Punch in Canada

Happy Hooligan

2011-11-17T07:24:00.000-08:00

Canadian cartoonist Peard Sutherland's first published cartoon (1908) in an unknown Winnipeg newspaper. Image courtesy Glinda and Rill Sutherland.

Peard Sutherland (1902-1954)

2011-10-20T17:55:00.000-07:00

Vancouver collector Peard Sutherland (see biography HERE) became a cartoonist at a young age. Most of the following were published when he was only 15. They appeared in the Canadian Courier, United Briefs, Toronto Globe, and Toronto Star Weekly. One cartoon appeared in American Boy. Thanks to Glinda and Rill Sutherland.

The Sutherland library contained a notable collection of English and French literature, philosophy, poetry, nature, mythology and art history. He had a notable collection of juvenile fiction featuring a complete set of the Oz books and Henty’s historical boys fiction. He had a special love of British story papers and annuals that were his passion as a boy.

Peard and Rill Sutherland

Rill and Glinda Sutherland

Normand Hudon (1929-1997)

2011-08-15T17:33:00.000-07:00

Normand Hudon was a fine artist, illustrator, editorial cartoonist and comic strip artist. In the fifties and sixties Hudon's work was popular in English and French periodicals across Canada.

Hudon drew a comic strip called ‘Julien Gagnon,’ as Remy, starting 16 May 1948. In 1949 Harry Cherney and Norm Hamilton produced a daily strip for Le Petit Journal called ‘Le détective Lanson’ and Lanson was the hero of a full page adventure called ‘Le Cirque Moréno’ signed Normand Hudon.

Wright's 'Charlie Boy'

2011-07-27T15:40:00.000-07:00

Nipper appeared in the London Sunday Pictorial as 'Charlie Boy' and was a favorite with little Prince Charles. Image from The Australian Women's Weekly 19 Nov 1952. Obituary from the Windsor Star, 4 Jan 1983.

Stew Cameron (1912-1970)

2011-07-11T08:46:00.001-07:00

William “Bible Bill” Aberhart was manna from heaven to Canadian cartoonists of the “Bible Belt” in the mid-thirties, in the depths of the drought and depression. Aberhart was a large, corpulent, pasty-faced flim-flam authoritarian with a background as a high school teacher and radio evangelist. He bore more than a passing resemblance to Mussolini and took on an even closer resemblance as the cartoonist Stew Cameron warmed to his task of skewering him in the Calgary Herald. Aberhart believed in the Rapture, the Anti-Christ, the devil, end-time biblical prophecy, the Second-Coming, and the weird economic theories of Major Douglas, British economist and originator of Social Credit.

Under Aberhart, who had never held office, Social Credit swept to power in 1935. He did this by promising a $25 a month dividend for every adult male or female citizen of Alberta, and the day after his victory bums were already dropping off boxcars in Calgary and Edmonton searching for the “dividend” offices, and people with money made a fearful rush on their bank accounts, moving their money out of reach in the East. Aberhart issued Scrip in the form of dollar bills which came to be known as “baloney” bills. By Christmas 1936 ‘Scrip’ was dead in the water and on February 27, 1937 Aberhart admitted his credit plan was a failure.

Stewart Cameron studied art at Mount Royal College and his early cartoons appeared in a variety of Calgary newspapers. He designed a Conservative pamphlet tiled The Amos and Andy of Social Credit then tried his hand in Hollywood, employed by Walt Disney around the time of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Cameron returned to Calgary drawing political cartoons for The United Farmer and the Eastern owned Calgary Herald. Arch Dale, editorial cartoonist for the Winnipeg Free Press (also owned by Southam’s chain), had been skewering Aberhart’s $25 “dividend” for months before Cameron took up the pen. On July 4 1936 Cameron’s first Aberhart cartoon appeared in the Calgary Herald. Cameron’s depiction of Aberhart was based on firsthand sketches made at rallies at Aberhart’s Prophetic Bible Institute.

Between the two cartoonists Aberhart knew no peace but Cameron’s cartoons were so effective that it was said Stew Cameron had to leave his office by fire escape and back alley to escape the attentions of angry Social Credit supporters. It may be pure invention. Ted Byfield told the story of some newspaper boys selling J. J. Zubic’s anti-Aberhart The Rebel, who were beaten by a gang of Aberhart’s evangelical female adherents. One unsubstantiated story (in “The Hecklers”) said that Cameron’s house was bombed by SC members. None of his biographers mention this and I could not verify it through newspaper reports. In response to the cartoons, and attacks in the Herald and The Rebel, Aberhard passed a draconian press gag-law which led to Aberhart’s downfall although Social Credit ran the province until 1947.

On October 2 1937 Social Credit tabled the Accurate News and Information Act which “provides for the muzzling of all Alberta newspapers and for using the same organs as mediums of “Social Credit” propaganda.” By 1938 Aberhart was trying to shut down the RCMP in Alberta and replace them with Social Credit “police”. At a meeting in Melville, Alberta, 6 men were tossed out by “20 or more special ushers” wearing police armbands. The ushers were employed by the Social Credit Association and had no connection to the regular police force. Aberhart’s experiments with Social Credit and his peculiar brand of fascism was watched with horrified interest in Australia, Britain and Australia. The British Press refereed to him as “Little Hitler.” Aberhart died May 24, 1943 at Vancouver.

Cameron’s Aberhart cartoons were collected in booklet form and his family published 4 books of cowboy cartoons, What I saw at the Stampede, Weep for the Cowboy, Let the chaps fall where they may, and Pack horse in the Rockies: dudes, denims & diamond hitches. Cameron died in 1970 and his cartoons are held at the Glenbow Archives in Calgary, Alberta.

Bible Bill a Biography of William Aberhart, by David R. Elliot and Iris Miller, Edmonton, Reidmore Books, 1987.

Aberhart and the Alberta Insurrection 1935-1940, edited by Ted Byfield, Edmonton: CanWest, 2006. Contains many of the Arch Dale and Stew Cameron cartoons.

Sam Hunter

2011-07-06T11:10:00.001-07:00

Harry S. Hall Original

2011-04-17T08:08:00.000-07:00

Graham Partington sends this original Harry S. Hall ink and paint sketch from the forties of his Grandfather Nole G. Barrow in the hospital. Hall drew Men of the Mounted and News 'N Nonsense for the Toronto Telegram.

Johnny Canuck

2011-04-06T10:27:00.001-07:00

Johnny or Jack Canuck was coined during the 1830's by English-Canadians In reference to French-Canadians. The earliest use was in 1869 in Grinchuckle (Montreal) in a cartoon by J. Walker founder of Punch in Canada. He was known as Young Canada then, was blond and smoked a cheroot. Sometimes he was depicted as a French-Canadian habitant, in a toque and open-necked shirt. In 1898 he was pictured wearing a Mounties hat. He disappeared about the end of World War II. There was even a weekly review, 1911-1913, edited by W. Rogers, from Toronto, entitled Jack Canuck, “Canada's most popular weekly Paper.”

Leo P. Dowd caricatured Miss Canada in a toque for a 1912 cover cartoon. The numerous Canadian Comic journals were fond of Johnny. Pick, Sprite, Grip, the Moon and Saturday Night all featured him at one time or another and he was a favorite of newspaper cartoonists from the Toronto Telegram to the Winnipeg Free Press, where Arch Dale, of Doo Dads fame dusted him off for a prairie audience in the thirties. During WWII he fought the Nazis in one of the ‘whites,’ in Dime Comics No. 1, February 1942, Leo Bachle script and art.

The Readers Encyclopedia, 1948, Thomas Y. Crowell Company says (erroneously in my view) Canucks was a name given by U.S. to Canadians; although I have no proof I believe J. Walker was the originator, or at least popularizer of the nickname. Canadians do not generally take the nom de plume as an insult.

Miss Canada had appeared as early as 1870 in the Canadian Illustrated News, Miss Canada was a symbol of virtue and morality for the Victorians and Edwardians usually pictured as a Greek Goddess, Britannia or Columbia. She would later adopt the name of Janey Canuck. Occasionally she was pictured as a pretty Indian princess although natives were, and still are, treated abominably by Canadians.

Brother Jonathan was the name given by Americans to New Englanders, referring to the governor of the state of Connecticut, Jonathan Trumbull. The name was also given to a popular story paper. In Canada and (I think) England, he was known as `Cousin Jonathan,' then metamorphosed into Uncle Sam. Off-topic, Uncle Sam's ice-box referred to Alaska and Uncle Sam's heel was Florida. Uncle Sam was, of course, a clever use of the initials U. S. and legend dates it from the Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. There was also the phrase “Nunky pays for all,” a joke amongst U.S. soldiers. Uncle Sam was used by American cartoonists both glowingly and critically. It is interesting to see the use of Uncle Sam (both for and against) in Canada, Britain, and the rest of the world. During the American-Spanish and American-Philippine Wars, the cartoonists of Cuba, Mexico, and Manila pictured Uncle Sam in less than glowing terms. In Canada he was usually shown as slightly seedy and disreputable, whittling, slouching, and smoking lo-o-o-o-ng cigars (probably picked up in his Cuban adventures.) In the early part of the century he was welcomed in the West as Canada looked for settlers and castigated in the east in the pages of the scurrilous Moon.

John Bull was the national nickname for the Englishman, usually pictured with a bull-dog. The character was derived from a 1712 satire, The History of John Bull, by Dr. Arbuthnot, the original title was ‘Law is a Bottomless Pit.’ Arbuthnot called the Frenchman ‘Lewis Baboon’ and the Dutchman ‘Nicholas Frog.’ There was a Nineteenth century journal, John Bull, and a 1906 British Weekly with the same title.

A brief overview of other nationalities nicknames (from the Reader's Encyclopedia) are Antonio or Tony (Italian,) Colin Tampon (Swiss,) Jean or Johnny Crapaud, Jacques Bonhomme, Robert Macaire (French,) Jean Baptiste, (Quebec French-Canadian,) Cousin Michael, Michel, or Fritz (German,) Ivan Ivanovitch (Russian,) Mynheer Closh or Nic Frog (Dutch,) Paddy (male Irish) Biddy (female Irish,) and Sawney (Scotland.)

Frog was also used (and is still used) as a taunt at both French- Canadians, and, in England a taunt at the cross-channel neighbors’. Napoleon was used by nannies as a bogle-man or bugbear to scare the wee ones to sleep. Astoundingly, the British Press still calls the French “frogs” in print to this day. I saw it used with no regret in an article only last week.

Newton McConnell

2011-04-05T18:38:00.000-07:00

Newton McConnell began his career on Toronto Saturday Night in 1902 and round the same time contributed cartoons to the comic journal The Moon. In 1904 he became an editorial cartoonist for the Toronto Daily News. In 1925 he was roaming the prairies and the Pacific Coast working sporadically on cartoons for the Saskatchewan Morning Leader and the Vancouver Sun. Birth and date of death are unknown.

TOP: Cartoon July 27 1925 Vancouver Sun

Cartoon: 2 Jun 1925 Vancouver Sun

Article: Noted Cartoonist is a Visitor Here May 27 1925 Morning Leader

Cartoon: 28 May 1925 Morning Leader

Cartoon: 29 May 1925 Morning Leader

Cartoon: 30 May 1925 Morning Leader

Article: Draws for Sun 20 July 1925 Vancouver Sun

Article: Canadian Cartoonists 9 Oct 1940

King Wheat

2010-12-19T14:20:00.000-08:00

A contrast between two anthropomorphic views of wheat-stalks. Arthur G. Racey from the Family Herald 9 Aug 1933 and Arch Dale from the Winnipeg Free Press 2 July 1928.

What Happened Next?

2010-08-22T13:55:00.001-07:00

The story behind What Happened Next is HERE. Top strip is dated June 22 1912, next June 29 1912 and finally September 20 1913.

