Political Cartoons: David Horsey on His Influences

Great posts by Seattle Post Intelligencer cartoonist, David Horsey...

Mad Magazine- My Early Influence

And The Other Influence- Playboy
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Political Cartoons: America On The Brink of War 1916

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great info on the history of animation told through the careers of great cartoonists.


Politics is on everyone's mind today, so here are some more rare political cartoons from the collection of archive supporter, Marc Schirmeister. These three articles come from the January, 1916 issue of Cartoons magazine. They paint a vivid picture of the United States on the brink of entering a World War.

SEASON OPENS FOR PEACE DOVES





UNCLE SAM IN EUROPEAN CARICATURE






IN THE STORM CENTER OF EUROPE







See our previous post on this subject... Cartoons Magazine January 1916

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Cartooning: Cartoons Magazine January 1916

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great info on the history of animation told through the careers of great cartoonists.


Yesterday, Archive supporter Marc Schirmeister stopped by with a treasure trove of information on the early days of cartooning. A big stack of Cartoons magazines from the WWI era through the late 1920s. These magazines are amazing... they include articles about Pat Sullivan, George Herriman and Winsor McCay, editorial cartoons from around the globe, and incredible advertisements for correspondence courses in cartooning. Here is a sampling of editorial cartoons, divided by subject matter from the January 1916 issue, along with an article from the Portland Oregonian titled...

THE MODERN CARTOON
When it is declared that there are nowadays no great cartoonists or illustrators, it ought to be recalled that the conditions controlling the art of newspaper caricature and pictorial lampooning are not what they were fifty, or twenty, or even ten years ago. Let us go back no farther than Thomas Nast, who was the most famous, and usually regarded as the greatest of all American cartoonists. Mr Nast's first and only notable work was with Harper's Weekly. During the Civil War, a tremendous episode in our history, he began his work. No one who has examined the usual political and personal caricatures of that day can fail to recognize their wretched and brutal character- miserable as art productions and savage in spirit and expression. Mr. Nast did much to make the profession of caricaturist respectable. His talents as an artist were considerable, but his insight into affairs, his understanding of the motives of men, and his ability to give them pictoral form are the real secrets of his power.


There was no rival for Thomas Nast. He was alone in a field practically untilled. He rarely drew more than a single cartoon a week, and it is easy to see that he had ample time for the study of events and for the full play of his genius. To a great extent the weekly drawing of Nast was inspirational, for undoubtedly he was a man of temperament as well as a student of current history. He was not called upon for a daily offering, and was therefore not oppressed by the exacting and remorseless grind of daily journalism.

PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES OF 1916






When Thomas Nast left Harper's Weekly, after years of remarkable service to his employment and to the cause of truth and decency in public affairs, he made no impression through his contributions to the newspapers. His vogue was gone. He died a heartbroken man. It is an open question whether he might not have sustained his great reputation if he had remained with Harper's. In his latter days other caricaturists had come to the fore and Nast and Harper's no longer enjoyed a monopoly in that line.

RESTLESSNESS IN INDIA






Who looks nowadays to an American weekly for cartoons? Yet it is true that in Great Britain the cartoon remains the particular posession of the weekly, and it is the same in Germany. There is a wide difference however, in the German and British methods, for the Briton seeks to make of his cartoon an elaborate work of art, and the German confines himself to simple lines and memory impressions. The Englishman often uses models and excels as a draughtsman. The German burlesques his subject, and strives for humorous and grotesque effects. There is no real American school, as there is a British school and a German school. But there are thousands of American cartoonists giving the public their daily output, and making their appeal on every possible subject of human interest.

CARTOONS FROM JAPANESE PUNCH





There is now no Thomas Nast of American journalism. Under our conditions, it is doubtful there could be. But there are a great many fine artists drawing good cartoons and excellent cartoonists making pictures that could by no stretch of the imagination be called sound art. On the whole, the average is very high, and certainly an irrepairable loss would be suffered by journalism if the services of the cartoonist were to be dropped. The cartoon has come to be an effort to editorialize in a picture the current daily feature of the news or of public thought.

PORK BARREL POLITICS





The old cartoon- the Nast picture- was a complex affair, always with a central theme, but with many figures and contributing or incidental suggestions. Now it is different. The modern cartoon is a simple thing, with one idea. It requires no study to understand its meaning or to comprehend its scope. It can be absorbed at a glance. It may not be art, but it is something even better...

