Ed Graham's Advice To Aspiring Cartoonists of the 1930's: "Get out of the business."

Ed Graham began his career as a professional cartoonist in the 1920s when he moved from his home state of Indiana to New York City. There he enjoyed some admirable successes: Graham's work soon began appearing on covers and interiors of many major magazines including Life, Ballyhoo, College Humor, Collier's and Judge.



Graham was the subject of an article in the March 16, 1935 issue of the Columbia Daily Spectator. By then he'd had ten years experience in the cartooning business but struck a cynical tone when addressing his audience at a presentation at Columbia University: "Mr. Graham thoroughly denounced any rumor that would indicate that a cartoonist's life was easy and without hard luck and discouragements," wrote the article's author, Howard Hammer.



Graham allowed that the most determined newcomer might enjoy a modicum of success if he possessed the many virtues of "resourcefulness, hard work, careful attention to detail, and intellectual honesty."


(An Ed Graham gag from the "Annual Nudist Number" of Ballyhoo magazine, October, 1936)

As for that core skill of the cartoonist - the ability to come up with funny ideas - Graham suggested one consider the scenario of "the wolf at the door" to help motivate one's creative funny bone. "Then," quipped Graham, "the gags will be numerous." In other words, "Be funny or die."



"Those seeking to achieve fame and success in cartoon work without doing the necessary "ground-work" are doomed to disappointment and would do better to change immediately to some other vocation," Graham warned his audience, emphasizing that "nothing but discouragements will be encountered in the [cartooning] profession." The tenor of Graham's 1935 speech at Columbia certainly suggests he felt wounded by his years in cartooning. While he didn't entirely give up freelancing, that year it became a sideline.



Graham took a staff position with an advertising agency, a business he stuck with for the next three decades, eventually becoming vice-president and creative director at Outdoor Advertising Inc. in 1963. Graham also served as president of the New York Art Director's Club in 1962-3.



Cartooning may not have been Ed Graham's true calling, but at least one fellow cartoonist, E. Simms Campbell, who enjoyed a long and successful career in the gag panel racket, gave Graham credit for launching his career.



"My break came when I ran into Ed Graham," wrote Campbell. "There aren't many fellows like Ed. He and I had worked on the Phoenix at the same time back at the University of Chicago. Well, Ed Graham had come on to New York ahead of me, and he had already broken into the humorous magazines and made a name for himself. He had his knocks, but he was over the hump. He knew the editors, and they knew him. I showed him some of my drawings and gags and right off the bat he said, 'I'll take you around. This is stuff is good.' "*


*Quote by E. Simms Campbell from Ariel S. Winter's blog post on the artist.

Alan E. Cober: "Students, read this message!"

"When asked what I do for a living, I say I am a drawer. What do I draw? Pictures!"

(Detail from the cover of "How" magazine, Nov/Dec 1985)
"What kind of pictures? Anything interesting or challenging or not so interesting and a few that are boring."


"Oh," they say "for whom?" For myself, for magazines and myself, galleries and myself, books and myself, museums, advertising, posters, etc. I am a drawer!" They say, "Oh, you mean you are a commercial artist." My answer is no, because I'm only that when I collect my checks from the mailbox, [just like] Picasso. At all other times I am just an artist."



"Since when is being paid for interpreting and executing a picture uniquely and personally with expression, feeling and craft, called commercial?"



"The dictionary defines --

Commercial - adj. prepared merely for sale. I do not think I prepare anything just for sale nor do most of my cohorts.


Fine Arts - those arts which seek expression through beautiful or significant modes."


"I think that fits today's best illustrator-artist. More and more fit this category and more and more schools are bringing the student back to the fundamentals, where he is taught the most important elements are thinking, drawing, design and colour."



"Each of these is individually important at some stage of every picture. Where he will find the very most important elements are opening your eyes to see and opening your ears to listen."



