I believe that animation and comic strips go hand in hand historically. The origins and success of early animation is directly correlated with the world of newspaper and editorial cartooning. And just as animation is directly to comics, comics are directly correlated to the world of book illustrations. Many cartoonists famously illustrated books, as did some animation giants. One famous example of a comic strip artist doing book illustrations is The Life and Times of Archy & Mehitabel, with illustrations by George Herriman from Don Marquis’s poems and stories originally printed in the New York Evening Sun.
Some animation artists also worked in children’s books. Bill Peet is the most famous example. He was already popular while working at Disney’s.
Three famous animation talents who worked in book illustrations were Walter Lantz, Ben “Bugs” Hardaway, and Grim Natwick.
Grim Natwick was no foreign name to the world of art when he entered the animation industry. Natwick already had an incredibly extensive career doing sheet music illustrations. Charlie Judkins talks about Natwick’s sheet music work here. In 1929, Natwick did the illustrations for Will Rogers’s book Ether and Me or “Just Relax”. Herbert Johnson of the Saturday Evening Post did the dust jacket cover.
At this time, Will Rogers was the biggest star in the world and had appeared in movies, vaudeville shows, and had regular columns in the New York Times and Saturday Evening Post. Ether and Me republished his Saturday Evening Post “scribblings” in hardcover format. The book reprints a humorous tale first printed in a 1927 SEP article in which Rogers recounts his experiences in the American healthcare system and his eventual gall bladder surgery.
In 1921, Walter Lantz lent his talents to illustrate Rummyniscences by Frederick P. Kafka.
Prohibition had only been enacted a year earlier, and this book humorously took a look at life when alcohol was legal. Lantz’s life during Prohibition is discussed at length in his biography The Walter Lantz Story by Joe Adamson. In the book Lantz, is quoted saying, “It’s a miracle anybody’s alive, with the stuff we used to drink in the Prohibition era. We would all chip in for a gallon of grain alcohol, put it in a five-gallon jug, put about two gallons of water to it, and some juniper berries and orange extract, shake the bottle, and the party was ready.”
Around 1921, Benjamin “Bugs” Hardaway illustrated Boomer Jones. The book was printed by the Burton publishing company of Kansas City, MO. Hardaway was a Kansas City native and worked at the Kansas City Film Ad Company for several years until moving from Missouri to Hollywood to work at the Ub Iwerks Studio.
Boomer Jones was a character created by James William Earp. James W. Earp was born in 1888 in Clarence, Missouri. Earp was a railroad worker in the state of Missouri for his entire working life, working at the Rock Island Railroad Company in Kansas City from 1912 to his retirement in 1956. He served in WWI as a member of the Company C 68th Engineers, and with the 58th Company Transportation Corps in France. During the war, he wrote for the Camp Garrett Camouflage and briefly for Stars and Stripes.
A page by James W. Earp for Railroad Man’s Magazine in 1918
Outside of his railroading career, Earp was a writer of short stories. While his range was broad, he was most specialized in stories involving railroads. He submitted stories to True Confessions anonymously during the 1920s and 30s about romance and heartbreak and wrote for War Stories, Railroad Magazine, and other publications. Boomer Jones was a character that played a key role in his railroad stories dating before this book was printed.
Sources: The biography of James W. Earp was sourced from The State Historical Society of Missouri Research Center in Kansas City’s archival finding aid of Earp’s papers. The excerpts of Boomer Jones comes from the Library of Congress. The excerpts of Rummyniscences come from the University of California’s HathiTrust. Ether and Me came from various online scans (Google Books, Michael Sporn’s Splog, and the Internet Archive).
Other animation artists whose talents eventually led to work book illustrations were Chuck Jones, Andreas Deja, Glen Keane, and Willie Ito.
Kamden Spies is an animation fan, collector, and aficionado. He received his undergraduate degree in an IDM in film history and creative writing from the University of Alabama at Birmingham and is currently getting his Master’s in Library and Information Sciences at Indiana University Bloomington.
