Newspaper graphic artist Dorothy Henry has passed away.
Dorothy Alice Henry (née: Leenknecht)
October 31, 1925 – December 21, 2020
Painter, commercial and advertising artist, newspaper illustrator, cartoonist
Dorothy was the staff illustrator of the Port Huron Times Herald for some years.
Dorothy was employed as Advertising Design Artist and Illustrator at numerous agencies in the United States and in London England, including Mary Maxim Store and the Times Herald, locally.
More from the obit:
She was also a former cartoon illustrator for the “Bill and Sue” comic strip in a London England newspaper.
A 1975 Times Herald profile of Dorothy expands on her cartooning:
The cartoons are an interesting story in themselves. While residing in London, England, for several years in the 1950s, she picked up a side job helping with the sketching of characters for a cartoon strip entitled “Bill and Sue” (which was owned by the London Daily Herald). The strip’s principle artist became involved in a knockabout (as they say in jolly old Britain) with the newspaper’s editors, however, and Mrs. Henry assumed full responsibility for the characters and gag ideas.
“I had a lot of fun with the cartoon strip,” she says. “The actual artwork wasn’t bad, either – it was the lettering….”
above: by Robert St. John Cooper (writer) and Charles Keeping (artist)
Two years ago Yesterday’s Papers posted a Daily Herald comics index by Leonardo De Sá which includes Bill and Sue, but with questions.
Bill and Sue
? Debuted 06/JAN/1953, ended 09/SEP/1961
Written by Robert St. John Cooper and drawn by Charles Keeping (until 1956?), in later years by an unknown artist. The byline “by Lee Cooper” started 14/JAN/1958 and appeared until the end, but it should most probably be read together with the byline of the only other strip in the newspaper at the time, “Wyatt Earp” which was indicated “by St. John Barling” — meaning that both were done by St. John Cooper and possibly drawn by some unknown Lee Barling…
It seems Dorothy was that unknown artist from 1956 to January 1958.
And maybe Dorothy used part of her maiden name to become that mysterious “Lee”?