"Many of you commercial artists should return to school. Photography did not put you out of business - you did, when you closed your eyes and opened your lens and shutter speeds."

Alan E. Cober, from "The Award Winners Speak," Eleventh Annual of American Illustration, 1969 - 70

Joe Cleary: "... inventive use of design, outstanding draftsmanship, and cool elegance."

Here's a photo of young Joe Cleary, from the December 1953 issue of Art Director & Studio News. Cleary was 27 at the time and being showcased in AD&SN as the "Upcoming Artist" of that issue. But Cleary had been demonstrating great artistic prowess for many years before that.


When he was just six years old, everyone in Joe Cleary's grammar school class had to design a Christmas tree. Cleary's design was chosen as the best and the class built a full-size version under his supervision. Recalling that incident years later, Cleary would joke that it was his first experience as an art director.



At the conclusion of high school Cleary earned a scholarship to attend the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. Unfortunately his father was the sort of manly man who didn't think art was an appropriately masculine pursuit, so Clearly had to take his classes on the sly.


(Detail from a spread in Boys' Life magazine, April 1967)

Ultimately his studies were interrupted by a three-year stint in the Merchant Marines during WWII.


(Saturday Evening Post, 1965)

Thanks to a chance discovery of some canvas scraps while serving onboard a Maritimes vessel, Cleary decided to take advantage of his artistic abilities to make a little pocket money. Using a box of Crayola crayons and these canvas scraps, Cleary would sketch nudie girls in whatever poses were requested by the other sailors. Who knew there were so many patrons of the arts in the Merchant Marines?

(Harold's Club Reno pinup calendar page,December 1965)
This foray into commissioned work earned Cleary a tidy sum, and upon being discharged he returned to CCAC with renewed fervour. One this second go he won first prizes in both a student painting competition and at the California State Fair. He was also awarded another scholarship for further study, but before he could finish school he was picked up by the Logan & Cox agency in San Francisco. By the time he was featured in AD&SN as an "Upcoming Artist," Cleary had completed professional work for an impressive list of clients: Standard Oil, Knob Hill Coffee, Rainier Beer and many others.



Cleary's career chugged along nicely for the rest of the '50s. He had established himself as a top-rate West Coast commercial artist - but then came a call even this now-seasoned professional wasn't expecting. The Saturday Evening Post had taken notice of his work and was offering a story assignment. Thinking the call was surely a prank being played by one of his colleagues, Cleary turned down the job. "Well, maybe we'll try you again later," said the caller. Only after hanging up the phone did Cleary realize the call had been real. Happily, the Post did call back, and soon others were calling as well. Like a handful of West Coast artists before him - Fred Ludekens, Stan Galli, Bruce Bomberger and a few others - Cleary had made the leap to the national stage.


(Ladies Home Journal, 1964)


(Saturday Evening Post, 1965)


(Good Housekeeping, 1968)

During these years Cleary continued to keep busy with advertising work as well. He was now associated with the Patterson & Hall studio in San Francisco. Fellow P&H artist Charlie Allen recalled, "I 'directed' this shot for a booze ad in the P&H photo studio of my friend, Joe Cleary, (one heck of an artist and sculptor). Joe posed for the guy with guitar."


(Charlie Allen artwork featuring Joe Cleary as the model w/ the guitar)

Cleary's work always presented an intriguing mix of realism and expressionism, evidence of the artist's life-long passion for creative exploration and artistic expression. The mood and the materials of the 1960s encouraged experimentation, and Cleary, like many others, did not shirk from the opportunity to place one foot in the camp of fine art while keeping the other in the commercial.

(Painting by Joe Cleary, year unknown)

Years later, when Cleary had returned to his alma mater, the California College of Arts and Crafts - now as an instructor - he would share his fascinating experimental techniques with his students. Famed comic book painter/illustrator Dan Brereton studied with Cleary and recalls,"He had this wonderful technique... he would do a painting in Doc Martin watercolor dyes, then cover it with a layer of white glue. It created this wonderful soft and vibrant texture. [Joe] was very thoughtful and positive, low key. His work was so damn gorgeous. He was a big influence on me then."


