If
you had a big hardcover dictionary of cartoonists by state, then Ohio would be the
thickest chapter. So many great cartoonists came from the Buckeye State.
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library and Museum has compiled a
list of names with strong ties to Ohio
that includes James Thurber, Milton Caniff, Bill Watterson, John "Derf"
Backderf, Matt Bors, Jim Borgman, Edwina Dumm, Billy DeBeck, Cathy
Guisewite, Richard Outcault, one of the co-creators of Superman, and
more here.
The Washington Post's Michael Cavna asks
"Wait — just how did Ohio become the cradle of great cartoonists?"
From the article:
"'As
a cartoonist, your job is basically to sit alone in your room, drawing
on a never-ending deadline,' [Bill] Watterson, who grew up in Chagrin
Falls, tells Comic Riffs. 'For that kind of work, it helps to grow up
with sober Midwestern values and to live someplace without a lot of
exciting diversions.'
"'Cleveland is especially good,' the “Calvin and Hobbes” creator notes, 'because it has eight months of cloud cover and snow.'"
Well, who am I to argue with Bill Watterson?
Today
I want to talk about another great Ohio cartoonist: Dudley Fisher. Born
in Columbus, OH in 1890 and schooled in the same town at OSU. It was in
his sophomore year, during the mid-year break, that he visited some
friends who were working at The Columbus Dispatch. There was a job
opening, and so he began doing layout for the newspaper. This was a lot
better than his previous job of working in a pool hall during the
evenings. It would change his mind about his architect career. He worked
at the paper and enjoyed it.
He participated in The
Great War, and upon returning to Columbus in 1919, continued at The
Dispatch. Mentored by renowned Dispatch editorial cartoonist Billy
Ireland, he became known for a feature titled
Jolly Jingles. He also drew an occasional Sunday,
Skylarks, that incorporated an aerial view. In early 1938, he began
Right Around Home and it was an immediate hit.
The
feature took advantage of the size of the page, and it was a sweet look
into an innocent, small town America. King Features took notice, and
quickly syndicated it nationally.
From Hogan's Alley's
The View from On High: Dudley Fisher’s “Right Around Home” by Jonathan Barli:
"The drawing style of Right Around Home evolved from a variation
of Ireland’s into one that would influence future generations of
cartoonists. The compositions of the strip were concerned with surveying
the ground, not with breaking ground. Large, single-panel cartoons went
back to the early days of newspaper comics: the Yellow Kid, Jimmy Swinnerton’s Mount Ararat and crowded genre scenes by Walt McDougall, to name a few ....
"Just as Gasoline Alley, week after week, depicted the passage of time, so too did Right Around Home,
making note of seasonal changes throughout each year, announcing 'Signs
of Spring' and 'Autumn Leaves,' and marking Halloween, 'Thanksgiving at
Grandma’s' and 'Christmas shopping.' Right Around Home’s
thematic concerns are rarely concerning: whether it’s neighborhood
picnics, screening home movies, going sledding, waffle parties,
gathering around a radio mystery or automobile problems like tire
blowouts and fender-benders, everyone in the neighborhood is there; even
if they are dragged out by a spouse.
The
feature diminished in size as all newspaper strips did beginning during
WWII. This reduced its impact. Fisher died in 1951. His assistant, Bob
Vittur, continued the strip, along with the assist of Stan Randal, until
the end of its run in 1965.
-- From a blog entry of October 17, 2017.
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