Adventures of Captain Morgan

2010-08-22T10:42:00.001-07:00

The Adventures of Captain Morgan began on September 8 1949. These samples are from the Stanstead Journal, Quebec's oldest weekly newspaper. Stanstead is home to about only 3000 people so the strip may have been syndicated from elsewhere. Did it have anything to do with Seagram's Captain Morgan Rum? An advertising ploy? And who was the "foremost Canadian cartoonist" mentioned in the blurb?

Historicist: Butterfly With Chocolate Wings

2010-07-30T07:29:00.000-07:00

A nice selection of Chocolate advertisements fromThe Goblin HERE.

Henry Stull (1851-1911?)

2010-03-31T07:53:00.001-07:00

Henry Stull was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1851. His comic strip work shown here was done for a Philadelphia publication called Our Continent in 1883. He also worked for Frank Leslie's periodicals. A biography can be found HERE and more artwork HERE.

Mounties in Comics (USA)

2010-03-23T18:20:00.000-07:00

Zane Grey’s King of the Royal Mounted, No. 21, June - August 1956, Dell Comics. The artwork is by Albert Gioletti who was best known for Turok, Son of Stone, which was written by Paul S. Newman.

NOVOID

2010-02-24T14:37:00.000-08:00

Colin Hinz NOVOID was begun in 1985 in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan and continued until 1991. Issues 5-8 were produced in Orillia, Ontario.

“Everything was mimeo'd by me,” says Colin, “using a Gestetner 360 and various other machines. At one time I had half a dozen machines, each inked in a different colour: black, red, green, congressional blue, light blue, and a machine for one-offs and experiments.”

The striking cover illustration below is by Taral Wayne who was Fan Guest of Honour at the 67th World Science Fiction Convention last August in Montreal.

Top: Art by Brad W. Foster

Sam Hunter

2010-01-21T13:05:00.000-08:00

Sam Hunter cartoon from The Moon, 1901

The Giants

2009-12-20T11:16:00.001-08:00

Top26 May 1966, bottom 21 Jan 1965, Lethbridge Herald.

Norman McClaren

2009-10-24T08:44:00.000-07:00

Canadian animator Norman McClaren from Liberty Magazine, 18 January 1947.

Win Mortimer (1919-1988)

2009-09-21T08:19:00.000-07:00

Superman artist James Winslow "Win" Mortimer was born in Hamilton, Ontario in 1919. This original cartoon courtesy of Don Kurtz. A look at his comic career can be found HERE.

Gordon Johnston

2009-09-09T11:38:00.000-07:00

From The Lethbridge Herald, September 6, 1956

Danny Fortune

2009-07-03T10:09:00.001-07:00

Danny Fortune, cold war RCAF pilot, rode Canada’s cloudy skies from the Atlantic to the Pacific with side-trips to the North Pole from June 2, 1958 to December 6, 1958. He was the creation of two ex-RCAF pilots, Bob McCormick, artist, and Bill Dulmage, writer. The strip began with Danny Fortune test-flying the Avro Arrow but a lack of interest by the comic strip reading public brought Danny Fortune to an abrupt and inconclusive end after a mere six month run.

Jimmy Frise (1891-1948)

2009-04-27T20:18:00.000-07:00

Beautiful pen and ink work on Birdseye Center from Jimmy Frise Nov 1 1929, Saskatoon Star-Phoenix.

C. W. Jefferys

2009-04-24T17:44:00.000-07:00

C. W. Jefferys, from the Lethbridge Herald, January 30 1954

Foster's Gospel

2009-04-23T09:00:00.000-07:00

The Gospel According to St. Luke
illustrated by Hal Foster,
Lethbridge Herald,
December 24, 1954

Calgary Kayo

2009-03-21T19:36:00.000-07:00

Calgary Daily Herald advertisement
for Calgary Kayo chocolate malted.
30 Sept 1930.

Pierre Saint-Loup (1894-1963)

2009-03-12T18:10:00.000-07:00

It is always a great pleasure when some talented Canadian cartoonist, forgotten to history, resurfaces into the bright light of the modern day. We are grateful to Michel Saint-Loup for the article about his great-uncle Pierre Saint-Loup, creator of L'oncle Pacifique, reproduced below, and the lovely scans from Michel's collection.

Immediately following the French article is an English translation by Michel's good friend Maria dos Santos Balanca >

PIERRE SAINT-LOUP (1894-1963)

Créateur de L'oncle Pacifique (1935-1945),

bande dessinée publié dans Le Petit Journal (1926-1978), hebdomadaire montréalais.

Pierre Saint-Loup, né en 1894 en France, émigre au Québec en 1905 et devient artiste dessinateur. Depuis son enfance, il aime le dessin, et son talent et son art s'épanouissant, il réalise, tout au long de sa vie, un grand nombre de croquis, dessins aquarelles, et peintures. Au début des années 1920, il commence à travailler pour de nombreux magazines et journaux montréalais tels Le Samedi, La Revue Populaire, Le Petit Journal et Photo Journal, pour n'en nommer que quelques'un.

Sous le pseudonyme de ‘Vic Martin’, il crée le personnage de L'oncle Pacifique qui apparaît pour la première fois dans les pages du Le Petit Journal du 26 mai 1935; un journal hebdomadaire montréalais publié tous les dimanches. L'oncle Pacifique incarne un personnage astucieux, sympathique et amusant dans le rôle d'un bon vieux Canadien Français nous racontant ses rocambolesques voyages et aventures d'autrefois, ainsi que de raconter de nombreuses et cocasses anecdotes et situations de son époque.

Pendant dix années consécutives, Pierre Saint-Loup, fidèlement, nous livre avec autant de sagacité que de simplicité, l'humour incontestable de son personnage de Pacifique Poilfin. Sa bande dessinée apparaît d'abord en pleine page, puis, au mois d'août de la même année 1935, vient se joindre la bande dessinée de Casimir, sous le pseudonyme de Tom Lucas (la dimension d'une page du Le Petit Journal est d'environ 290mm x 395mm). La bande dessinée de L'oncle Pacifique apparaît maintenant, toujours en prédominance, au haut de la page, tandis que celle de Casimir, toujours au nombre de six cases, occupe le bas de cette même page. Il est à noter que l'identité de l'auteur de la bande dessinée de Casimir n'est pas encore élucidée. (Ce pourrait-il que ce soit Pierre Saint-Loup aussi, adoptant un autre style?) Curieusement, créée la même année 1935: le 2 janvier 1944 Pacifique et Casimir partagent la même bande dessinée, soit une page complète ensemble; ils sont absents en même temps durant le cours des étés 1943 et 1944; pour disparaître en même date après le numéro du 26 août 1945 du journal.

Pierre Saint-Loup aura aussi réalisé des dessins de vulgarisation, de nature commerciale, des en-têtes de pages, et des dessins humoristiques et caricaturaux (autres que ceux de L'oncle Pacique), ces derniers, représentés en un seul dessin avec commentaire ou phrase en sous-texte ou en phylactère. Il aura aussi illustré de manière plus artistique et réelle un grand nombre de nouvelles et romans-feuilletons. Ce fut d'ailleurs un tremplin pour les écrivains afin de se donner de la visibilité et gagner en popularité. Le phénomène étant valable pour l'un comme pour l'autre; l'écrivain, le journal, et Pierre Saint-Loup de même, lui donnant ainsi la perspective et l'opportunité et de réaliser l'illustration de livres.

Comme mentionné plus haut, le travail de Pierre Saint-Loup, outre la bande dessinée, forme un grand éventail de réalisations: sous forme de croquis, d'aquarelles, de portraits, de peintures, et même dans la restauration de tableaux. Plusieurs de ses croquis auront été réalisés durant la Première Guerre mondiale, et certains dessins humoristiques ont paru dans le journal des tranchées de son régiment, Les Boyaux du 95e. Plus tard il travaillait comme dessinateur industriel pour la compagnie d'aviation Canadair Limitée (maintenant Bombardier Inc), toujours, de paire, produisant dessins de toutes sortes pour journaux et magazines. Pierre Saint-Loup fut un artiste accompli, qui se sera épanoui et réalisé dans ce qu'il aimait faire!

Note: Robert Prévost (1918-2007: haut fonctionnaire, historien et auteur, fut aussi directeur de l'information et rédacteur pour l'hebdomadaire Le Petit Journal, ayant connu Pierre Saint-Loup pour y avoir travaillé à la même époque. À deux reprises dans son livre Mon tour de Jardin, Robert Prévost mentionne Pierre Saint-Loup comme étant l'auteur venant chaque semaine signer les aventures de L'oncle Pacifique. On y voit aussi une photographie de Pierre Saint-Loup, accompagné du dessinateur Roy Garant personnifiant L'oncle Pacifique, et un même commentaire de Robert Prévost, confirmant Pierre Saint-Loup comme auteur de ladite bande dessinée.

Merci à John Adcock et Punch in Canada de m'avoir accordé le privilège de publier ce témoignage.

Michel Saint-Loup (1959)En hommage à mon grand-oncle Pierre Saint-Loup (1894-1963).11 mars 2009

***

PIERRE SAINT-LOUP (1894-1963)

Creator of the cartoon L’oncle Pacifique (1935-1945),

published in the Montreal newspaper Le Petit Journal (1926-1978) .

Pierre Saint-Loup, born in 1894 in France, immigrated to Québec in 1905 and became an artist draftsman. From childhood, his love for the art of drawing flourished, and his artistic talent compiled numerous sketches, drawings, watercolours and paintings. He began working in the 1920’s for a number of Montreal newspaper and magazine companies†: Le Samedi, Le Revue Populaire, Le Petit Journal and Photo-Journal to name a few.

He created his character of L’oncle Pacifique under the pseudonym of ‘Vic Martin’, which appeared for the first time on Sunday May 26, 1935, in Le Petit Journal, a weekly newspaper. L'oncle Pacifique incarnated the character of an astute, wise old French Canadian, who reminisces of his incredible adventures of his past, as well as recounting amusing anecdotes and situation of his era.

Pierre Saint-Loup, for ten years, faithfully delivered the humour of L'oncle Pacifique Poilfin character with shrewdness and simplicity. From may 1935, for the first couple of months, the cartoon appeared on a full page (the page size of Le Petit Journal is about 290mm x 395mm). In August of the same year, L'oncle Pacifique cartoon shared the page with the new cartoon Casimir, under the pseudonym of Tom Lucas. L'oncle Pacifique always appeared on the top portion and was pre-dominant over the Casimir cartoon, which was always shown as a six square strip on the bottom of the page. Note here, the identity of the Casimir author is as yet unknown (it could be Pierre Saint-Loup changing his style), however; both characters appeared in 1935; were together in the same strip on January 2nd, 1944; were absent again, in the summers of 1943 and 1944; and both ceased to exist after the August 26, 1945 issue.

Pierre Saint-Loup was a fine illustrator, also producing drawings of a commercial or exemplary nature, and headings. In the categories of caricature and humoristic drawings, other then L'oncle Pacidfique, he did numerous drawings represented by one image with text beneath it or in word balloons. He also illustrated, in a more artistic and realistic way, a great number of short stories, novels and serials. The writers used the newspaper and his drawings to seek both exposure and recognition, and vice versa. In turn this led to various prospects and opportunities to create illustrations in books afterwards.

As mentioned above, he also carried out his personal works in the form of watercolours, portraits, paintings and sketches, and some painting restoration. Some of his sketches were drawn up during the 1st World War and a few of these were published as cartoons in his trenches regiment journal Les Boyaux du 95e. Pierre Saint-Loup later worked as an industrial draftsman at Canadair Ltd (aerospace industry, now Bombardier Inc.), while still creating illustrations for newspapers and magazines. He was an accomplished artist, committing his life to doing what he loved most!

Note: Robert Prévost (1918-2007) senior civil servant, historian and writer, was also†director of information and writer for many years for the newspaper “Le Petit Journal,” having known Pierre Saint-Loup for working there at the same period of time. Twice in his book “Mon tour de jardin” (Septentrion edition), he specifies Pierre Saint-Loup as the author, each week, signing the adventures of L'oncle Pacifique. A photograph of Pierre Saint-Loup accompanied by the draughtsman Roy Garant (personifying L'oncle Pacifique…) and a comment of Robert Prévost mentioning that Pierre Saint-Loup signed the aforementioned cartoon.