(Argosy magazine, 1965)

Renowned illustrator Greg Manchess was also one of Cleary's students and wrote about him on his blog muddycolors.com: "Joe laid down a loose wash of colorful and rich dyes, then poured on a layer of Elmer’s glue. The glue made a strange and soft blur of the first washes, running them together. He would wait for it to dry into a glassy layer, then painted the shapes and lines in acrylic strokes on top of it. More dye washes, Elmer’s, and acrylics repeated until sometimes the illustration board was a quarter inch thick of glue and paint. It was luminous and seemed otherworldly on it’s own."


(Saturday Evening Post, 1963)

Over time, like so many other mid-century illustrators chasing fewer and fewer assignments, Cleary began to pursue other creative avenues. I suspect that he felt encouraged to do so by assignments like this one for the 1969 General Electric calendar.



Cleary's credit box on the back cover of the calendar even hints at the path that lay ahead for the artist...


Chuck Pyle, director of the Illustration Program at the Academy of Art University, told me, "[Joe Cleary is a] fellow Bohemian Club member and I have always admired his inventive use of design, outstanding draftsmanship, and cool elegance."

Chuck Pyle continues, "Joe has turned his love of the female form from brilliant illustration work in such diverse mediums as glue and acrylics (glue before the acrylics) to bronze sculpture, where he creates beautiful evocations of the women around him."

(Sculpture by Joe Cleary, "Young Dancer," year unknown)
One of the most impressive pieces I was able to locate is the "Mother River Memorial," which Cleary created in 2001. It stands on the Mississippi river front in downtown New Orleans, Louisiana and miraculously survived the ravages of Hurricane Katrina.

(Mother River Memorial, New Orleans, 2001 by Joe Cleary)
We'll leave the last word on Joe Cleary to Chuck Pyle: "Behind his sculpture work, which like Bruce Wolfe, is Joe's great strength, is his almost impish sense of humor. Joe always has a twinkle in his eye,in tandem with his gentlemanly manner, and his sculpted walking stick of his own design. Joe is worthy of more acclaim - I'm a fan!"


* It can be challenging finding many examples of Joe Cleary's illustration work online, but thanks to the generosity of several Today's Inspiration Facebook Group members; David Clemons, Lawrence Levine & Dave Groff I was able to present a substantial selection today.

Kremos: The Life and Art of Niso Ramponi, Part 5

By guest author Joseph V. Procopio

Even as Ramponi’s career transitioned more toward teaching, in 1978 he was hired to produce concept art for the low-budget film Starcrash that hoped to capitalize on Star Wars’ recent popularity.


It could probably go without saying that Ramponi’s drawings were ultimately far more interesting than the resultant movie.



Ramponi even kept his hand in poster design throughout the 1980s, with the organizers of the international Holiday on Ice shows commissioning him to create their official posters several years in a row. Ramponi eventually retired in 1992 after having served many years as the head of the Roberto Rossellini Institute for Cinematography and Television’s animation department. The artist delighted readers in his day and continues to garner new admirers.



Ramponi the man also seems to have been admired and cherished by those who knew him, including several of his former students who have reached out to me in response to these new Lost Art Books collections. Mario Verger, who writes a lengthy introduction to Volume 1 of Kremos: The Lost Art of Niso Ramponi (the basis for much of what I know about Ramponi), has been a vocal champion of both the man and the artist.


(Above: an image from Kremos: The Lost Art of Niso Ramponi before and after being restored for publication)
Verger recounts in affectionate detail how as an animation student in the mid-1980s he had the good fortune to cross paths with and eventually be befriended by Federico Fellini, who in turn introduced the young aspirant to Ramponi. Verger has carried the torch for the rest of us ever since, beckoning us to pay attention to this unjustly forgotten master artist’s work.



