would really have loved to focus on was the sort of 'humorous realism' he admired so much in the work of artists like Al Dorne and James Williamson but, he told Neil, "there wasn't much work around, at least for me at that particular time."

In spite of all that, Bob managed to sneak in a humorous touch here and there even when he was doing his 'straight' style (as in the example below). When Neil shared the comments from his 1996 Bob Jones interview with me, he added the following...

"When I said that even though he claimed the realistic work was done out of desperation, it was loose & free & sophisticated, he replied "...If you can draw & paint, & understand what is going on, you can do anything from cartoons to the Sistine Chapel! Drawing is drawing, whether it is realistic or not."

"Interesting, eh? I was really impressed by the matter-of-fact recitation of his working decisions."


Recently I discovered the Bob Jones piece below, from a 1958 Cosmopolitan magazine. As Bob's realistic romance style goes, it predates by a year all the Bob Jones romance art I've found in the Post. But Bob is quite convinced that Post AD, Frank Kilker never saw this piece, and that it wasn't the basis for Bob getting those boy/girl story assignments from Kilker.


"Frank Kilker used to come down from Philadelphia to Cooper's once a week," says Bob. "I had been on one of those Air Force trips the guys went on... and I did a realistic painting of a fighter dropping a napalm bomb. He was kind of impressed by that and said, "Gee, you can draw, you have a good sense of colour... I'll send you a 'regular' script, with realistic people."

"I said "OK" (he chuckles) " And that's how that happened."


One thing I noticed as I compiled images for this post was what appeared to be a reoccuring female character in a lot of Bob's romance illustrations. Bob thinks this might be Phyllis Newell, a model that many of the Cooper artists used frequently.


For the next couple of years, around 1960 - '61, the Post became a steady client for Bob's romance art. "The Post paid $600 for a single page illustration," he says, "but I tell ya, after you paid your modelling fees and all that, $600 didn't go very far."

I asked Bob if all those romance illustrations for the Post ever lead to him getting assignments for paperback romance covers. He says, "Yes it did. I did a few... but most of the paperback covers I did were mostly humorous. There were so many guys who were so much better than I was at romance art. That's such a special art."


Here's a fun thing I noticed: almost hidden in this 1960 romance illustration, a drawing of a cartoon dog hints at Bob's past...


... and what lay ahead for him.

Tomorrow: The Esso Tiger

Bob Jones in Grade 2: "Well, this is what I'm going to do!"

Here's how Bob Jones first knew he would one day become an artist: as a boy growing up in Beverly Hills in the 1930's, Bob loved to spend his summers fishing at the family summer house on Long Beach. "In Second Grade at grammar school," Bob recalls, "my teacher came up with an assignment one day... she said, "Everybody draw a fish."


"Well I thought to myself, oh hell, this is no problem."


"After I finished, everybody said, "Wow! What an incredible drawing!" Bob laughs as he remembers that day... "I said, well, this is what I'm going to do!"

"I used to copy all the Disney characters... Mickey, Goofy... and all the newspaper comics, like Popeye... I did all the yearbooks, I did posters for high school. I was a terrible student in school (I had a C-plus average!) but because of all the yearbook stuff, all the posters, I was voted 'Most Likely to Succeed!' "


At age 16 (during World War II) Bob got a job as an 'in-betweener' - the artist who draws the the several steps in between the two ends of an animated action - at Warner Brothers. At age 18 he enlisted in the Navy and became a cartoonist for a Navy newspaper. After the war ended, Bob still had six months of duty to complete. He served out those months at a Naval base in Jacksonville, FL, drawing a Navy newspaper comic strip he created called ' Jackson Wolf Esq.'

After his service he attended USC for two years, taking art courses - then moved over to Art Center School in Los Angeles because he "really wanted to be a commercial artist." In the midst of all that education, Bob also got married.

"When I showed my portfolio to the head of the art school at the end of my time there he said, "You could stay in L.A. or move to San Francisco, Chicago or New York." I didn't feel L.A. was going to be the right place for my kind of stuff... but I hated to leave California. I mean a move across the street was traumatic! But my wife and I discussed it and we figured, what the hell, let's go to New York -- if we're gonna move, then we might as well really move."