Thanks to John Adcock and Punch in Canada for allowing me this acknowledgment.

Michel Saint-Loup (1959) On behalf of my great-uncle Pierre Saint-Loup (1894-1963).
March 11, 2009

(With the great help of Maria dos Santos Balanca for the French-English translation)

*Illustrations: Collection of Michel Saint-Loup

Canadian Girl Marries the Fly

2009-03-09T13:24:00.000-07:00

The Wise Old Man from Mars

2009-02-19T19:20:00.000-08:00

The Wise Old Man from Mars was a series of advertisements drawn by Arthur G. Racey for the Irving Cigar Company of Montreal circa 1912. "Get the habit Smoke Irving cigars and save the bands."

Robin Hood and Company

2009-02-02T17:02:00.000-08:00

Robin Hood and Company was begun in the Toronto Telegram on September 23, 1935 and carried on until December 16, 1939. The author and copyright-holder was Edwin R. “Ted” McCall (1901-1975) who had previously created Men of the Mounted, (February 13,1933-February 16, 1935,) the first comic strip ever to feature Mountie heroes. Men of the Mounted was drawn by staff cartoonist H. S. Hall. McCall later marketed the hero as a Big Little Book. King of the Royal Mounted wasn’t to appear until 1936, first in Feature Comics No. 1, then in his own newspaper strip.

Charles R. Snelgrove, a staff artist who illustrated newspaper serials, drew Robin Hood as a beefy, beetle-browed, bull-necked muscleman with a Prince Valiant haircut. Whether Hal Foster was familiar with the strip is unknown but it is not unlikely he may have come across the comic in the Toronto Telegram or some other Canadian newspaper. After a faltering start Snelgrove became more accomplished at his work. He experimented with crayon and stippling to good effect.

Robin Hood was reprinted in 1938 in the Sparkler, (1934-1939) a weekly Amalgamated Press comic from Britain. Sparkler was printed with a colour cover with black and red interior pages. Some of the British newspaper artists worked here including Jack Greenall and (gasp !) Ray Bailey, artist on the Space Cadet strip. Bailey worked on Len and Yen (1935), Monty the Merry Mischief, Hopeful Horace, and the Chimps (all in 1937).

In March 1941 Toronto based Anglo-American published Robin Hood and Company, a tabloid -sized reprint of the Toronto Telegram strip. Better Comics, from war-time Vancouver, B.C. publishing company Maple Leaf, hit the newsstands at the same time. It consisted of entirely original material and is considered Canada’s first comic book. Mordecai Richler described the Canadian “whites” (colour cover, b&w insides) as “simply awful.” He claimed the absence of American four-colour comics, restricted by government for economic reasons, led to a street corner black market in Detective and Action comics. Author Harlan Ellison had a differing view on their qualities and today the Canadian “whites” are among the rarest comic books in the world. When I was young Canadian “whites” were still plentiful but kids trading comics usually treated them with disdain for their lack of colour.

McCall brought his two comic strip properties to Anglo-American, where he worked with cartoonist Ed Furness on Freelance, Commander Steel, and Red Rover. Anglo-American also acquired scripts from Fawcett Publications and produced B&W Canadian versions of Commando Yank, Captain Marvel and Senorita Rio.

Palmer Cox in Life Magazine

2009-01-31T17:46:00.000-08:00

Palmer Cox drew a series of sadistic comics featuring rats and cats in the early issues of the American comic journal Life. Top 27 Dec 1883.

Vol. 1 No. 4, 25 Jan 1883

Vol. 1 No. 6, 8 Feb 1883

Vol. 1 No. 11, 8 Mar 1883

This Canada of Ours

2009-01-29T17:36:00.001-08:00

This Canada of Ours by J. S. Morrison, artist, and Maud Morrison Stone, writer. The strip ran from 2 May 1925 to 23 may 1929. On the bottom is another historical article illustrated by C. W. Jefferys.

Punch in Canada

2009-01-21T08:50:00.001-08:00

PUNCH IN CANADA
January 1, 1849- April 27, 1850

PUNCH IN CANADA.- We congratulate our lachrymose friends on the appearance of this antidote to melancholy, the first number is right good. We wish him full success.
-Patriot , Toronto.

John Henry Walker, publisher, engraver and caricaturist, was born in Ireland in 1831 and emigrated to Montreal in 1842. On New Years Day in 1849 Walker published the first number of Punch in Canada. It was the Dominion’s first comic journal. Walker designed the cover and engraved a full-page cartoon (“cut”) for each issue.

An advertising page, (which guaranteed advertisers a circulation of 2000 subscribers,)
said:

“TO THE MILLION.
PUNCH (IN CANADA !)
Published bi-monthly, illustrated with one large cut and numerous smaller ones.”

The price was four pence a single copy, 7s. 6d for a yearly subscription.
“Payable in advance.”

A page of the ‘Opinions of the Press’ shows that PIC was circulated in Quebec and Ontario. The press was laudatory, calling PUNCH IN CANADA a “merry little weekly” with a “marked Canadian character” who “while battling steadily against humbug, says he will belong to no party.”

PUNCH IN CANADA.- This satirical and funny old dog has arrived in Canada and taken up his abode, permanently we hope, in the good city of Montreal. We have received the first number of the publication, it is decidedly superior to anything of the kind that has ever been published in Canada. The illustrations are very good, and the periodical is certainly well got up.
- British American.

PUNCH IN CANADA.- The illustrations are very good. The wit will probably be found too pungent for some people. The best plan is for them to laugh at themselves. Punch, while battling stoutly at humbug, says he will belong to no party. -Quebec Gazette.

Walker drew the covers using the British Punch figure designed by John Leech. Punch was seen walking on snowshoe through a forest of pine trees accompanied by his harlequin dog. He wears a Hudson’s Bay Company parka, carries a hatchet on his belt and shoulders a backpack and was surrounded by vignettes. The cover changed over time and the vignettes showed the Punch figure sitting on a log in front of an habitant’s cabin smoking a clay pipe ; wooing a native woman, shooting buffalo on horseback, riding a sleigh and paddling a canoe, sharing a pipe with Indians, and conversing with racoons.

The letters for the word “Punch” resembled wood, while inside a central, prominent maple leaf was the legend “In Canada.”

The one large cut each issue consisted of a political comment by Walker. They were crude drawings but had a rough power. One effective cartoon was titled ‘The Prisoner of Monklands, (Suggested by “The Prisoner of Chillon.”)’ Walker was not the sole cartoonist, a man named Matthews drew some single-panel caption cartoons, others were signed simply with initials, such as ‘D’ and ‘FL’ The editors and authors of the text and poetry were also anonymous.

LITTLE BEN HOLMES AND SOME NAUGHTY CHILDREN
ATTEMPT TO PAWN THEIR MOTHER’S POCKET-HANDKERCHIEF,
BUT ARE ARRESTED BY POLICE-MAN PUNCH,
WHO WAS STATIONED “ROUND THE CORNER.”

Illustration by John Henry Walker

A hoary joke that still turns up to this day in humour collections had its origin in 1849 in PUNCH IN CANADA : “AN INDIAN CURIOSITY. Why does an Indian never get cold in the head ? Because he always has his Wig-wa(r)m.”

The following sample of the writing of the Punch gang may actually be a snapshot of the Punch in Canada offices, and J. H. Walker ( “Our artist” ) in the year 1849 ;

THE GOVERNORS VISIT TO THE PUNCH OFFICE.

It is not generally known but now it will be, that His Excellency the Governor General expressed a desire to visit the establishment of Punch in St. Francis Xavier street, and accordingly the talented boy who presides over the complicated affairs of that wonderful establishment, received a note from the Attorney General East, which on being translated to him by the renowned “Dolly” overwhelmed him with the announcement that His Excellency would drop in on the following day : unless he should on his way down, drop in some of the holes in the streets so obligingly provided for the disappearance of pedestrians by our energetic Corporation. Our indefatigable boy instantly began his preparations for receiving the illustrious visitor. The whole of our extensive frontage was swept at an early hour, and before the Big Bell of Notre Dame had sounded six o’clock, our extensive mat was well beaten against the Seminary wall. The boy with an axe and shovel proceeded to remove the snowy incrustations bestowed upon the doorsteps by the liberal hand of nature, and every thing was done by that precocious juvenile to confer honor on the Representative of Royalty.

The interior of our premises presented a very elegant appearance; the whole of the walls were covered with beautiful full length portraits of ourselves in our various costumes, and with posters got up with every desire to attract public attention, while the counter which had been vigorously scrubbed, presented an unbroken although dilapidated appearance of painted deal. In order to give an appearance of extent, our letter box was thrown entirely open, thus showing as far as eye could reach, an uninterrupted view of our interior. A special cabman was sent to some of our principal contributors, who however, not having cash or debentures to pay the fare refused to attend. Our artist was a noble exception to this discourteous behaviour. He immediately LOCK’D up his studio, put the key in his pocket, and, not caring whether the cab was paid or not, obeyed our summons; having first put on a clean collar, and carefully turned it down for the occasion.

At precisely one minute and two seconds and a half past ten, the facetious Editor smoothed the grey locks on his venerable brow, and took his station at the back of the till, keeping a strict eye on the boy, who was decorated with a fur cap of the order of “Ancient Mouser” to which was attached the black ribbon of the venerable sandal. Our artist wore, as is his custom on wet days and State occasions, the celebrated looped up, large flapped Spanish sombrero presented to him by “Santa Anna” some time after the battle of San Jacinto. Having remained until two o’clock in anxious expectation, the artist and the grey headed Editor went “sudden death” for beer. The grey headed Editor was the victim, and the boy being ordered to appropriate four pence, which a patriotic individual had deposited on the deal counter in exchange for No. 5 was on the pint of disbursing it for fluid, when the voice of the Attorney General East was heard to exclaim - “Mon Dieu, est ce la le bureau de Ponche” which freely translated means “my eyes, this is the magnificent dwelling of the celebrated Punch.”

The grey headed Editor instantly had a game of leap frog with the counter and received the Governor at the scraper, while the boy, pocketing the four pence, made a graceful obeisance. The scene at this moment was particularly grand ; but as description must fail to impart an idea of its sublimity, we shall refrain from entering into further particulars.

On the entrance of His Excellency, a procession was formed in the following order.

THE GREY HEADED EDITOR,
Carrying the Till of Maintenance;
THE GOVERNOR GENERAL,
Supported on each side by several pages of our publication.
THE ATTORNEY GENERAL EAST,
Supported by nothing.
OUR ARTIST,
Supported by himself.
OUR BOY, (with a Clean Face,)

In this order the procession moved slowly round the counter, and the grey headed Editor having deposited the till in a place of safety, proceeded to explain to the Governor the various branches of our establishment. The first thing that was brought beneath His Excellency’s notice was our paste pot, and as he expressed a wish to stick a bill, his desire was instantly gratified, and the Governor graciously posted the representation bill on the back of Mr. LaFontaine, and instructed him to carry it through the Houses of Parliament, in spite of any opposition.*
The grey-headed Editor then announced that a cold collation was spread in the wood closet ; but as he had previously uttered a bad joke, a gloom had been thrown over the party and the procession evinced a desire to move off.

Before leaving the premises His Excellency conferred the order of the half dollar as well as the trente-sous upon the grey-headed Editor, and put into the hands of our boy a copper medal, bearing the inscription “a bas du Canada.”

The crowd outside the office manifested their loyalty by calling a sleigh ; His Excellency and Mr. Attorney General East instantly slipped into it and slid away.

The Procession then moved off to lunch at “Dolly’s” in the following order:

THE GREY HEADED EDITOR,
Bearing the Till minus the Maintenance.

