Above is a 50 plus year old photo of cartoonists at the Saturday Evening Post's humor editor's office. That's Martha Blanchard, fourth from left. The photo was nicked from gag cartoonist Eli Stein at his Eli Stein Cartoons blog. (From left: Harry Mace, Bill Yates, Gus Lundberg, Martha Blanchard, Herb Green, Jeff Monahan, Jerry Marcus, Saturday Evening Post humor editor Marione Nickles, Jack Tyrrell, John Norment, Dave Hirsch, Mrs. Fritz Wilkinson (wife of cartoonist Wilkinson), Peter Porges, Bob Schroeter, Mort Temes.)
Today: a profile and many samples of the work of prolific cartoonist and illustrator Martha Blanchard, courtesy of Dick Buchanan.
Martha Blanchard's cartoons appeared in all of the top markets. She was also a book illustrator. A member of the Art Students League and the National Cartoonists Society, she was a fixture in the New York City post-war cartooning circles. In 1970, she had just finished a new collection for Dell titled "Husbands and Lovers," when she passed away suddenly in her studio at 59 Fifth Avenue. The cause was a coronary occlusion. She was 54 years old.
Dick Buchanan writes about this rare female career cartoonist and shows twenty five of her cartoons below. Thanks and take it away, Dick.
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MARTHA BLANCHARD
GAG CARTOONS 1947 - 1964
Martha Blanchard. This Week Magazine, November 20, 1949.
Martha Blanchard was one the most successful women gag cartoonist of the 1950’s and 1960’s, an era where the number of women cartoonists would fit in the hand of a baby.
Blanchard studied at the Art Students League. Her studio/home was in New York’s Greenwich Village, just a few blocks north of Washington Square. She sold her first cartoon in 1947. Her work appeared in many of the day’s leading magazines, including Collier’s, American Magazine, Look, Pictorial Review and Punch. She was a prominent contributor to The Saturday Evening Post for two decades.
Blanchard’s cartoons usually depicted the plight of the young single woman and young marrieds in the 1950’s. Rather than the decidedly misogynist gags about women which pervaded the era,
Blanchard’s drawings often were ones to which women could actually relate.
Blanchard also illustrated several books, including Jean Kerr’s Please Don’t Eat the Daisies, Dear Rabbi and Husbands & Lovers, a paperback collection of her gag cartoons. In her spare time, she drew caricatures at local veteran’s hospitals.
1. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post December 13, 1947.
2. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post February 21, 1948.
3. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post May 30, 1949.
4. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post August 27, 1949.
5. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post June 20, 1950.
6. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post July 8, 1950.
7. MARTHA BLANCHARD. This Week Magazine November 20, 1949.
8. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post January 27, 1951.
9. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post November 22, 1952.
10. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post September 13, 1952.
11. MARTHA BLANCHARD Collier’s August 7, 1953.
12. MARTHA BLANCHARD. Pictorial Review June 21, 1953.
13. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post July 25, 1954.
14. MARTHA BLANCHARD. Collier’s April 29, 1955.
15. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post March 23, 1957.
16. MARTHA BLANCHARD. The Saturday Evening Post April 27, 1957.
17. MARTHA BLANCHARD. Punch August 6, 1958.
18. MARTHA BLANCHARD. Punch August 13, 1958.
19. MARTHA BLANCHARD, Look Magazine January 31, 1961.
20. MARTHA BLANCHARD. 1000 Jokes Magazine June – August, 1959.
21. MARTHA BLANCHARD. 1000 Jokes Magazine August - October, 1962.
22. MARTHA BLANCHARD. For Laughing Out Loud January – March, 1962.
23. MARTHA BLANCHARD. American Legion Magazine October, 1963.
24. MARTHA BLANCHARD. Look Magazine June 16, 1964.
25. MARTHA BLANCHARD. True Magazine April, 1964.
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