Bob explains, "What really convinced me was my wife's father went to school with Willard Mullin. He happened to be visiting out there in California, and he said, "let's see your portfolio." So I showed it to him and he said, "God, you're crazy if you don't come to New York!"

"He said, "You can stay with me and Helen at our place in Long Island until you get situated."

"So I stayed at Willard Mullin's for a couple of weeks. I went around with my portfolio all over the place, and I got a job right away from American magazine for a little travel thing. So I thought, wow - this is easy!"


"The rumour at Art Center was that Cooper Studio was really the place to be -- and Barbara Briggs got a job there. So I made an appointment... and I saw Chuck. Sheilah Becket (example below) had just left, and my work kind of filled in where Sheilah Beckett used to be. So Chuck hired me!"


"He said, "How much do you want to make?" And I said, "Gee, I dunno... um.. sixty bucks a week?" and he kinda snickered. He said, "I'll start you at a hundred a week." and I damn near fainted. That sounded like all the money in the world!" Bob chuckles, " A hundred bucks a week was a big deal then, in 1952."

Bob began illustrating right away. "The first job I got was a sketch of a baby blanket on a baby lamb. And I thought, boy, I gotta knock myself out on this sketch." He chuckles again as he recalls the occasion, "Well they bought the sketch as a finish!"

After a year or two, Chuck Cooper would change the arrangement with his artists. As they became established, the studio would split the commission on advertising jobs 50/50 with the illustrator... but all were encouraged to try to get editorial (story) assignments - and Cooper took none of that fee at all. Bob got his first big Saturday Evening Post job (below) in 1955. He explained to me that the Post paid $1,200 for a double page spread - quite a jump in pay from a $100-dollar-a-week salary.


That first spread must have been well received, because it lead to three or four more assignments of a similar nature.


"The next one was an alligator," says Bob. "Bernie D'Andrea really saved my neck on that one!"


Bob explains, "I was gonna put him on a couch and everything and Bernie says, "No, no, put him on the floor with pillows - to Hell with the couch!" (Bob chuckles) "and it turned out great!"




Bob says, "That animal stuff, that stylized stuff... that was what I was doing then (at the beginning) but I really wanted to get into more realistic stuff. I was a big admirer of Albert Dorne and a guy named Jim Williamson.


"They were kind of 'realistic/humorous' illustrators. I was really interested in humorous illustration."


This 1957 assignment for Outdoor Life may have been an early opportunity for Bob to try his hand at 'realistic humorous' illustration.


"I never set animal drawing apart from the rest of my work, " Bob once said in an interview with Nick Meglin for the book, The Art of Humorous Illustration. "I feel that drawing is drawing, whatever the subject... so its surprising that I've become a 'specialist" in this area. Naturally, I'm pleased at such favorable response to my animal work, but I'm confused by the whole thing."

* My Bob Jones Flickr set.

Mrs. Boopert's Friend, Bob

Long-time readers will already know that Barbara Bradley was one of my favourite people. This week I'd like to tell you about one of Barbara's favourite people: Bob Jones. From almost the very beginning of our long and regular correspondence, Barbara was talking about Bob... the two had known each other since their art school days, when both attended Art Center School in Los Angeles.


What I knew about Bob Jones at the time didn't extend far beyond the beautiful romance story illustrations I had found in the Saturday Evening Post (like the example below). To assist me in expanding my knowledge of Bob's career, Barbara kindly sent me a copy of a letter she had written to Bob on the occasion of his 80th birthday... a letter filled with happy memories of their shared past.


"Its been over fifty years since we met," begins Barbara's letter, "I still think of you as a very special friend in my life... and my best friend at Cooper's."


"We both know what a great place Cooper's was and how lucky we were to get our starts there. Cooper's, with its great illustrators, its supportive learning atmosphere, and Chuck himself, guiding us novices, was almost everything a beginning artist could hope for. The only thing it wasn't was a place where a woman artist could make friends."

"Like most businesses then, Cooper's was a 'Good Ol' Boys' world. The other two women artists were married to Cooper artists. Everyone was nice and helpful but, until you arrived at Cooper's, my only pal was the researcher, Jeanne Mahoney. She seemed so worldly to me yet she was good company for this kid right out of art school."