OUR ARTIST,
And his Hat.

The Boy has not been heard of since.

*Punch is sorry to add that he has since been informed that a notorious character named “Papineau” has willfully destroyed this cherished document.

In 1850 PIC publishing was moved to Toronto where the publication folded after one year. Walker went on to found the comic journals Diogenes and Grinchuckle. Other work appeared in The Dart, Jester, The Canadian Illustrated News and L’Opinion Publique. Walker may very well have been the originator of the legendary Johnny Canuck.

Walker was a master designer and wood-engraver and engraved much of the output of Montreal publisher John Wurtele Lovell, known as “Book-A-Day” Lovell, who published seven million cheap books a year. Walker died in 1899 in Montreal.

Krazy from Kanada

2009-01-20T10:30:00.000-08:00

Krazy & Ignatz was first published in 2001 by Stinging Monkey Publications based in Edmonton, Alberta. The editor and publisher is historian and archivist Greg Fink who assembled the book from scans provided by the San Francisco Academy of Comic Arts. Krazy & Ignatz is an attractive collection of one year of gently humorous dailies and sports a nifty Introduction by Bill Blackbeard. The re-issuing of the Kat dailies has been taken over by Fantagraphics but Greg has plans for issuing reprints of evergreen favourite comic strips Barnaby and King Aroo. I look forward to that! Krazy & Ignatz is still in print and on sale through Amazon.

Lou Skuce (1885-1951)

2009-01-14T19:32:00.000-08:00

Lou Skuce (1886-1951) was another Canadian born cartoonist of the Platinum Age. He was an editorial cartoonist and art editor for the Toronto Sunday World. Lou moved to the U.S. and created a strip, "Cash and Carrie," for the Bell Syndicate in 1927 which ran until Sept. 17, 1927 and a short-lived strip, "Mary Ann Gay," for United Press Features in 1928. The end of 1928 he was back in Toronto working for the Toronto Mail and Empire and contributing to the Wartime Canadian comic books.

Cash and Carrie was similar to Tillie the Toiler and Dumb Dora, a soap opera adventure of two small town girls in New York.which was a continuity from its beginnings. It was undistinguished until the character of Mrs. Bott was introduced. She was one of those graphic horrors that gets stuck in your head, like Flat Top or Alice the Goon.

Secret Identity

2009-01-14T15:53:00.000-08:00

Secret Identity, a shocking tell-all adults only book put together by New Yorker Craig Yoe. Original appearance was in a Times Square fetish magazine called "Nights of Horror."

*Illustration from post on SCI FI Wire

American Daily Doo Dads

2009-01-12T15:19:00.000-08:00

Doo Dads daily American newspaper strip by Arch Dale, 5 April 1922 top. Minnesota Daily Star.

7 April 1922

8 April 1922

9 April 1922

10 April 1922

11 April 1922

12 April 1922

Do You Know Why by Fisher

2009-01-11T17:21:00.000-08:00

I have been neglecting Punch in Canada lately. "Do You Know Why" appeared in the Ottawa Citizen throughout 1914 "drawn for this paper by Fisher." It was not published daily, more like whenever someone got around to finishing a new batch, then they were often published three to a page like this sample from 5 Dec 1914.

I don't know for sure, and maybe never will, but another Citizen cartoonist may have been Jacques' "If We Said What We Thought But We Don't," which also had a sporadic staggered publication a few years later in 1916. The Ottawa Citizen is the only paper I know of to carry the strip.

11 April 1916

James Simpkins (1910-2004)

2008-12-01T14:51:00.003-08:00

Jasper by Winnipeg cartoonist James Simpkins, January 3, 1970, Edmonton Journal comic section.

Comic Advertising: Montréal

2008-11-24T20:21:00.000-08:00

From Le Samedi 20 octobre 1956. The top advertisement surprised me. The toque, the lumberjack shirt, the moustache, the gum-boots -- this French-Canadian depiction is the same as the English stereotype. The difference is that unlike the dastardly villain of the movies this fellow is a real hero.

Hector Brault VII

2008-11-24T19:13:00.000-08:00

Some more British reprints from Le Samedi 20 Octobre 1956. It's hard to tell the original source but cowboy heroes Ken Maynard and Tim McCoy were featured in other strips I'm guessing it may have been Film Fun or it's companion Kinema Comics. Another possibility is a short lived comic called Film Picture Stories which ran 30 issues in 1934-1935. Buck Jones was featured on the covers. All three were edited by Fred Cordwell and published by Amalgamated Press.

See all Hector Brault posts HERE.

Comic Art of Arch Dale

2008-11-14T09:19:00.000-08:00

TOP > Arch Dale portrait with his creations, the Dog, the Little Man and a Doo Dad drawn by Free Press artist Robert Reck.

Arch Dale was born in Dundee, Scotland on May 31, 1882 and in later years would bitterly recall the poverty and violence of the slum-dwelling coal miners, factory workers and their families. At the age of seventeen Dale began his career as a cartoonist, first on the Dundee Courier and later on the Glasgow News. He relocated to London where he worked on the early comics published by Alfred Harmsworth; Comic Cuts and the Funny Wonder. The two comics were bundled together and sold overseas in Canada at five cents a shot. Dale’s editor in London gave him ship-fare for Canada where he took up homesteading in the Touchwood Hills, in Saskatchewan, an area of rolling hills, grass, and water, ideal for cattle-ranching.

Dale’s homestead was 100 miles from a railway and he later claimed it was his craving for cigarettes that led him to move all the way to Winnipeg where in 1907 a cartoon submitted to the Winnipeg Free Press was accepted. He continued contributing cartoons to the Free Press and added the Grain Growers' Guide to his list of clients beginning with editorial cartoons in the October 1908 issue. The Doo Dads were foreshadowed in a busy 28 August 1909 single-panel titled The Brownies Picnic, featuring naked long-legged creatures engaged in various escapades.

In 1910 he returned to Scotland for a visit. From Scotland he moved on to Manchester where he accepted a position as staff cartoonist, replacing Percy “Poy” Fearon on Hulton’s Daily Dispatch. Here, also, he drew a series called The Imps (1912-1913) for Ideas, also published by the Hulton Press. The Imps resembled Dale’s earlier Brownies, one of whom was to be seen reading a paper titled Ideas in the 1909 cartoon. This suggests that Dale may have worked for Hulton before his move to Canada in 1906. The Imps comics were reprinted in the Toronto Star Weekly in 1913. Another Ideas strip was Soggy the Scout.

Dale left Manchester, joining “Poy” on Northcliffe’s London Evening News then returned to Canada in 1913 to rejoin the Winnipeg based Grain Grower’s Guide where he created the Doo Dads on October 24, 1917. Whereas the Brownies and the Imps were grotesque, lean creatures with long legs, the Doo Dads were small, cute, roly-poly fellows with fried-eggs for eyeballs. Dale soon added Lady and Baby Doo Dads, in response to readers letters. In the later years of the war the Doo Dads single-panel with captions was running on children’s pages in newspapers coast to coast. Our heroes even took on the beastly Hun Dads, who had moustaches, wore spiked helmets and spoke pidgin English.

In 1919, Arch Dale married Claire Porter in Winnipeg, their daughter Julie Dale, cartoonist and illustrator, would become head of the Free Press art department in the fifties. In December 1921, Arch Dale went to Chicago to work with the Universal Feature and Specialty Co., where he syndicated his Doo Dads (1921-1927). The Doo Dads ran in the US until 1924 as a single-panel cartoon then branched out with a color Sunday page on 13 Feb 1924. At this time there is a distinctly noticeable George Herriman influence in Dale‘s comic pages, probably due to his assistant Fred Neher, who helped with lettering and backgrounds. Neher was an Indiana cartoonist and creator of Otto Watt, Goofey Movies and Life‘s Like That. With the loss of Arch Dale the Grain Grower’s Guide replaced his editorial cartoons with those of Bert Billings (also one of Dale’s replacements in 1910) but continued to publish book collections and run the Universal Feature’s Doo Dads in black and white, until Dale’s return in 1926.

Dale may have grown tired of the Doo Dads because upon his return he immediately began a new comic strip in the Guide, The Adventures of Dickie Dare, which began on 27 January 1926. Dickie Dare was a jungle strip which took place on the wonderful Isle of Zamboango. Dickie, accompanied by a dog, Stumbo, and a stereotyped African named Bimbo, fought lions, snakes, woggle-bugs and Scissors-Bill, a hungry crocodile. Word balloons were reinforced with large blocks of unnecessary text running under the panels.

The comic strip was superbly drawn but old admirers of the Doo Dads were not impressed. Dale was deluged with mail demanding a return of Doc Sawbones & company. One young boy in Ypres, Saskatchewan, wrote a long poem called Give us Back the Doo Dads, which began

Give us Back the Doo Dads,
Those funny little chaps;
Nicky Nutt and Tiny,
In their little wee Scotch caps.

On 1 April 1926 The Adventures of Dickie Dare was discontinued and The Doo Dads returned on 1 May 2006. Word balloons replaced text in a five part multi-panel serial in the American style titled The Mysterious Whatsit. Another feature was begun in the late twenties, Mr. Knowitall, a single-panel in the Guide reminiscent of Rube Goldberg’s inventions. Dale would continue with his editorial cartooning until his retirement in 1954 when he was succeeded by Peter Kuch as staff artist. Arch Dale’s wife passed away in 1955 and he followed seven years later in the spring of 1962, at eighty.

Through two world wars Arch Dale drew thousands of cartoons from his desk in the corner of the Free Press Library, where the floor was pitted with burns from the endless hand rolled cigarettes that he lit with borrowed matches. In a preface to one of Arch Dale’s Free Press collections an anonymous author wrote of the master at work:

“A series of circles and lines appear like magic all over his drawing paper. They look like nothing and, to the outsider, mean still less. But, as you watch, the drawing takes shape and with almost incredible speed there emerges one of those clever drawings that interpret in sharp and humorous line some outstanding issue of the day. A few more strokes and the little dog appears, frequently serving a double purpose as sly comment on the picture and as Archie’s signature. So well known is the dog that a few years ago a letter with nothing on the envelope but the little dog was safely delivered to Archie at the Free Press office.”

Raoul Barré Links

2008-11-13T08:36:00.001-08:00

Barnacle Press presents 12 English language Sunday pages of Raoul Barré’s Noahzark Hotel from the McClure Syndicate in 1913 HERE. The strip, produced in New York in 1912, also appeared in La Patrie as A l’hôtel du Père Noé in 21 episodes, the last in June 1913.

Ten minutes of an animated 1915 film Cartoons on Tour featuring the Animated Grouch Chasers is HERE. The Animated Grouch Chaser was one of the earliest series of cartoons (over 20 episodes) begun in May 1915 for the Edison Studios.

The Phable of a Busted Romance (1916) is at Arf Lovers blog HERE.

Pioneer Portraits, a reminiscence of Barré by Dick Heumer HERE.

More Raoul Barré

2008-11-11T09:45:00.000-08:00

More Raoul Barré from 24 June 1901 in En Roulant Ma Boule Album.

Raoul Barré (1874 -1932)

2008-11-10T08:59:00.001-08:00

Raoul Barré 1874-1932 painter, illustrator, newspaper artist, animator. Top 24 June 1901 from En Roulant Ma Boule Album. In that collection each drawing appears on a separate page and I have pasted them together much as they would have appeared in the newspaper.

Title: Tale of a savage

The panels say the following:

1. Mr. Sauvageau, well immersed in the role of the character he must represent in the pageant's procession, explains to Mrs. Sauvageau the different terrible poses which will drive the crowd wild.--First, I discover, in the distance, my enemy approaching.

2. -- I unbury the war-ax

3. -- Then I make the frightful cry (Hou! hou! hou!)

4. -- Armed to the teeth, eyes squinting and jaw flushed with blood, I crawl as prudently as a snake.

5. -- Suddenly, I prepare to leap...

6. -- ! ! ! ! ! !

