Veteran cartoonist Hal Sherman (1911- ?) worked at DC Comics in the 1940s. He helped create the Star Spangled Kid with Joe Shuster. He served three years in the service (1943-46). When he returned, he went back to DC and assisted Bernard Baily on The Spectre. He also created some stand-alone humorous pages for DC, which he signed. Most of these were titled "Silly Situations."
During this time, he was also a gag cartoonist.
That's about it. That's why there's a "?" for the year of his death. I've looked on the web for more information on the man and the panel, but there's little else. THE LITTLE FRIAR is listed in the Catalog of Copyright Entries. Third Series: 1961: July-December by the Library of Congress Copyright Office as copyright Hal Sherman.
THE LITTLE FRIAR by Hal Sherman, "suggested by Percy Barker," is copyright 1961 by Mssrs. Sherman and Baker. This book collection is from the same year, published by Avon.
These LITTLE FRIAR panels are new to me. They begged the question of how many friar-related cartoon panels were there? I can think of a couple more:
Brother Juniper by Frank McCarthy
Brother Sebastian by Chon Day
THE LITTLE FRIAR tends to be wordless. The Friar himself does not say a word, but merely looks on, amused, with those big manga-style peepers. An actual gag line (the words below the panel) is rare. More often there's a sign or a label, if there's any text at all.
I bought this book on the strength of the first two gags below, which I thought were fun and well-done.
But some of the gags (the watery angel, the bird bath one) confounded me.
Here are the first ten:
Related:
Some Hal Sherman 1950s cartoon work for Humrorama
Two theories for the bird bath cartoon, both related to the Friar's holding a towel. (1) The Friar is waiting for the bird to finish so he can use the bath himself, or more likely (2) The Friar is going to use the towel to dry the bird off once it's finished bathing. Neither likely to raise a guffaw.
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