"You, however, were a kindred soul. We had Art Center in common. We had California in common. We liked the same kind of art, colorful, designy, lively and fun. And, though you joined Cooper's only a little later than I had, your arrival made you the new kid on the block. In you, I gained an artist pal, one who became a good friend and a great pal in my remaining years at Cooper's."


"I still remember your just-after-Art-Center portfolio, full of wonderful color and charming stylized figures and animals."


"Do you remember Boopert Bigges? A magazine subscription was sent to our house with Herbert Briggs mistakenly written as "Boopert Bigges". After that, you always called me "Mrs. Boopert".


"You gave me a wonderful drawing of "A Boopert Bird sitting on a Boopert Egg". That drawing is tucked away somewhere in the house. I wish I could find it now."


When I spoke with Bob Jones a few months ago we talked about Barbara. Bob said, "We were really close friends and I really admired her. We were at art school together and she was about a year ahead of me and I idolized her. I thought, "This woman is incredible!" She could draw - oh! - she was really tops."


"It was really a wonderful friendship... we would go out to lunch together often. It was a great friendship."

(Below, an early 50's colouring/activity book cover illustrated by Barbara Bradley (at the time, Barbara Briggs)

Posing at far-right in this reference photo, the young Bob Jones ( as a point of interest, the model playing the bride is Tippi Hedron).


Barbara returned to California in 1955 and enjoyed a long and illustrious career there, both as an illustrator and as an educator, eventually rising to Director of Illustration at Academy of Art University. In 2007, she returned to New York to accept the Outstanding Educator in the Arts Award from the Society of Illustrators. In attendance for the ceremony was her old friend Bob Jones. Bob described the moment when, after all those years, the two old friends met:

"Someone said to Barbara, "Do you recognize this gentleman?" and she said, "Nooo..." so I said, "Hello Mrs. Boopert."


"And she said Oh! Bob Jones!"

* My Bob Jones Flickr set.

Canada's Forgotten Cartoonists: Duncan MacPherson, Bert Grassik

By special request from my pal, Jeff Norwell, here are some gorgeous examples of Duncan MacPherson's early work for MacLean's magazine.


I hadn't really intended to include MacPherson in this week's series because I don't consider him a "forgotten cartoonist"...



His entry in the Canadian Encyclopedia tells us MacPherson was "regarded as having been one of Canada's best political cartoonists, Macpherson received the ORDER OF CANADA, the Royal Academy Medal, The CANADA COUNCIL's Molson Prize and six National Newspaper awards for his work at the Toronto Star."


I have wanted to show you these beautiful drawings by MacPherson (so reminiscent of the work of one of my favourite illustrators, Robert McCloskey) for a very long time. So Jeff's request gives me an excuse to do that this week.


And though MacPherson is probably not forgotten by Canadians, I suspect this tremendously talented cartoonist is unknown by readers from other countries.

What might be forgotten is some of the interesting techniques the young MacPherson experimented with in his early days...


... before settling into the more typical inked line style that one expects to see from an editorial cartoonist. Here's an early example of what would eventually become his well known intricately detailed ink drawing.


As this brief note from 1951 mentions, MacPherson burst on the scene at Maclean's right out of art college - but the then 27-year-old artist had been working professionally for several years while simultaneously attending school.


Sharing MacPherson's designation as an editorial cartoonist (as well as being a fellow regular contributor to MacLean's) - but far more likely to qualify as "forgotten" - is Bert Grassik.


Grassik's work had a very direct, energetic quality that I think will be much appreciated by my fellow "ink studs" - his lines look like he attacked the page with gusto! Grassik had an admirable ability to say a lot with relatively little in the way of finicky detail.


This kind of 'visual shorthand' is sometimes dismissed as simple or easy... but it takes tremendous skill and understanding of both your subject matter and your drawing equipment to do what Bert Grassik did. He managed to make it look effortless.


"Charles Albert Grassick was born in 1909 in Victoria, B.C. and soon after moved to Winnipeg, Manitoba where he grew up with his three brothers. When Grassik was 13, his father died, and the boy was forced to quit school and go to work to help support his family. In spite of numerous cartooning awards from the Winnipeg Tribune for his submissions it was felt that he should provide for the family while his older brother was sent to art school."


