Wayback Whensday – Centuries of Comics

Louis M. Glackens, Benjamin Franklin, Rube Goldberg, Harvey Kurtzman, Homer Davenport.

[Louis M.] Glackens was born in 1866 in Philadelphia and started drawing at an early age alongside his younger brother, William. While the latter went on to become a successful painter and prominent member of the Ashcan School, which focused on realistic portrayals of everyday urban life, Louis leaned towards the fantastical and cartoonish, pursuing a career in illustration.

For 20 years he worked as a staff artist for Puck, one of the first widely distributed political humor magazines in the U.S.

When Puck changed ownership in 1915, Glackens found work in the up-and-coming animation industry. Although he chiefly worked for a company called Bray Studios, his (uncredited) drawings can also be found in films and shows produced by Pathé and Sullivan Studios, two other early animation heavyweights.

Tim Brinkhof for Artnet reviews “Louis M. Glackens: Pure Imagination” at the NSU Art Museum.

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Two hundred and seventy years ago — May 9, 1754 — Benjamin Franklin published this cartoon in his newspaper, the Pennsylvania Gazette. It’s generally regarded as the first American newspaper cartoon and the first visual representation of a union of American colonies.

While this image and others based on it were used during the American Revolution, that’s not why Franklin created it. This cartoon was aimed at urging the colonies to pull together to fight with the British in what came to be called the French and Indian War.

Charles Apple for The Spokesman-Review takes a look at Franklin’s Editorial Cartoons (The Telegraph Herald).

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Mike Rhode at Cartoon Philately finds an obscure 1911 Rube Goldberg drawing.

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One hundred thirty years ago, the first full-colour newspaper comic was published in the USA but only arrived in the UK by accident. This accident triggered the rise of comics in the UK, and now the Cartoon Museum is looking at how the USA and UK cartoonists influenced each other over the past century or so.

The accidental arrival of the New York World comics was due to unsold copies of the newspaper being used as heavy ballast in container ships heading to the UK and then being sold cheaply to local shops.

That odd trade in newspapers as ballast for shipping triggered an interest in UK newspapers in printing their own comics. However, unlike the USA, here in the UK comics were printed in B&W by newspapers, who wouldn’t move into colour print until the 1980s.

Ian Mansfield at Ian Visits imparts that bit of trivia while reviewing the exhibition: HEROES: The British invasion of American comics is at the Cartoon Museum until 19th October 2024.

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What Might Have Been

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One of the few Homer Davenport sporting cartoons with vignettes I have found. Davenport was really the first popular Americana newspaper sporting cartoonist, before Swinnerton, Dorgan and all the rest. George Dixon was a Canadian pugilist. He was the first black world boxing champion in any weight class (the heavyweight champion title was strictly reserved for white men until the era of Jack Johnson), while also being the first ever Canadian-born boxing champion. Ring Magazine founder Nat Fleischer ranked Dixon as the #1 Featherweight of all-time. New York Journal, Sept 26, 1896

John Adcock at Yesterday’s Paper’s posts an early Homer Davenport sports cartoon.