Ralph Newman Gets The Bill Finger Award
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From the San Diego Comic-Con Bill Finger Award page:
Jo Duffy and Ralph Newman are this year’s recipients of the 2024 Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing. The selection, made by a blue-ribbon committee chaired by writer-historian Mark Evanier, was unanimous.
“This year’s posthumous recipient wrote hundreds if not thousands of comic book scripts without, as far as we can tell, ever getting his name on any of them. That’s about as unrecognized as you can be” [Evanier noted].
The Bill Finger Award is given to two writers, one living and one posthumously.
Stars and Stripes celebrates one of their own being honored and interviews his daughter Marilyn:
Ralph Newman drew comics and cartoons for the London edition of Stars and Stripes during World War II and went on to become a cartoonist for major animation studios. He will be honored July 26, 2024, with the Bill Finger Award for Excellence in Comic Book Writing at Comic-Con International in San Diego.
It wasn’t just comics and cartoons that Newman drew for the newspaper. He also added drawings to stories. For a 1945 story on moving supplies to the front lines of the war, Newman contributed drawings to illustrate supply soldiers delivering food, driving truck convoys and collecting enemy scrap metal to reuse it.
Most of Ralph Newman’s work has gone unrecognized since he worked anonymously for companies that didn’t keep detailed records. Jerry Bails’ Who’s Who of American Comic Books has a bare bones bibliography.
The Grand Comics Database isn’t much better, though it includes American Legion; 1000 Jokes; True the Man’s Magazine; and Collier’s as magazines to which he sold gag cartoons.
Mike Lynch supplies a Newman cartoon from Cartoon Laffs, while Sainsbury Archive goes back to WWII:
The Internet Movie Database is as equally bare bones as the Who’s Who and GCD entries.
The newspaper from Ralph Newman’s hometown gives us more biography courtesy Ralph’s grandnephew:
Ralph Newman was born in Newberry on June 27, 1914, in a shingle-covered farmhouse on what is now called Newman Road, just off Miller Road…
He furthered his education at Albion College, where he majored in fine arts. Intending to become a public school instructor, he changed paths to become a cartoonist and received a Bachelor of Arts degree.
Following graduation from Albion in 1938, Newman took a job for a couple of months on an advertising paper before enrolling in a life class at the Chicago Professional School of Art.
At first, Newman created advertising cartoons and later magazine cartoons. His first magazine cartoon sale was for Amazing Stories.
He also worked for Harvey Comics and wrote stories for popular characters Casper the Friendly Ghost, Richie Rich, Little Audrey, Little Lotta, Sad Sack and many more. Despite all the work Newman did for these comics, he did not receive credit in the publications. He had also been a cartoonist with Terrytoons, the producers of Mighty Mouse.
The Newberry News also notes that Ralph contributed gags to other cartoonists including The New Yorker’s.
Newman sold numerous freelance cartoons and gag lines for magazines including the New Yorker.
Ralph gets to be listed as a New Yorker cartoonist for his one contribution in the September 21, 1946 issue.
As for Ralph’s comic book work for Harvey Comics he does get mentioned (gets praised) a few times in Mark Arnold’s The Harvey Comics Companion; pages 354-55:
Sid Jacobsen comments on the expanding Richie Rich Universe in Comic Book Artist #19, “What I need to add is the importance of the work of Ralph Newman in Richie Rich and in Caspar. Over the years there was a consistency and a certain originality to his work, and he helped create a lot of the supporting casts. He created Cadbury the Butler, borrowing the name from the Cadbury candy bars.He did a lot of those stories, and a lot of those with Caspar.
“What a huge contribution he made! He was a very, very decent man. My guess would be that certainly he wrote more stories than any other writers who ever worked for me. He was a good cartoonist and a good writer… He cared about what he did!”
Mark Arnold’s Harvey Comics’ Who’s Who from the Companion, pages 639-40:
Newman, Ralph (1922-1993) – Writer, Caspar, Hot Stuff, Richie Rich, Little Dot. From the 1960s to the 1980s, was the most prolific Richie Rich writer, writing many of the adventure scripts with Richie, as well as the Little Dot’s Uncle and Aunts scripts. He created Cadbury, Super Richie, The Onion, and many other Dick Tracy-type villains. He wrote for Richie Rich and Caspar. Also worked for Marvel and St. John. Active from the 1940s to the 1980s.
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