"Due to years of noisy factory work he became hearing impaired in both ears causing him to become isolated, quiet and reserved."


"At the age of 20 (1929) he hopped a freight train to Toronto to seek his fortune and was hired on first at Rabjohn Enterprises, then at Clement Saila & Co. as an illustrator."


"By the beginning of the 1950's his recognition gained him a position as the daily political cartoonist for the Toronto Telegram where he remained throughout the decade (1959). He had a short foray into the new frontier of television as the caricaturist for a game show on CBC entitled "Whozit" where a guest panel was given verbal clues while he sketched visual ones until someone guessed the right answer. However it was short lived and not to his introverted liking."


"His often award winning cartoons garnered attention from many sources including that of Mayor Nathan Phillips. He then proceeded to join the Disney team at Canaline (again with Clem Saila) where he remained until the age of 73."


"He also freelanced cartoons regularly for MacLean's Magazine and several other publications throughout his career and taught cartooning at the Ontario College of Art. Bert Grassick died in 1998 at the age of 89."


* Here I must thank my friend, Jaleen Grove, for undertaking the Herculean task of putting together The Index of Canadian Illustrators wiki . If not for Jaleen's efforts, I would have only been able to tell you the above cartoons were done by "someone named Grassik". The biographical information above is taken from Bert Grassik's entry on Jaleen's site.


Of course there were plenty of other Canadian cartoonists who we have (mostly) forgotten... but they will have to wait for another occasion. For now, we're done with this topic.

Canada's Forgotten Cartoonists: Des English, Ken Zeeley

Here's what I can tell you about Canadian cartoonist, Desmond English: absolutely nothing. Talk about "forgotten"!


Really, I was lucky to find a couple of credit lines that included a first name... until then he was simply "English" to me.


At first I wondered if he was even from Canada, because Canadian magazines often 'picked up' (bought second printing rights to) American illustrations and cartoons. But the topic-specific artwork in the column below convinced me that English must have been specifically commissioned to do the related cartoons.


Des English was a very regular contributor to both of Canada's biggest consumer magazines, MacLean's and Chatelaine, in the early 50's...


... he seems to have dropped out of sight later in the decade. I found no hint of him anywhere on the Internet.


Next, Ken Zeeley, who had two pieces accepted into the 2nd Art Directors Club of Toronto Annual in 1950. I can tell you a bit about Zeeley, since I was able to speak with someone who knew him.


Gerry Sevier began illustrating in Toronto in the late 1950's, working at a studio called Bomac. Gerry believes that Ken Zeeley was also at Bomac during the late 50's - but left for another studio called Art Associates. He says Zeeley not only left Bomac, but that he left cartooning as well!


This 1962 piece below may be some of Zeeley's last work, because according to Jerry, Zeeley became a salesman at Art Associates around the time Gerry joined that studio in 1962. Gerry says, "I don't know how long he (Zeeley) stayed there, but after a few years he left to become an art director at CBC."


The two men continued to enjoy a professional acquaintance for many years, and Zeeley occasionally commissioned work from Gerry. We can only guess why Ken Zeeley chose to leave cartooning, but Gerry seems to feel that he may have had trouble getting enough work. "The business really changed around 1960," he says.

Canada's Forgotten Cartoonists: Len Norris

Recently David Apatoff wrote about his fondness for artists who 'draw a crowd'.


"Most artists working under a deadline look for shortcuts. They do a good job, but they want to complete a picture as efficiently as possible and get paid," wrote David.


"But some artists just seem to love making marks on paper, and they regularly create unnecessarily grand challenges for themselves, like these ambitious crowd scenes."

Len Norris would, I think, qualify for that latter category.


According to Kathy Marotz, head of the Belzburg Library at Simon Fraser University, "Leonard Matheson Norris was born in London, England, in 1913 and immigrated to Port Arthur, Ontario with his family in 1926."


"He moved to Toronto during the Depression, studied for a year at the Ontario College of Art and then worked as an advertising artist 1938-40. Following army service in World War II, Norris became an art director for Maclean Hunter Ltd., before joining the staff of The Vancouver Sun in January 1950."