7. -- I think it's poisoned.

8. -- Pretty smart what you've gone and done there, stupid child!

9. Little Paul. -- I reckoned youse was 'nother savage come to beat up mom.

*Translated by Dr. Georges T. Dodds

*In search of Raoul Barré by André Martin

Montreal : Cinématique québécoise, 1976

Dick Hartley

2008-11-08T14:03:00.000-08:00

Dick Hartley cartoons from the Grain Grower's Guide through 1910.

Bert Billings

2008-11-05T13:20:00.001-08:00

Two cartoons by Bert Billings from the Grain Grower's Guide of Manitoba. The reference is to George McManus comic strip Their Only Child which you can see HERE.

Top 2 Aug 1913 Bottom 23 8 1913.

Hal Foster versus the Combines

2008-11-03T19:34:00.000-08:00

This rare Hal Foster political commentary appeared in the Wiinipeg, Manitoba Grain Grower's Guide on November 26, 1913. The GGG's main cartoonist Arch Dale had been in England for a few years and Foster was just one of the many cartoonists who replaced him.

H. A. MacGill

2008-10-31T20:05:00.000-07:00

H. A. MacGill was a contemporary of George McManus and Rube Goldberg. His most famous early comic strip was The Hall Room Boys. He drew another strip called Percy & Ferdie which sold 6,000,000 copies in the Cupples & Leon issued comic books. Percy & Ferdie was re-published in one of the earliest comic book or comic book supplements ever to be published, The Funnies, in 1930. The two samples of The Economical Husband are from October 1912.

Jeff Buchanon

2008-10-23T08:55:00.001-07:00

Jeff Buchanon by Gordon Johnston, artist, and E. Dewar, writer. Syndicated by the Toronto Telegram from 19 May 1960 t0 12 Aug 1961. Parliamentary reporter Jeff Buchanon and his red-headed sidekick Al McNally travelled Canada fighting spies, Indians and terrorists. In an effort to promote the strip across Canada storylines took our hero from Ottawa to Northern Ontario, Labrador, Winnipeg and British Columbia.

I was living in the West Kootenays when this sequence took place and was quite excited to have a comic strip character having adventures in my backyard when the strip was cancelled unexpectedly in the middle of the episode for 8 March 1961 (see bottom strip) leaving readers high and dry. That was a common occurence, the same thing happened with the James Bond comic strip featuring Dr. No.

B.C. was dealing with real terrorism at the time near the Arrow Lakes. Sons of Freedom Doukhobors were planting bombs in provincial post offices, trains, and movie theatres (during the children's matinées). Although the Sons of Freedom are not mentioned in the strip they were the obvious villains of the piece and sabotage of the new Mica Creek dam was believed to be a real possibility.

More of Jeff Buchanon HERE.

Ben Weider (1923-2008)

2008-10-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

Ben Weider, who helped establish the fitness empire that bears his family's name, died at the Jewish General Hospital in Montreal on Friday at the age of 85. In the fifties the magazine racks were stuffed with the sports, martial arts, and bodybuilding periodicals of the Weider brothers, Ben and Joe, who brought Arnold Schwarzenegger to America. Joe Weider (born 1922) was publishing sixteen titles in the fifties out of New Jersey. Ben Weider resided in Montreal. An obituary, Bodybuilder creates an empire, can be found HERE and a biographical article HERE.

Les Callan

2008-09-23T16:54:00.000-07:00

Les Callan wrote, "These cartoons were first published under the caption "Monty and Johnny" in the Canadian Army newspaper "The Maple Leaf," Northwest Europe Edition, 1944-1945. They record events from D-Day to VE-Day."

Monty was, of course, Field Marshall Sir Bernard Montgomery, and Johnny was an average Canadian soldier fighting in the liberation armies of Europe.

After the war Monty and Johnny were collected in a paper-covered book called Normandy and On... From D-Day to Victory, -published by Longmans, Green and Co., Toronto with text and art by Lieut. Les Callan. The cartoons are as much history as fantasy, Callan was drawing the situations and the people along side him, fighting Canadians who battled their way through France, Belgium and Germany to victory. A modern reprinting of Normandy and On... would be nice to see.

Canuck Cartoonists at War

2008-09-21T10:11:00.000-07:00

The Maple Leaf began as an initiative of Canadian Forces Brigadier Richard Malone. The paper supplied war news, sports, comic strips, cartoons, and pin-ups to the troops in the field. Wherever the Canadian troops were stationed, Italy, France, Belgium, Germany and the UK the Maple Leaf followed.

Ottowa, Ontario artist William “Bing” Coughlin’s Herbie was the most popular cartoon published by the Maple Leaf. Vancouver newspaper cartoonist Les Callan drew Montie and Johnny. Other Canadian cartoonists included Ted “The Moaner” Reeve, L. E. Weekes and Tom Luzny.

Toronto’s sporting legend Ted “The Moaner” Reeve was also known as “Old Lantern Jaw” and was active in every sport you could think of -- hockey, lacrosse, football, you name it, Ted done it.

L. E. Weekes is one cartoonist I haven’t been able to find any information on.

Tom Luzny was a Winnipeg artist. In 1954 Luzny was one of 9 Canadian artists whose paintings were on display at the Imperial Institute of London, England. The Winnipeg Free Press reported that his painting Trafalgar Square Coronation Eve “has aroused much comment.”

Popular strips from England and the US included Norman Pett’s Jane, Li'l Abner and Chic Young’s Blondie.

Meanwhile -- back on the home front, young Leo Bachle was supporting the war effort by keeping up the morale of the kiddies with such characters as Johnny Canuck and the Invisible Commando. This gaudy phallic illustration would look right at home in Wertham's Seduction of the Innocent.

Canadian Science-Fiction Fanzines

2008-09-18T11:11:00.000-07:00

Visions Vol. I No. 1, Fall 1976. Visions was published eight times yearly by Paranoid Publishing, Edmonton, Alberta. The publisher was Robert L. Thompson, editor David M. Vereschagin, and production was handled by Eugene W. Plawiuk. A serious fanzine devoted to science fiction which alternated with issues featuring comics. Artwork was contributed by John Byrne, David M. Vereschagin, Larry Hashman, and David R. Haugh.

Articles and poetry were provided by David M. Vereschagin, Eugene W. Plawiuk, David Schamber, Dae Cronan, Debra F. Sanders, Mike Mitchell, Mike Davidson, and Bob Thompson.

My own contribution was a cover and one interior illustration in Vol. I No. 3, March/April 1977 along with illustrations by John Byrne (spaceship below), David M. Vereschagin, David R. Haugh, Randy Mohr, and Barry Kent MacKay.

Writers were David M. Vereschagin, Eugene W. Plawiuk, Mike Mitchell, Rook Jones, H. A. Hargreaves, and Robert Anton Wilson. A letters column brought forth a comment from fanzine historian Harry Warner, Jr., of Hagerstown, Maryland, author of All Our Yesterdays (1969) and A Wealth of Fable (1976). Also heard from was Arthur C. Clarke.

Wilson Tucker wrote in 1969 of Harry Warner, Jr. that he "is an indefatigable writer of letters of comment, and the young fan editor who publishes two or three issues without receiving such a letter is apt to fold up his presses and steal away in shame." Harry Warner, Jr., a newspaper man, printed and published the first issue of his own long-running fanzine, Horizons, on October 1939.

David M. Vereschagin also published First Class no. 1 March 1977 in New Sarepta, Alberta. The Martian illustration immediately below appeared in one of the comic book issues of Visions.

The first fanzine published in Canada was Supermundane Stories, for fans of fantasy and the supernatural, published in the late thirties by Nils Helmer Frome (pen name Herkanos) and featuring work from H. P. Lovecraft, Rider Haggard and Clark Ashton Smith. From the same time period came Croutch Magazine Market News, from Larry Croutch of Parry Sound, Ontario. Title changed to Croutch News, then Light, in 1941.

William H. Gander of Transcona, Manitoba, inspired by American Ralph Cummings Dime Novel Round-Up, the 1925 British story paper fanzine Vanity Fair, and the Collector's Miscellany, long published in England by Joseph Parks, issued The Story Paper Collector Vol. I No. 1. For Jan/Mar, 1941 and it ran for 370 issues.

Rocket (1941) was issued by Fred Hurter with help from Beak Taylor. A fanzine had already appeared with that title and Rocket was changed to Censored. Mephisto, for weird fiction enthusiasts came out in fall of 1942 from Alan Child, and Eight Ball was printed up by Beak Taylor. By 1944 the only fanzine being published was Taylor’s Canadian Fandom published in Aurora, Ontario and survived until the late fifties under different editors.

By the fifties Norman G. Browne was publishing Vanations in Vancouver, B.C. and Georgina Clarke was issuing various fanzines from Calgary, Alberta.

Various Canadian science fiction fanzines in no particular order:

Novoid, Saskatoon : C. Hinz,1986

Dapapa, Edmonton : Dada Amateur Press Association. 19 issues last dated 1979

Under the Ozone Hole, Victoria 1992-1996, edited by John Wilson Herbert and Karl Johanson

I’m not boring you am I, Edmonton Editor: Robert Runte, 1983

torus /cthe Kamikaze Editorial Collective, Toronto : Kamikaze Editorial Collective, 1988

BCSFA newsletter Vancouver : BCSFA, 1973-Issued on behalf of BCSFA by Mike Bailey, 1973-1975

Xenium Vol. 1, no. 1 (1973) Toronto : Mike Glicksohn

Amor, Regina : Susan Glicksohn, 1973-1979. Editor: Susan Wood.

Winding numbers, Winnipeg : Editor Randy Reichardt, Vol. 1, no. 1 (fall 1975)

Simulacrum Ontario : Victoria Vayne, No. 1 June 1975 - no. 8 1978

Universe, Winnipeg : STYX, 1974-Editor: Joseph Krolik.

Schmagg, Winnipeg : BeFlatte Publications, No. 1 1977. Editor: Michael S. Hall.

Genre plat, Vancouver : Allyn Cadogan and Bill Gibson, no 1 Spring 1977

Rothnium magazine, Owen Sound, Ont. : Cygolian Press, 1977 Editor: David Hull.

Strange dystrophies, Islington, On. : Bill Brummer, c 1976

Orca, Toronto, Ontario Editor Jennifer K. Bankier, 1976

Dream vendor, Hamilton, Ont. Alan C. Sandercock No. 1 Sept 1976

Laid : the decadent Winnipeg newszine, Winnipeg, Editor: James A. Hall ("also known as Michael Hall") 1977

Calcium light nights, Editor, Phil Paine. 1975

Neology, Edmonton Science Fiction and Comic Arts Society, 1978-1992

The Monthly monthly (later Bimonthly monthly),Edmonton, Gang of Four, 1979-1980.

Typo, 1978, Willowdale, Ontario, Editor: Taral Wayne.

DNQ, Toronto 1978-1984. Editors: Victoria Vayne, Taral Wayne.

The Prydonian, Peterborough, Ontario, editor Dr. John Smith. No. 1 1979

Fewmets, Edmonton, 1980 Editors: Lorna Toolis, Marianne Nielsen.

Contact, Oshawa, Newsletter for the Doctor Who Information Network, No. 1 Sep./Oct. 1980

Carefully sedated, Toronto, Ontario : Alan Rosenthal & Catherine Crockett, 1983

Maple Leaf Rag, Victoria, B.C. , Stop Press, No. 1 (Nov. 1983)-no. 30 (June 1987).

New Canadian Fandom, Edmonton, Published by Beflatte Publications in Association with Negative Entropy Press, c1981-

Tales from Purgatory, Edmonton, R & R Creations, Editors: Randy Smallman and Ron Holmes, 1994, 13 issues

*Please help yourself to the Comments section with any corrections or additions.

