1920s THE JAZZ ERA Cartoon ad men of the 1920s did not generally promote their characters, or use them as spokesmen. Their artwork was solicited because the cartoonists themselves were celebrities that is, for the value of their signatures. And, of course, for the clever cartoon work they brought to the ads, and ultimately to the products. The 1920s saw the rise of the magazine cartoonist as advertising artist. Gluyas Williams, Charles Dana Gibson, John Held, Jr., Fish, Dr. Seuss, and others frequently advertised products in the same pages where their popular cartoons appeared in daily, weekly, and monthly periodicals. (ca. 1920)
(ca. 1920 s) (ca. 1920s) (1926) 52
(1925) (1927) above Not to be forgotten in the examination of cartoon ads is that comics sold newspapers. Papers frequently used comic-strip characters in their own promotion and so did newspaper syndicates to their clients, the local editors. This large calendar was issued by Hearst s King Features Syndicate in 1925 and presumably hung in newspaper offices across America. If we can infer from the grid the relative popularity of King s strips, they were Bringing Up Father, Boob McNutt, Polly and Her Pals, Krazy Kat, Little Jimmy, and Barney Google. right A statuette given away as another King Features promotion, its annual Lark banquet for the newspaper industry in New York. 53
(1911) (1915) (ca. 1910s) 54
Portfolio: BLOTTERS Newspapers and magazines were not the only venues for cartoon advertising. National companies sought national audiences, of course. Local retailers had meager budgets, and frequently no use, for national or even regional publishing vehicles. Cartoon ads came to the rescue once again. Back in the day it was common to see favorite cartoonists drawings or strips on calendars and blotters. We are reasonably confident that contemporary readers will know what calendars are, but blotters might require an explanation. Before ball-point pens were widely used, fountain pens were the inka franca of correspondence and business transactions. They were elegant, but they were pesky: the ink frequently dried slowly. In ancient times, ground sand was sprinkled on paper, absorbing the wet-ink residue. Hence, the blotter. Porous paper on one side; a smooth finished paper one that would take printing and advertising! on the other. Eventually the underside would look like road maps of Los Angeles, with all the blotted ink lines, but before discarding, the user would have seen the cartoon ad scores of times. Blotters invariably were given away by businesses whose names accompanied the cartoons; calendars were frequent Christmasseason giveaways. These items, an entire genre of cartoon advertising, were halfway houses between the advertising postcards of Outcault and Verbeek and animated TV commercials and internet pop-ups with cartoon characters. 55
56 (1948)
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(1924) (ca. 1920s) (ca. 1920s) top two Sidney Smith s The Gumps achieved such popularity in the 1920s that it spawned many licensing and merchandising products; and its hero Andy Gump ran for the American presidency in a mock, but earnest and detailed, campaign. The strip was a unique blend of humor, melodrama, adventure, and slapstick. Meanwhile, George McManus s character Jiggs, a laborer turned nouveau-riche, adorned the accoutrements his wife Maggie adopted in her new lifestyle (like the drink coaster, bottom left). bottom right In Great Britain, Heath Robinsons are the equivalent of Rube Goldberg contraptions, which they antedated, in the US. William Heath Robinson started as a book illustrator, but his fine line and absurd view of machinery found a more permanent home in single-panel cartoons and cartoon advertisements in England and America. facing page In fact, literally the opposite of Andy Gump and Jiggs, were the characters of the urbane Gluyas Williams, one of the most sought-after advertising cartoonists of his time. (1926) 58 (1934)
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(1926) top Charles Dana Gibson still had appeal, a generation after creating the Gibson Girl in the pages of the old cartoon magazine Life or, to be precise, his iconic women did. Here the Gibson Girl s classic face and figure have been updated for the less modest Roaring Twenties. right Nize Baby was Milt Gross s Yiddish dialect feature in the New York World. Its immense popularity a Sunday comic strip; appearances in the daily feature Gross Exaggerations; and best-selling book collection might have eclipsed movie star Harry Langdon, whose movie this ad promoted. (1926) 60
(1926) William Donahey s Teenie Weenies endorsed many products, most of them the fare of Monarch Foods, in print ads, booklets, food containers, and toys. 61