To quote Verger’s introduction, “Ramponi loved art, especially Francisco Goya and Leonardo da Vinci...when he worked, he continuously listened to classical music: Mozart, Beethoven, and Mendelssohn were his preferred composers....He subscribed to a saying dear to Romans of his generation: ‘ Ma che me frega,’ that is, ‘ What do I care?’ reflecting a spirit of independence unencumbered by societal expectations.”


And there’s something telling about a daughter’s love. Anna Maria Ramponi, Niso’s oldest child, couldn’t have been more enthusiastic and encouraging about our plan to honor her father’s legacy in our Lost Art Books series. An ocean and a language may have separated us, but a shared affection for her father and his work transcended any barriers to understanding.

(Niso Ramponi, c. 1958)
When Ramponi’s wife died in 2000, he moved from his beloved Rome to live out his last days with their daughter Anna Maria in the tranquil town of Bozzolo in the province of Mantova before eventually passing away himself in 2002 at age 78.

(Niso Ramponi, c. 1990)
Kremos: The Lost Art of Niso Ramponi, Vols. 1 & 2 are the first collections of the artist’s work anywhere in the world.

KREMOS: Lost Art of Niso Ramponi, Vols. 1+2 from Joseph Procopio on Vimeo.

A decade in the making and benefiting from careful restoration, this new two-volume set covers the Italian cartoonist and animator’s entire career.


Volume 1 collects over 200 of Kremos’s bodacious black and white cartoons and illustrations and is fronted by a 6,000-word introduction by Ramponi’s friend and current-day animator, Mario Verger. Volume 2 adds 250 curvaceous color comics and covers to the set, with a foreword by contemporary comic artist Jerry Carr. Combined, these volumes offer over 500 professionally translated examples of his work and a comprehensive overview of a maverick artist at the height of his powers. Both volumes are available for immediate order from the publisher, Lost Art Books and select online retailers.

Joseph V. Procopio has been working in publishing as a writer, editor, and creative director in print and Web media for over 20 years. He has a lifelong passion for illustration, cartooning, and the graphic arts.

Kremos: The Life and Art of Niso Ramponi, Part 4

By guest author Joseph V. Procopio


Ramponi’s pen name, Kremos, was born of necessity: Like many of his generation, after the war Ramponi was conscripted into the Italian army for a year of service. Loath to abandon his budding cartooning and illustration career but barred by military regulations from working as a freelancer, Ramponi conspired with a friend named Sandro Cremo, who acted as his intermediary to secure and deliver freelance art assignments on Ramponi’s behalf. To maintain the ruse, Ramponi signed his work Kremos, a pseudonym that stuck even after his discharge from military duty.


In the mid-1950s, however, after a dispute with another artist who tried to lay legal claim to the name Kremos, Ramponi abandoned the handle and began to sign his work simply by his first name, Niso.



Keen-eyed U.S. collectors of 1950s men’s magazines such as Jest, Gaze, or Gee-Whiz will find the occasional Kremos or Niso-signed cartoon within those pages.



For the most part, though, Ramponi’s work — while every bit as accomplished if not superior to his U.S. counterparts — was rarely seen outside of his homeland until the publication of the two Lost Art Books devoted to preserving his work.



By the late 1950s and into the 1960s, Ramponi’s popularity had reached a point where he was now also creating most of the covers for Il Travaso, which allowed him to stretch into other media, painting with a sensuous verve that sacrificed none of the fun of his ink drawings.



Yet on top of those assignments, Ramponi kept working on animated features. But the workload must have swamped even Ramponi’s seemingly Herculean capacities when he accepted an offer in 1962 to teach animation at the Scuola della Vasca Navale. In short order, Ramponi’s appearances in Il Travaso became infrequent and eventually stopped altogether in 1963.