Chartier Le Samedi Cover

2008-09-07T15:39:00.000-07:00

Another great Albert Chartier cover for Le Samedi, 20 octobre 1956

J. R. Williams (1888-1957)

2008-09-05T14:36:00.000-07:00

James R. Williams was born in Nova Scotia in 1888, left shortly after his birth, and grew up in Michigan and Ohio. He spent most of his life in the United States.

Doo Dad Sundays IV

2008-09-03T08:43:00.000-07:00

Doo Dad Sundays III

2008-09-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

Unfortunately I don't have these Sundays dated and in order as they were on the original corrupted disc but some have dates. The very bottom piece is dated Sept, 14, 1924 and may actually be the first Sunday Doo Dads strip. I have been stitching these together from two scans for one Sunday and they don't always line up perfectly. The top piece is interesting for it's limited use of color. More tomorrow...

Doo Dad Sundays II

2008-09-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

Top is dated February 15, 1925 but is dated 1924 in the corner. Below are two featuring the bagpipes.

Arch Dale's American Sundays 1924

2008-09-01T09:40:00.000-07:00

Canadians owe a lot to Bill Blackbeard. A few years back Bill sent me b@w photocopies of Arch Dale's Doo Dads American Sunday strips. Bill had not seen the Canadian single-panel version and I had never laid eyes on an American Sunday which he had described as "Herrimanesque."

One day a large package arrived in the mail containing the complete run of original Sunday pages. I scanned them all and unfortunately while adding something to the cd the whole thing was wiped clean by a computer glitch. I had already sent the whole box of goodies back but luckily many examples had been saved to another disc and I am going to spend the week posting them entire.

The Quiet Art of Cartooning

2008-08-29T06:23:00.001-07:00

The Quiet Art of Cartooning by Seth.

John Wilson Bengough (1851-1923)

2008-08-25T15:54:00.000-07:00

J. W. Bengough From the British Review of Reviews, 1892.

George & Norman Munro

2008-08-20T17:09:00.000-07:00

I have had a long interest in the brothers George and Norman Munro of Nova Scotia. Oddly except for a few mentions in histories of Canadian Literature they are barely acknowledged in the country of their birth. The cause of this neglect may be that in the minds of millions they would forever be associated with the publishing of cheap literature for the masses. The Munros and other Canadian publishers disrupted the American book trade by publishing mass editions of English fiction at 5, 10, and 20 cents in paper covers. This cheap competition caused American publishers to compete with 10 cent libraries.

George is the brother with the better reputation, he was a staunch liberal Presbyterian, Dalhousie College in Halifax, N.S., New York University, and various churches benefited greatly from his largesses. Norman, on the other hand, seems to have been a bit of a scamp.

George Munro was born at West River, Nova Scotia, on November 12, 1825. He became a mathematics instructor at the Free Church College in Halifax . At the age of twelve he entered the office of the Observer in Pictou, to learn the printing business. He attended Pictou Academy for three years. He was head master of the Free Church Academy of Halifax, where he taught mathematics and completed a theology course in preparation for the ministry.

George moved to New York in 1856 and was employed by the American News Company at a small salary. In 1863 Irwin Beadle, who had co-founded the Beadle Publishing House with his brother Erastus, broke with his brother and established a rival publishing house with George Munro under the old firm name of Irwin P. Beadle & Co. Their first series was Irwin P. Beadle's Ten Cent Novels for five numbers, with No. 6 the title was changed to Munro's Ten Cent Novels. The firm of Irwin P. Beadle and Co. became George Munro in 1864.

In 1867, he began the publication of the Seaside Library and the Fireside Companion (1867-1903) providing cheap reading for the masses. The first cheap numbers printed were East Lynne, John Halifax and Jane Eyre. In 1872 Old Sleuth first appeared in the New York Fireside Companion in a serial Old Sleuth the Detective; or, the Bay Ridge Mystery. Old Sleuth was the first mass-marketed, popular fiction detective to appear. In a few years he was joined by Old Cap Collier, and Old King Brady. At his death on April 24, 1896 at age 78 of heart failure his sons took over the publishing business.

One of the most popular of the cheap periodicals published by George Munro featured Harlan P. Halsey’s Old Sleuth. The first Old Sleuth story published by George was titled "Old Sleuth The Detective; or, The Bay Ridge Mystery," by (supposedly) comedian Tony Pastor. Lawsuits were eventually to fly over the use of the name 'Sleuth' involving George, the Beadles, and Norman the usurper. Norman tried out numerous detectives with variations on Old, Young, Sleuth, and Badger. One story announced by Norman L. Munro was "Sleuth, Badger, and Co., the Bay Ridge, Wall Street, and Custom House Detectives; or, "Piping a Mysterious Crime." Bay Ridge was of course the property of George and eventually recourse to the law led to the Old Pink, Old San, and Old Cap Collier (who were really old compared to Sleuth.) Halsey, an esteemed member of the Brooklyn Board of Education and organizer of trust companies, adapted the nom de plume “Old Sleuth” and wrote over 600 detective stories. It was said that he earned a salary of $20,000 a year for his serials for George Munro.

Harlan P. Halsey was born in New York in 1835. He was employed by Frank Leslie in his early days and at age 16 wrote a 300 page novel which he self-published. Some of his early stories and poems were published in the Brooklyn Eagle. In addition to the blood and thunder tales he also wrote several historical novels. His last book was Only a Photograph.

The Brooklyn Eagle reported that ;

“When he first began to turn them out for Munro he would write with his own hand at a marvellous rate of speed and in such a way that only an expert could decipher his writing. As he finished each pagge he would throw it on the floor and go in for the next. When the story had been finished it was the work of some member of his family to collect the sheets and put them together. This, Mr. Halsey used to say, with a laugh, was the “hardest part of the job.”

Later he took to dictating to a stenographer from his berth on the sofa. Ideas often came from the crime columns of the daily newspapers. The Bay Ridge Mystery was based on the Charley Ross abduction.

“His dream had been to form a publishing company which would be unique to his character, and though his scheme, which was as wonderful in its way as the stories he wrote, never was fully realized, he never tired of discussing it with his intimate friends and he finally carried it partly into execution by publishing his own works.”

He died in his home at 111 McDonough street of cerebral hemorrhages on December 16, 1898. “Old Sleuth’s” estate was estimated at $500,000. Not bad for a man whose “stories were not at all bad in their way and should not be associated with the usual Wild West Indian tales.” He was survived by his wife, (they had been married by the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher) a daughter, Belle, and two sons, Louis and Harry, who were involved with him in the publishing business.

George Munro’s younger brother Norman Munro was born at Mill Brook, Pictou County, Nova Scotia on April 8, 1844. He had an ordinary schoolhouse education and was put to work on his fathers farm as a plough-boy. When he turned 25, in 1866, he moved to New York where he worked at various small publishing companies. and engaged in publishing business under the name of the Munro Publishing Co. Norman founded a publishing house to rival that of his brother.

A former Beadle employee, Norman Munro was interested in detective stories and achieved great success with the publication of Old Cap Collier Library, a series featuring the adventures of an ingenious, aging sleuth. Norman Munro's New York Family Story Paper began on “Black Friday,” September 1873, and ran until 1921. Norman Munro began Boys of New York in 1875, taking from his brother editor George Small, and starting a bitter feud between the brothers.

A fire in February1876 destroyed Norman’s plant and he sold Boys of New York and Our Boys to Frank Tousey, who merged the titles with the New York Boys' Weekly. Norman L. Munro published it from its beginnings on August 23, 1875 to July 13, 1878, Volume III No. 152. Tousey and Small took over with No. 153, July 20, 1878 and carried it through to 1894, although Small’s name eventually disappeared from the masthead. When Tousey’s Boys Weekly was incorporated in the Boys of New York, Boys Weekly serials were continued from No. 153 on. Many of the contributors, Paul Braddon, Corporal Morgan Rattler, E. H. Kellogg, and Police Captain Howard also worked on the short-lived Boys Champion (1881-1883) which also seemed to have something to do with Tousey.

In England BNY was published as The Boys of London and New York, as Francis Hitchman said in 1890, in the Quarterly Review ; “from stereotyped plates, which are obviously manufactured in America.” B. G. Johns had this to say in the Edinburgh Review in 1887 ; “if Fagin the Jew, Baron Munchausen, and Jack Sheppard had set to work as joint editors of a ‘Thieves Library’ they might well have been proud of the whole series now before us.”

In 1888 Norman L. Munro published Golden Hours which introduced Young Tom Edison. The Houses of Munro and Beadle enjoyed great commercial success until the early 1900s when the popularity of dime novels declined, replaced by the cheaper “nickel libraries.

The New York Family Story Paper made Norman a millionaire. He spent loads of his money on his passion, steam yachting. His yachts included The Norman, the Henrietta (named for his wife), Now-then, Say When, So So, Our Mary, the Jersey Lily, Vamoose, and the Norwood, the swiftest craft afloat at 32 miles an hour.

Norman Munro died in his wife’s arms on February 24,1894, his death following a surgical operation for appendicitis. The Washington Post claimed his operation was “necessitated by fatal poisoning.” His son Henry was also reported dangerously ill, suffering from the same complaint at Dobbs Ferry. He apparently survived the ordeal. His estate was shared between Mrs. Henrietta E. Munro and their two children, “soon to come of age.”

*Many thanks to Joe Rainone for the portraits.

Henri Julien (1852-1908)

2008-08-20T09:28:00.000-07:00

In addition to his work in Montreal Henri Julien's drawings and illustrations appeared in English language publications in the US and Britain in Harper's, The Century Magazine, and The Graphic.

Albert Chartier (1912-2004)

2008-08-16T17:12:00.000-07:00

Cartoonist and illustrator Albert Chartier’s best known work is "Onésime," a monthly, full-page strip that appeared in Le Bulletin des Agriculteurs from 1943 until 2002. Other strips were “Séraphin,” “Les Canadiens,” and “Suzette.” His work appeared in La Presse, the Montreal Star, the Montreal Gazette, Le Samedi and the Weekend Magazine. Albert Chartier died at age 91 and was buried in St. Jean de Matha, the small town near Joliette where he lived which was also the setting for the comic strip Onésime.

Top > "Al" Chartier, Weekend Magazine May 14, 1960

Jacques Le Flaguais (1921-1986)

2008-08-14T13:54:00.000-07:00

Jacques Le Flaguais was a cartoonist born in Tours, France in 1921. A tour as a cabaret singer with Edith Piaf brought him to New York and then Canada in 1948. He stayed in Montreal and worked in a hotel before taking on work as a poster-artist and advertising cartoonist.

He had a cover for the New Yorker. Covers and drawings were reproduced in the Reader's Digest and he contributed cartoons to the Montreal Weekend Magazine. These cartoons were drawn for the May 14, 1960 Edmonton Journal Weekend Magazine. Jacques Le Flaguais' story is online here in French .

Radisson/Tomahawk

2008-08-14T10:14:00.000-07:00

In February 1957 Canada's CBC television network responded to the popularity of Disney's Davy Crockett with our homegrown hero Radisson. Among the many marketing ploys were the Radisson coonskin hats which were merely unsold Davy Crockett coonskins with the tails removed and a white feather added. The show was canceled before the run of the scheduled 39 weeks but was shown in England, Australia and the United States under the title Tomahawk. In elementary school history class in the fifties we were taught to remember Radisson and his sidekick Groseilliers by word association, to wit: "radishes and gross ill ears."

*Topix Comics, source of the Radisson comic above, was a Catholic supplement given away in Sunday Schools between 1942 and 1952. This story was from 1950.

Ben by Daniel Shelton

2008-08-14T08:30:00.000-07:00

Ben is a delightful family strip by Montreal cartoonist Daniel Shelton. English language dailies can be read HERE.

Captain George Henderson (1930-1992)

2008-08-13T09:28:00.000-07:00

Captain George Henderson was the proprietor of the Memory Lane nostalgia shop on 594 Markham Street, Toronto. He "had excessive facial hair, a twinkle in his eye and a desire to provide anyone who entered his shop with their most desired item." as one fan wrote on her blog.