It’s not surprising that there was so much overlap between animated film, newspaper comic strips, and book illustrations (and one might also include print advertising as well) in many artistic careers of the twentieth century. An artist is bound to go wherever the work is, regardless of medium, and apply his talents to it accordingly. Frank Thomas and Ollie Johnston both went to art school with no other goal in mind than to become magazine illustrators, but Walt Disney happened to be hiring when they graduated. Walt Kelly considered himself first and foremost a newspaper man, but he worked as an animator for several years before creating “Pogo” comic strip. Dr. Seuss — well, he did it all. A complete list of artists who worked in animation as well as print media would doubtless fill volumes.
Probably an even more distinguished illustrator than Bill Peet was Gustaf Tenggren, who did concept art for Disney’s first features in the late ’30s and early ’40s. This, however, was a mere footnote to his career in illustrating children’s books, including such best-sellers as “The Pokey Little Puppy”, “The Saggy Baggy Elephant”, and “The Tawny Scrawny Lion” — all of which were in my personal library as a preschooler.
That’s very interesting that Walter Lantz illustrated a humorous book way back when he was a 22-year-old with a full head of hair, but as a struggling young artist he would have gladly taken any work that came his way. I wonder if Frederick P. Kafka was any relation to Franz.
Just one correction: “Bugs” Hardaway was Joseph Benson Hardaway, not “Benjamin”, though he was also known as “Ben.”
I couldn’t agree more with your basic thesis. The crosstalk between comics and animation is a rich and fascinating field, ripe for further exploration. And, unrelated: You had me at George Herriman. My parents were admirers of Don Marquis, and I grew up seeing Herriman’s illustrations of “archy & mehitabel” long before I was aware of Krazy Kat. So the header of your column this morning gave me a major shot of nostalgia. Thank you!
Of course, one of the first “hit” animated films was “Gertie the Dinosaur,” almost single-handedly created by Winsor McCay, creator of “Little Nemo in Dreamland:.
Fabled puppet animator Jiri Trnka produced striking art for several books, many of them fairy tale collections.
Great post!
And of course Gene Deitch drew “The Cat” for The Record Changer” magazine.
Lots of fascinating information here— an excellent job of research!
I read, somewhere, long ago, that the wildly inventive newspaper and magazine cartoonist Virgil Partch (“VIP”) had worked in animation for a while, but I have no idea whether this is true, or what studio he might have worked for, or when. Is there anyone out there in Cartoonland who has any solid facts on this? I’m “Partched” for those facts!
He at least worked in Disney, that’s for sure. And he was even credited in the Donald Duck cartoon, Duck Pimples. Wikipedia also said that he briefly worked in Lantz, but I’m unsure if it was true.
Follow- up on VIP (this is what the Smithsonian’s web page has to say about him):
“Virgil Franklin “Vip” Partch (1916-1984) began his career in 1937 illustrating for Walt Disney Studios. He is known for his participation in the 1941 Disney animators’ strike, and as a result of his participation, never returned to work for the company. Before his service in the U.S. Army Partch assisted Walter Lantz on the Woody Woodpecker cartoons. This prewar work assisted his transfer to his position as the art director and cartoonist for the weekly military magazine Panorama. After he left the army, Partch began freelancing and published books containing single-panel cartoons. In 1960 he created Big George, the strip that became his biggest success.”
So he did indeed work for Disney and Lantz, and he probably also freelanced for anyone who’d give him a paycheck— like many other great illustrators and animators of his era.
Like Walt Kelly at around the same time, in spite of their obvious talents, they were probably both too much the individual for Uncle Walt’s taste, and so eventually had to follow their own paths. Which turned out to be a good move, for both of them!
And let’s not forget Frank Tashlin’s **The Bear That Wasn’t**, **The Possum That Didn’t** and **The World That Isn’t**