It is the symbol of truth.

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If you would like to see more from the pages of Cartoons magazine, let me know in the comments. Whenever I put up this many pages at one time, I wonder whether anyone is actually reading this stuff! Let me know if I should scale back my postings to more bite sized bits.

If you found this post to be interesting, see the... W. L. Evans Cartooning and Caricature Course Brochure, Lesson One and Lesson Two, Preston Blair and John K's $100K Animation Drawing Course, Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part One: The Men Behind The Newspaper Comics, Part Two: How To Get Ideas / Studies of Comic Strips, Part Three: Single Panel and Sports Cartoonists, Part Four: Editorial Cartoons & Comic Books, Part Five: Sketching, Part Six: Magazine Cartooning and Part Seven: Magazine Cartooning (continued); Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons" Part One: The History of Animation, Part Two: The Cartoon Studios, Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate, Willard Mullin on Animals.

Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive
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Cartooning: Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part Four

This post is just the tip of the iceberg... see reason number 8 on our The Top Ten Reasons To Support The A-HAA for links to more great info on the history of animation told through the careers of great animators.



EDITORIAL CARTOONS AND COMIC BOOKS
We continue with the section on editorial cartoons and comic books from Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning. This installment features a gallery of Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoons, features on C. D. Batchelor and Bill Crawford, and a cursory look at how comic books were edited.

EDITORIAL CARTOONING
By C. D. Batchelor
Clarence Daniel Batchelor started as a staff cartoonist at the Kansas City Star. He worked as a freelance illustrator for a time before joining the New York Daily News in 1931. He worked there for 38 years as an editorial cartoonist, He won the Pulitzer Prize in 1937 for the accompanying cartoon of a young man labelled "Any European Youth" being propositioned by a skull faced whore representing war, captioned... "Come on in, I'll treat you right! I used to know your Daddy." (Click on the image to see at a larger size.)








WILLIAM CRAWFORD

As I went to Google to research this blurb on editorial cartoonist Bill Crawford, the first listing I found was a short article in today's New York Times. Sadly, Crawford passed away yesterday of pneumonia at age 68.

Crawford was a master of the medium. He was awarded the National Cartoonists Society awards for best editorial cartoon of 1956, 1957, 1958 and 1966; he was awarded the Silver T-Square Award in 1977; and he served as president of the organization in 1960. His cartoons first appeared in the Newark News, and later were syndicated to over 700 newspapers around the country. He is survived by his wife, Claire, as well as a son and daughter.




COMICS MAGAZINES
By Whitney Ellsworth
Whitney Ellsworth started out as an assistant artist at King Features, working on strips like Dumb Dora and Tilly the Toiler. He was chief editor at DC Comics during the golden age of Superman, Batman, The Spectre, and The Green Arrow- but Superman was the series he was most closely involved in. Ellsworth wrote many of the story outlines for the comic books, and in the early 50s, he wrote the pilot episode of the Superman TV serial, Superman Meets The Mole Men. He retired in 1970.





It's interesting to compare the editorial script to the finished artwork provided here. The only thing the artist used was the basic situations, a few details and the dialogue. The staging of the panels and the pacing of the action from panel to panel had to be completely reworked to function visually. It's surprising that Byrnes gives this section on comic books such short shrift. Ellsworth focuses on the technical and editorial aspects of the comic book business, and barely mentions the artists who actually create them. Perhaps if Byrnes had gotten Joe Shuster, Bob Kane or Jack Kirby to write this section, it would have been a different story.

Many thanks to Marc Crisafulli and David King for sharing this great book with us.

If you found this post to be interesting, see... Gene Byrnes' Complete Guide To Cartooning Part One: The Men Behind The Newspaper Comics, Part Two: How To Get Ideas / Studies of Comic Strips and Part Three: Single Panel and Sports Cartoonists

Also see... Nat Falk's "How To Make Animated Cartoons" Part One: The History of Animation, Part Two: The Cartoon Studios, Part Three: How Cartoons Are Made, Part Four: How To Draw Cartoons and Part Five: How To Animate. Also, see... Willard Mullen on Animals.

Thanks
Stephen Worth
Director
ASIFA-Hollywood
Animation Archive

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