Henderson was also one of the earliest kings of the comic strip reprint business until King Features took him to court and put him out of the business. Henderson was apparently unaware that Alex Raymond's work was still under copyright. His piracies cost him from 4,000 to 10,000 dollars in fines, sources disagree on the exact amount.

In a very short Macleans article (more of a squib) of April 1969, "Got a vintage "Batman"? See the King of Camp," it says,

"At 39 he is Canada's King of Camp and an ardent comicollector (sic) who got that way by chance three years ago, when he whimsically decorated his book-store with old comic books he had found in his sister's basement. "A man came in and picked up a Batman from the display and peeled off five $20 bills from his money clip. I immediately closed the store and went down to the States to find out what the business was all about." Now he's selling 15,000 used comic books a month, including surprising quantities to newly hooked youngsters."

Captain George had a worldwide reputation with his various reprints selling for for 25 cents in Canada, the US and Europe. his international reputation was not surprising, few people had ever seen the comic strips Little Nemo or Krazy Kat, they seemed to be irrevocably lost to history. Hell, most boomers had never even seen a Captain Marvel comic book.

Henderson launched three fanzines in 1968: Captain George's Whizzbang, Captain George's Penny Dreadful, (a free weekly still running in 1982), and Captain George's Comic Book World. Huib van Opsta l* kindly provided content listings for a few of the titles >

-- COMIC WORLD #3 (undated, 1968/69, b/w)

Titled: 'The Magic of Winsor McCay'.

(An issue dually published with language periodical 'grOnk', edited by b p Nichol, of Ganglia Press, Toronto.)

16 pp., 39.5 x 29 cm,

in which: 12 pp. of Little Nemo reprints

5pp. of Rarebit Fiend reprints

1 p. of Pilgrim's Progress reprints

1 p. of Little Sammy Sneeze reprints

(and 1 p. editorial text on grOnk)

-- COMIC WORLD #4 (undated, 1968/69, b/w)

Titled: 'Krazy Kat by George Herriman'.

16 pp., 43.5 x 29 cm,

in which: 30 pp. of Krazy Kat reprints

1 p. Biographical Note on Herriman

Huib also noted that "at least 29 issues of COMIC WORLD were published. From issue 5 it was titled: CAPTAIN GEORGE'S COMIC WORLD."

I found this link to an SF magazine which has a piece on his death on February 10, 1992 by a Canadian writer on Pulps, Don Hutchison >

SOL Rising (I couldn't freeze the link at the Henderson entry but there is a link on this page.)

In this CBC television clip from May 20, 1970, Captain George discusses his store and the emergent hobby of comic collecting.

*1994. Essay RG. Het fenomeen Hergé, Huib van Opstal, Hilversum: Delange.

Hal Foster in Winnipeg 1910

2008-08-12T08:39:00.000-07:00

A short story titled Saved by Grace, by W. G. Shepherd, was published in the February 1910 issue of Western Home Monthly, a Winnipeg, Manitoba fiction magazine with illustrations signed "Taylor." In 1910 Hal Foster, future Tarzan cartoonist, was working on the Eaton's catalogs for Brigdens of Winnipeg Limited.

Taylor's artistic style is so similar to Foster's work, and his signature in the spidery Foster style, that I'm inclined to think that either Taylor was Foster, moonlighting under an assumed name, or he was Foster's artistic mentor. Although there is no proof that Foster worked for the Western Home Monthly a photograph exists showing Foster and two unknown commercial artists posed with a large cover painting and paste-up for the Western Home Monthly circa 1912. The photo is reproduced in Brian M. Kane's 2001 book Hal Foster Prince of Illustrators.

On the bottom of the page I have uploaded a sample of Foster's Eaton's work from roughly the same period, February 27, 1911, which shows his Prince Valiant style of drawing woman was already in evidence at this early period of his career.

W. G. Shepherd was probably William Gunn Shepherd (1878-1933) author of Confessions of a War Correspondent, Harper & brothers (1917). Shephard was a reporter on the New York World.

Maple Leaf Comics

2008-08-05T09:53:00.000-07:00

On one of my periodic eBay searches for Canadian wartime comics I hit pay-dirt. The earliest cover features Canada's first superhero The Iron Man created by Vernon Miller from Volume I no. 8, 1941. The undated Fishmen cover immediately below that is from the pen of lumberjack cartoonist Bert Bushell. Next a cover from Better, Volume VI No. 2, 1945. Last is what looks like a Jon St. Ables cover for Better Volume IV No. 3, 1945.

Note to eBay scanners please post larger scans and leave out the disfiguring marks in the corners for the archivists amongst us. A cover post listed on a blog in a timely manner may draw more buyers for your comics and gain a larger price. I would also like to invite any blog readers with Canadian comic cover art to send me scans. Simply scan at 150 dpi in color and post it to my email on the right.

Claude Fruchier

2008-08-05T08:32:00.000-07:00

Claude Fruchier's Puff Puff was another series running in Mainmise in the seventies. "Don't bogart that joint mon ami, hand it over to me!" Is that Thompson and Thomson I spy in the background?

Prince Vollant by Poissant

2008-08-04T09:02:00.000-07:00

A long comix story by Poissant in the style of the Last Gasp cartoonists, Greg Irons, Rich Corben and Jack Jaxon from Mainmise. I don't know for certain but I believe this was Yves Poissant who wrote and illustrated a biographical comic book about French-Canadian strong man Louis Cyr in 1978. As a long time Foster fan this striking comic came as a pleasant surprise.

For the most part Hal Foster avoided close-ups of violence. His usual method in his panels was to freeze violent scenes the moment before or the moment after the action took place.

Rand Holmes (1942-2002)

2008-08-03T20:11:00.000-07:00

The Harold Hedd comic above is a reprint from the Quebec underground newspaper Mainmise which ran 76 issues from 1970 to 1978. Mainmise was full of the usual preoccupations of the counter-culture, hallucinogenics, pot, free love and revolution, but soon began stuffing the pages with reprints of underground comix from Crumb, Ron Cobb, Trina, Corben, S. Clay Wilson, even Jeff Jones' Idyll from the pages of The National Lampoon.

The Harold Hedd comics by Rand Holmes were borrowed from the pages of Vancouver B.C.'s Georgia Straight. Mainmise started out digest sized, printed on cheap newsprint, then for a period was printed in full-colour on slick paper with impressive covers borrowed from the underground comics. It changed size again , magazine-size, before ending up as a newsprint tabloid alternative newspaper (as did the Georgia Straight) in 1977-78. In the latter years Mainmise became an important outlet for Montreal's numerous underground cartoonists.

Holmes obituary can be found here, from Cannabis Culture magazine.

Captain Canuck

2008-08-02T21:56:00.000-07:00

A promo card for Richard Comely and Ron Leishman's comic hero Captain Canuck from 1993. For his story I'll refer you to Black Market Pies blog HERE.

Montmorency

2008-08-02T20:51:00.000-07:00

August 23, 1958. Vahan Shirvanian's Montmorency comic strip appeared in the Toronto Star Weekly magazine. Shirvanian was born in Hackensack, New Jersey in 1925 and found regular employment with the Saturday Evening Post.

Walter Ball (1911-?)

2008-08-01T09:41:00.000-07:00

Walter Ball's Rural Route appeared in the Toronto Star Weekly from 1956 until 1968 when the Star Weekly ceased publishing. Walter Ball was born in Cookstown, Ontario in 1911 and began his career on the Toronto Star in 1932.* This sample is from October 4, 1958.

Comic historian and archivist Bill Blackbeard mentioned that Rural Route appeared in a few newspapers in the Midwestern United States. A 1982 interview with the cartoonist appeared on the CBC and can be heard HERE.

*Introduction to the Canadian Newspaper Comic by Kenneth S. Barker (INKS, May 1997)

Comic Advertising: Doug Wright

2008-08-01T09:21:00.001-07:00

Top > Star Weekly Magazine July 18, 1959.
Bottom > Edmonton Journal Weekend Magazine May 14, 1960.

Arch Dale (1882-1962)

2008-07-31T16:55:00.000-07:00

Three superb cartoons from the August 1931 Country Guide by Winnipeg cartoonist Arch Dale.

Quiet Evening in 1901

2008-07-24T20:56:00.000-07:00

Cartoon from the Moon by C. W. Jefferys, 1901

Mounties in the Comics: Yukon Charlie (Scotland)

2008-06-26T09:20:00.001-07:00

Lord of the Yukon appeared in a Scottish D. C. Thomson comic The Victor and was borrowed from here. If prizes were given for the oddest looking mountie ever Yukon Charlie would be a shoe-in with his short figure and wizened face.

Another unique idea was Space Mounties written by Pierre Veys and illustrated by Guilhem. An interesting article on mountie comics is : La Police Montée canadienne dans les Petits Formats found here. Or a translated version here.

Mounties in the Comics: Batman of the Mounties (US)

2008-06-25T10:55:00.000-07:00

This cover was actually drawn by Win (James Winslow) Mortimer who was born May 1, 1919 in Hamilton, Ontario, and died January 11, 1998. In 1950 Mortimer took over the Superman daily strip. There is an in-depth look at this comic at Blackmarket Pies blog

Lefty by Tom Kay 1948

2008-06-23T09:26:00.000-07:00

The Worker was a well-used title worldwide as an organ for the Communist movement. This Toronto based Worker was an Anti-commie publication. The front-page cartoonist on the Worker was a man named Tom Kay, a single-panel guy. His character is a sharp-nosed, brilliantine haired, five day shadow type of guy named - you guessed it - Lefty. Lefty resembles a Stalinesque juvenile delinquent.

In this case the right co-opted the generally left “Worker” title, it took me a while to catch on that I was not reading a socialist publication, but there was something not quite right about Lefty... Some headlines - Moscow Radio Likes to see the C. C. F. Get Support -- If War Came Could the Commies Sabotage Industry? -- Criminal is Cop- Red Runs Police -- Reds in 11 Defense Industries Lead 100,000 Canadian Workers -- Commie Lawyer Barred In B. C. -- Goon Squad Beats Up Union Chief.

I found this snippet on Google Book Search, from Apostles of Discord: A Study of Organized Bigotry and Disruption on the Fringes of Protestantism, a 1953 book published in Boston > “Venomous cartoons by Bill Paulson and Tom Kay are included for good measure.”

Mounties in the Comics: Dudley Do-Right

2008-06-20T20:29:00.002-07:00

Dudley Do-Right of the Mounties, we salute you. Dudley was hands down the most famous cartoon Mountie ever created. His hilarious melodramamatic adventures appeared on NBC's Bullwinkle Show, broadcast from 1961 to 1964. Dudley was voiced by Bill Scott, Nell Fenwick by June Foray, and William Conrad was the narrator. Dudley-Do-Right's name is invoked in parliament, on blogs and in coffee-shop conversation. Canadians have embraced the character as their own, and the death of writer Chris Hayward was occasion for this obituary on the CBC.

Mounties in the Comics: Dick Daring (UK) 1958

2008-06-20T18:29:00.001-07:00

Thriller Picture Library was published under Leonard Matthews at Fleetway Publications in London. One Dick Daring cartoonist was Italian Sergio Tarquinio. The Fleetway Libraries were pocket-size with b&w interior pages. My good friend Steve Holland has identified the cover artists seen here >

"Artists were Jordi Penalva (300), Stefan Barany (312), and Nino Caroselli (319). There's a book coming out in October called "The Art of War" by David Roach which includes many, many examples of Penalva and Caroselli cover art for the war picture libraries also published by Fleetway."

Corrupt Comics

2008-06-17T14:15:00.000-07:00

The Canadian crackdown on crime comics began in 1949 and the full story is told here. These three poorly reproduced microfilm articles came from Toronto Saturday Night in 49-50. The arguments were still going on in 1954 as seen here.

What Happened Next?