But Ramponi certainly didn’t stop producing work. In addition to his teaching, he worked for the next couple of decades in television on a wide variety of projects, winning top industry awards for his animation on some of Italy’s most popular TV programs, such as Carosello in 1972.


(Above: a scene from a Ramponi-animated Carosello commercial cartoon, c.1960s)
Concluded tomorrow...



Kremos: The Lost Art of Niso Ramponi, Vols. 1 & 2 are the first collections of the artist’s work anywhere in the world.



A decade in the making and benefiting from careful restoration, this new two-volume set covers the Italian cartoonist and animator’s entire career. Volume 1 collects over 200 of Kremos’s bodacious black and white cartoons and illustrations and is fronted by a 6,000-word introduction by Ramponi’s friend and current-day animator, Mario Verger. Volume 2 adds 250 curvaceous color comics and covers to the set, with a foreword by contemporary comic artist Jerry Carr. Combined, these volumes offer over 500 professionally translated examples of his work and a comprehensive overview of a maverick artist at the height of his powers. Both volumes are available for immediate order from the publisher, Lost Art Books and select online retailers.

Joseph V. Procopio has been working in publishing as a writer, editor, and creative director in print and Web media for over 20 years. He has a lifelong passion for illustration, cartooning, and the graphic arts.

Kremos: The Life and Art of Niso Ramponi , Part 3

By guest author Joseph V. Procopio

In 1948 Ramponi found the perfect venue for his talents at the weekly satirical magazine Il Travaso (roughly The Overflow) and its equally irreverent sibling Il Travasissimo.



It was in these sometimes-confiscated periodicals that Ramponi made his name drawing some of the world’s best “good girl” art for 15 years, and where he was bequeathed a variety of nicknames.



His editors dubbed him The Scarlet Pimpernel born from a frustration of never knowing where Ramponi could be found, especially when deadlines loomed.



His fellow staff artists dubbed him Sovrano di Donnine, or King of the Little Ladies, for the curvaceous comic beauties he excelled at drawing in nearly every issue. Below is a video of Ramponi and his cartoonist colleagues at Il Travaso in the 1950s promoting a reader's poll to choose which staff artist's drawing of feminine beauty should be crowned "Miss Travaso."



As contemporary cartoonist Jerry Carr describes in the foreword to Volume 2 of Kremos: The Lost Art of Niso Ramponi, “Kremos’ s work reminds us of the layouts of Hank Ketcham, the polish of Bill Ward, the humor of Dan DeCarlo, and the grace of Jack Cole—while exemplifying something entirely original."



It was in these early years at Il Travaso that Ramponi met his wife, married in 1950, and started a family shortly thereafter.



Throughout the 1950s, Ramponi not only supplied a steady stream of weekly gag panels to Il Travaso, but he also occasionally contributed pin-up drawings to other periodicals, such as SignorinaOtto, accepted assignments for more movie poster work, and worked as an animator on numerous Italian productions, including I Picchiatelli (1952) and Attanasio Cavallo Vanesio (1953).



Continued tomorrow...

Kremos: The Lost Art of Niso Ramponi, Vols. 1 & 2 are the first collections of the artist’s work anywhere in the world.



A decade in the making and benefiting from careful restoration, this new two-volume set covers the Italian cartoonist and animator’s entire career. Volume 1 collects over 200 of Kremos’s bodacious black and white cartoons and illustrations and is fronted by a 6,000-word introduction by Ramponi’s friend and current-day animator, Mario Verger. Volume 2 adds 250 curvaceous color comics and covers to the set, with a foreword by contemporary comic artist Jerry Carr. Combined, these volumes offer over 500 professionally translated examples of his work and a comprehensive overview of a maverick artist at the height of his powers. Both volumes are available for immediate order from the publisher, Lost Art Books and select online retailers.

Joseph V. Procopio has been working in publishing as a writer, editor, and creative director in print and Web media for over 20 years. He has a lifelong passion for illustration, cartooning, and the graphic arts.