Norris is renowned for his four decades of service providing editorial cartoons to The Sun... "He received the Bruce Hutchison award for lifetime achievement in journalism, a national Newspaper Award for best cartoons in Canada, and was elected to the News Hall of Fame in 1978," writes Marotz.


Norris' continuing freelance work for Maclean's magazine during the 50's is only briefly touched upon -- and that's a shame -- because he invested an incredible amount of effort into these extra assignments, as seen in these detail croppings.


Marotz continues, "Norris considered himself a social commentator rather than a political cartoonist, saying: "I get at the events from the viewpoint of the readers themselves, looking at how the news affects them."


I would add that his keen sense of observation and ability to portray a broad range of interesting and amusing character types reinforces the idea of Norris as a social commentator.


Because Norris' people are fun to look at - full of personality. You can't help but contemplate their intentions and invent scenarios for them.


As with most other mid-century Canadian cartoonists, Len Norris was completely unknown to me. But in researching this post, I discovered the website at Simon Fraser University, where Norris donated 1,500 of his original drawings - editorial cartoons created for The Vancouver Sun between 1952 and 1985. At that site, you can see nearly two dozen examples of the artist's work from the various decades of his career. Well worth a look!


Norris' last editorial illustration appeared in The Sun on his retirement in 1988. He died in Langley, BC on August 12, 1997.

Canada's Forgotten Cartoonists: Peter Whalley

In his forward to The Collected Doug Wright, Vol. 1, the book's designer, Seth, remarks... "During these years I'd also been studying and collecting other Canadian cartoonists as well. They all had two things in common with Wright:"

"1.) They had produced a fascinating body of work."


"2.) They were largely forgotten."

One of the cartoonists Seth mentions is Peter Whalley, an artist whose work I was familiar with from my collection of old magazines, but had always assumed was an American, because his deceptively simple style reminded me so much of some of the gag cartoonists you might find in The New Yorker or Playboy. In fact, Whalley was born in 1921 in Brockville, Ontario and, after serving in the merchant marine during W.W.II, he moved to Quebec, where he lived until his death in 2007.


Here's one of my favourite pieces by Peter Whalley.


The editors' comment suggests that they didn't actually grasp how subtly clever Whalley's cartoon cover really is...


For those who didn't have the benefit of getting an art education in Canada, I'll explain. Every country has a certain heritage of art with which it is immediately identified. The French have the Impressionists, for instance, and when we think of the Renaissance we think of Italy. In Canada, we learn about the art of our Native Inuit people...


Cornelius Kreighoff, who famously painted the pioneer days...


... and of course, the Group of Seven.

Whalley shows all of those earlier artists content in the act of creating; inspired by the vast beauty of nature that is so abundant in Canada.


But the (then current) abstract expressionist, free to 'express himself' in any way he chooses, unconstrained by any requirements to appeal to an audience, sits sulking in a dirty, cramped studio, sullenly ignoring the beauty just outside his door. Hilarious!


Peter Whalley's daughter said that her father was "certainly not pretentious" and that "he would wince at the idea that he was an artist." But after the war, he moved to Montreal with the intention of becoming "a serious artist." In the end, however, cartooning won out because, Whalley said, "it paid more."


Whalley enjoyed a long and successful career producing cartoons for books, magazines, television... even advertising.


He also did film strips (remember film strips?) for the National Film Board of Canada.

Roy Peterson, editorial cartoonist at the Vancouver Sun said of Peter Whalley, "What is really amazing is that he was able to make a living freelancing at a time when there weren't any freelance cartoonists in the country."


In his later years, Whalley devoted himself to doing sculpture, even building his own foundry in Morin Heights, Quebec, where he lived until the end of his life.



When The Montreal Gazette's Alan Hustak wrote Peter Walley's obituary, he began by saying the artist "was one of the first cartoonists in Canada to display a warped, sardonic sense of humour on the editorial pages of a newspaper..." This group of cartoons below certainly demonstrates that quality to great effect. (And note the final gag, where Whalley once again pokes fun at abstract expressionism)



And here's something neat: on the CBC website, there's a short little television interview with Peter Whalley from 1959!
Click here to go to the CBC page and watch the interview.