2008-06-17T11:04:00.000-07:00

Arthur G. Racey drew the first English language comic strip in Canada for the Montreal Star. The strip "What Happened Next?" began on Saturday January 6, 1912 and ran until about July 4, 1913. These were usually 6 panels with both balloons and poetic text running underneath. Kids would win a prize if they submitted one panel to finish off the strip, the "What Happened Next ?" and many of these kids did a creditable job of submitting the last panel in Racey's style. The first comic strip featured a hobo (top Jan 6) who was replaced by regular characters Ted and Tad, a boy and girl, their Uncle Fred and Aunt Angelina (very bottom Jan 13). Racey eventually tired of the slapstick of Ted ‘n’ Tad and continued with different characters in comic strip one-shots until S'Matter Pop replaced it on October 11, 1913.

While the Opper influence on his work is noticeable (and is just as noticeable in the old Moon cartoons circa 1903) it is not slavish copying -- Racey took the work of his hero and made something entirely his own. When "What Happened Next?" finished, Racey carried on with a series of brilliant one-off's beginning with "Uncle Silas Has His Picture "Took." 6/21/13, "Tastes Differ; Or, The Disappointed Tramp"8/23/13, Racey's Microbial denizens of Microbe Hollow, a recurring one-panel in the old Moon, were dusted off and run as a one-shot strip "Romance in Microbe Hollow" 9/13/13, There was "Romance of a Montreal Melon" 9/20/13, and the last a beautifully drawn sequence "The Mischievous Monk" 10/4/13. Racey kept a private Zoo and his animal cartoons were anatomically correct. S'Matter Pop by Payne replaced Racey on 10/11/13. Racey continued working with political cartoons and illustrations for columns by Canadian humorist Stephen Leacock.

These comic strips by Racey stand up well to the best work of the Americans during the Platinum period, Opper, Swinnerton, Dirks and all. They are written "funny" and drawn "funny," and there is not one false line, Racey was a facile confident cartoonist who filled Canadian papers with cartoons from the turn of the Century with Grip to the beginning of World War II in the Family Herald and the Grain Grower's Guide. I would gladly see a few pigeon-spattered statues in Ottawa replaced by a monument to Arthur G. Racey, King of Canuck Cartoonists.

Strangely enough "What Happened Next?" does not seem to have been syndicated. I say strangely because his political and single-panel cartoons appeared in literally every newspaper in Canada through-out his career.

It Happened in Montana

2008-06-06T18:23:00.000-07:00

Two 1940 single-panel cartoons by Montana artist Jim Masterson with Canadian backgrounds. More on Masterson here.

Hector Brault VI

2008-06-03T13:20:00.000-07:00

Sadly these are the last few samples I have containing Hector Brault's comic art banners to the British reprints. Some of the text for Bronco Roi des Prairies was cut off a bit during printing. The bottom page was from Le Samedi 20 novembre 1943. A review of all the posts can be seen HERE.

Le Samedi (1888-1963)

2008-06-02T10:50:00.001-07:00

Frédéric Poirier launched Le Samedi in 1888 as a humour magazine and it lasted until 1963 when it became Le Nouveau samedi. Directeur artistique was comic artist Hector Brault. Insides of Le Samedi consisted of feuilleton, roman policier and photo essays. Poirier published a similar magazine, La Revue populaire, which also carried bande dessinée by Brault. How long they were publishing comic pages is anyone's guess. Twenties? Thirties, Forties?

I have had a small collection of clippings of the comic pages for about ten years now but always figured they were reprints of European bande dessinée and British comic art. Recently I bought the issue pictured, from 19 septembre 1942, and noticing Hector Brault's signature on the comic pages looked him up to discover that he was from Québec and a cartoonist. Needless to say I was visibly chuffed to rediscover such an interesting fellow in Canadian comic history.

The cover at the top of the page is by another rather famous Canadian cartoonist, Albert Chartier, well-known for his comic strip work. Jeet Heer has an article on Chartier HERE. Did Chartier also contribute adventure serials to Poirier's popular magazines?

Poirier published one more magazine, Le Film.

Signed Bob ?

Hector Brault V

2008-06-01T16:31:00.000-07:00

Another British western for Le Samedi 28 juin 1947. This page is followed by something much more modern, a Caniffian serial called L'Espion No. 11, which appeared on the same date. No signature is discernible, it may have been the job of another Québec cartoonist.

Tim McCoy

2008-06-01T13:55:00.000-07:00

La Vengeance de "Loup-Gris" with banner by Hector Brault. This British reprint features the cowboy hero of the thirties and forties Tim McCoy. From Le Samedi, 30 Juin 1951.

Hector Brault IV

2008-05-31T20:37:00.000-07:00

Here's Bronco Prairies and Héros du Rail with banner by Hector Brault. these British reprints show the influence of Walter Booth. Coconino has a Walter Booth site under construction HERE with one quality adventure in pop-ups, Le Moteur d'Or, with a trip by Rob the Rover and Dan by ship and rail to Vancouver, B.C., Indians, canoes, snowshoes, and a dog-sled that becomes a sail-sled.

Hector Brault III

2008-05-31T15:28:00.000-07:00

Le Loupe de l'Ouest with banner illustrated by art director Hector Brault, scanned carefully to preserve what's left of this thrilling looking adventure. Date unknown.

Hector Brault II

2008-05-31T13:50:00.000-07:00

More great Hector Brault banners from Le Samedi 19 Septembre 1942, Le Secret du Manoir.

Hector Brault

2008-05-31T12:58:00.000-07:00

Hector Brault illustrated the top banners over reprinted British comic serials for Montréal's Le Samedi magazine. Brault was the magazine's art director. This page is from 19 Septembre 1942. Brault illustrated “Tom Brinfin et Dodolf” in 1942 as seen here on Lambiek.

An illustrated history of québécoise bande dessinée here at BDQ.

*Thanks to Michel Saint-Loup and Michel Viau for their helpful comments. Beyond the Funnies: The History of Comics in English Canada and Quebec (here) was co-authored and co-curated by comics scholars John Bell and Michel Viau.

The Toronto Mystery Men I

2008-05-30T20:05:00.001-07:00

“Everything I ever attempted in the way of serious art seemed to me to have a humorous streak in it.” - Richard Taylor

The first rather grim Tely Mystery Men strip appeared May 3, 1924, under a title banner reading simply "? ?? ???" The unnamed threesome looked like undertakers in their tall stovepipe hats and white gloves. Each Mystery Man wore a long black overcoat which swept the ground only distinguished by a different number of buttons, one two and three, and as the strip went on the audience was to discover that minus the hats, the hairs on their heads matched the number of buttons on their coats. If that wasn’t enough to delight readers of the "Tely" they were equipped with blank oval eyeballs.

A photo of Richard "Dick" Taylor appeared on the same page. He was a handsome dreamy-eyed lad with a neat part in his hair and was wearing a striped tie. "Dick", we were informed, was born in Fort William, Ontario in 1903 and moved to Toronto one year later. His first art teacher was a local portrait painter, and he continued his studies at the Toronto Central Technical School.

To promote the new Canadian strip, the Features Editor ran another contest offering Fifty Dollars (split amongst 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners) to christen each of the un-named "Three Funny Fellows." Both the daily strip (still headlined by the mysterious "? ?? ???" ), and the TELY MYSTERY MEN contest ran side by side with weekly updates and exhortations to contestants. Banner blurbs beamed to the reader from above and below panel. You, too, could win a $25 Grand Prize for naming the Mystery trio.

"I suggest as the names for the Three Mystery Men in Dick’s Comic Strip : --The Pickwick Hicks, Pick, Hick and Wick. Being so much alike, so are their names. Their humor is somewhat akin to the innocent homeroom adventures of Dickens’ Pickwick Club. One of them generally leads and picks the action, another is quick (Wick) to execute the action. The other is generally the ‘Hick’ of the joke or humor," wrote the winner, W. Hargreaves.

On October 27, 1924 the "Tely" Mystery Men came to a finish.

While MM was still appearing another contest had begun,the Pup-U-Larity Contest, with stuffed toys and one real dog worth $100 given away as prizes. The purpose was to promote a new strip by the American cartoonist Frank Hopkins, the "Tely" Snuggle Pups, from the John F. Dille Co., which began October 21, 1924 and ran until January 8, 1925.

Dick Taylor, (1902-1970) cartoonist and water-color painter,went on to work for The Goblin, Collier's, Esquire, The New Yorker and the Saturday Evening Post. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia he drew one other comic strip in 1935 (so far I haven't been able to trace this one) , "Dad Plugg," for a Canadian communist periodical, The Worker, signing himself "Ric."

Below and in the following post are a selection including the first and last strip.

The Toronto Mystery Men II

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Queen City Ink

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On August 30, 1924 Toronto's Exhibition grounds were treated to the startling sight of three men dressed as the Tely Mystery Men. The Mystery Men were characters in a comic strip and they owed their existence to a Toronto Telegram comic strip contest won by 21 year old Richard Taylor, a future cartoonist on the New Yorker and Esquire.

"Here’s an impression in black and white line work of the Evening Telegram’s "Snuggle Pup" float at he Exhibition on Young Canada’s Day this week. Amateur black and white artists will find it interesting to compare the drawing with the photograph of the same float given in the Children’s Tely to-day. The "Mystery Men," Dick’s comic creations of the imagination, were there in the flesh and entertained the children by their antics. When the photograph was taken they were off down the midway, surrounded by an exuberant throng of youngsters."

(A note on the poor reproductions accompanying the following post. When Canadian newspapers were first microfilmed the original newspapers holdings were dumped in the trash. This crime against history left poorly photographed often illegible pictures to work with. I have tried more than once to obtain clear copies but this is the best I could do. Bill Blackbeard was the man responsible for saving color comic sections in the United States without which modern books about comic strips would also have to rely on poor microfilm copies for their volumes of comic history.)

The Toronto Telegram ran 3 comic strips in 1924 ; Pantomime by J. H. Streidel, Adamson's Adventures by O. Jacobson, and Rube Goldberg's ever-changing daily. OOjah, Punch artist Thomas Maybank's comic elephant, appeared on the children's page, and Gluyas Williams supplied daily one and two-panel gags. TheToronto Telegram made up for the lack of strips with "Comic Art Contests," so that every Saturday they would publish a large page made up from the contributions of local Toronto artists (see Charlie Chump).The pay was in cash prizes and large numbers of would-be cartoonists answered the call. The Features Editor claimed 3000 to 4000 contributions to the contest that gave birth to Richard "Dick" Taylor's "Mystery Men" comic strip.

The 1st two contests were for single-panel work but Comic Art Contest No. 3 was a comic strip competition, and the readers responded in droves. On April 5, 1924 a full page of four panel strips from readers were published under the blurb, "Out of Queen City Ink Bottles New Funny Folk Are Created." Prizes were 2, 5, and 10 dollars, and could be much less when the prizes were shared among competitors. Many of the same aspiring cartoonists contributed weekly comics for years, affording a ready source of cheap material for the Telegram. Isabel Byers, F. J. Willatt, Lloyd E. Dodson, and J. M. Barnett (author of MOLLY MORPHEUS DREAMS) were regulars. Dedicated amateur Bert Rolestone kept his strip SALLY IN OUR ALLEY going on weekly prize money for an extended period of time.

The contests were a very good deal for the Telegram. They nourished the dreams of a load of young and old gentlemen and ladies, and were probably widely enjoyed by readers and the relatives of the prize-winners. The Toronto Evening Telegram’s 3rd Comic Cartoons Competition closed on March 31st, 1924, and the $25 first prize went to 21 year old Richard Taylor for his comic strip The Mystery Men, which was promoted by the paper as The "Tely" Mystery Men.

To Be Continued....

Charles R. Snelgrove

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Charles R. Snelgrove was quite a talented cartoonist but, again, nothing bographical is available. Lambiek claims he died in 1939. If true it must have been sudden as his last Robin Hood strip was printed on November 11, 1939. His beefy Robin Hood drawings were for another strip from Men of the Mounted author Ted McCall.