The organizers of the Doug Wright Awards have inducted Peter Whalley into their "Giants of the North" Hall of Fame.

Canada's Forgotten Cartoonists: Doug Wright

Today is my 45th birthday (45 years old - yikes! how'd that happen?!)

Well the good people at Raincoast Books sent me a birthday present: this gorgeous large format coffee table book, The Collected Doug Wright, Vol. 1!


Naw, I'm kidding about it being a birthday present. It did arrive just days before my birthday but they actually sent it to me hoping I would review it here on the TI blog. Well, thanks good people at Raincoast! I am only too happy to oblige -- and for a couple of excellent reasons: first, because this is an absolutely beautiful and fitting tribute to a tremendously talented and prolific cartoonist who deserves better than to be forgotten in obscurity, and second, because Doug Wright was a Canadian cartoonist based in Hamilton, Ontario... and I am a Canadian cartoonist based in Hamilton, Ontario! So this one's for the hometown team - yeah! Go Hamilton Cartoonists!


This book is a labour of love conceived of and beautifully designed by internationally acclaimed cartoonist Seth, with a thoroughly fascinating biographical section researched and written by Brad McKay. I'd love to shake the hands of both these gentlemen for their dedication in making this handsome volume a reality. Even though Doug Wright's Family was an important part of the comic strip culture of my youth, I had all but forgotten it ever existed. When I showed this book to friends and family they all reacted as I did: surprise... delight... and recollection. I wouldn't doubt that millions of Canadians of a certain age ( uhh, that would be age 45 ) would likewise recall spending time with Doug Wright's Family each weekend in their local papers.

For those who care about such things, let me tell you, the design of this book will just about make you weep tears of joy. I don't know how many books Seth has designed, but if there are more like this to come, Chip Kidd better watch his back. (As if Seth weren't already talented enough as a cartoonist. Yeesh!)


Before you even get close to the 'main course' of this book (the seemingly endless pages of Doug Wright's Nipper comics) you will spend hours luxuriating in the front section. Here you'll learn the fascinating details of Doug Wright's early struggles to develop a syndicated comic strip. Even for those of us who think we know Doug Wright's work, there are many revelations, such as the fact that Wright's big break came in 1948, when Jimmy Frise, the creator of an immensely popular Canadian comic strip, Juniper Junction, died suddenly at age 57.


Seth has filled this front section with a cornucopia of rare and obscure Doug Wright artwork. I am grateful that he astutely chose not to bleach out the weathered and browning paper surfaces of printed samples, and often includes the small markings, whited out corrections and hand-written border notes on the many pieces of original art he shares with us. These details add warmth and charm to the material, and leave you feeling as though you are sharing in what must have been a glorious experience for the designer - the opportunity to flip through all this beautiful artwork and decaying newsprint. Those like me who love spending time in old bookstores will understand what I mean.



One thing that really struck me as I saw Wright's early illustration work for the first time is how accomplished a draughtsman he was. This becomes even more amazing when we learn that he was self-taught. The many examples presented of his work during these years will appeal especially to fans of the European 'ligne claire' school that originated with Tintin creator, Hergé.


Finally there is the long and generous Nipper section of the book. This will be the work we (45 year old) Canadians remember so fondly. Actually, as Seth points out in his introduction, most of us remember the strip as "Doug Wright's Family". (You'd have to be even older than 45 to recall the days when it was known as Nipper - and there's an interesting story in the book revolving around that name in the book).


Finally, I'm presenting this strip below for a couple of good reasons: First, because it shows the kind of unsentimental humour that Doug Wright typically employed - and that, frankly, left me a little unnerved as a kid. I never got "the belt" as a kid... but I had plenty of friends who did! This was not something you ever saw in Hi and Lois or Family Circle. And second, this actually happened to my father-in-law when my brother-in-law was a kid! I'd heard the story many times at the family dinner table on Sunday nights. So yesterday I brought the book along and showed this strip to my in-laws. They all had the same reaction: surprise... delight... recollection...

... and laughter.

The Collected Doug Wright, Vol. 1 is available from Raincoast Books.