Rediscovered: Jimmy Hatlo's Comics For The San Francisco Call, 1926-1932, Part One

 

(Above: 12-13-28, Click each for bigger!) 

Last week I showed you a drawing for an early gag cartoon by Jimmy Hatlo from a ca. 1931 edition of the San Francisco Call-Bulletin. Hatlo, of course, became very famous for his later strip, the very popular They'll Do It Every Time, as well as for the obnoxious Little Iodine. The gag strip puzzled me because I couldn't figure out what series, if any, it was part of, and I found out that little or nothing was available about Hatlo's earlier, pre-They'll Do It Every Time work.

Luckily, right after I posted the Picasso gag strip, a seller on eBay popped up with a bunch of clippings of Hatlo comics from this same series, and let me tell you, these things are a major discovery! From what I've been able to cobble together, Hatlo was a very prolific cartoonist/illustrator for the San Francisco Call and Post/Call-Bulletin in the late 20s and early 30s, apparently producing editorial cartoons on a daily basis for the paper. Editorial cartooning, of course, is nothing unusual, and predates newspaper comic strips by centuries. What's extremely unusual about Hatlo's editorial work is that he didn't just cover politics, but rather a wide range of topics, from sports to politics to pop culture, music, the theater, and beyond. Furthermore, he varied his approach radically from cartoon to cartoon, sometimes producing single images, sometimes story strips, sometimes weird musical parodies with little stick figure musical note people (see above). He seems to have had a uniquely creative mind and a restless, varied approach to the art of cartooning. This kind of style/format switching was uncommon at the time, and appears to anticipate Mad Magazine on the one hand, and 1990s "meta-cartoonists" like Mark Newgarden, Bill Griffith, and Chris Ware on the other. What a treat!

 

(11-21-29) 

(01-21-27)

Note the "meta-irony" above, where the artist makes fun of certain types of jokes while simultaneously indulging in them. Well played! This strip refers to Max Reinhardt's mega-popular cornball epic play The Miracle, which had just been a sensation in Oakland. Below is a typical office scene:

(Undated)

Hatlo was obviously practitioner of what animator John K. calls, in an appreciation of Hatlo's work, the "Man Style" of cartooning, and he was obviously inspired by comic artists like Tad Dorgan, Rube Goldberg, E.C. Segar, and Milt Gross, among others. As in Tad's work especially, the Battle Between the Sexes™ was a theme he returned to again and again:

 

(Undated) 

 Do-it-yourself satirical craft projects were not typically featured in editorial cartoons, or anywhere else in newspapers for that matter. I love his version of Grace Drayton's fey Cambell's kids. Below, of course, no "Man Style" cartoonist could resist a prohibition gag:

(Undated)

Advice for visiting conventioneers from "Unka Jimmy":

 

(07-27-32) 

This is really off-the-wall stuff:

(10-09-29)

Below, the artist comments on a recent medical discovery:

 

(Undated) 

 The debt to Rube Goldberg (they knew each other) below is obvious, but also note the inventive layout:

(Undated)

The next one requires some unpacking. Irene Bordoni was a stage performer, a protégé of Cole Porter, and her divorce battle of 1929 was big news in the gossip columns. Hatlo seems to be taking her to task for playing sluts (basically) on stage while unconvincingly acting innocent in the court room. He also implies that her husband is a sugar daddy and a cuckolded fool:

 

(09-18-29)

Take a look at the bottom panel of the above cartoon: is Hatlo really making the Freudian emasculation joke I think he's making? If so, I'm a little surprised and deeply impressed. Below, the artist accurately predicts the election of Franklin Roosevelt:

(02-17-31)

Hatlo suggests that marriage is "like a game," but the players don't seem to be having too much fun:

(12-23-30)

Elsewhere, Hatlo refers to the contentious nature of his own marriage. This takes on a rather chilling tone when you consider that just a few years later, the artist's wife disappeared when she "fell off a cruise ship" under circumstances which were never explained. From the Oakland Tribune, September 14, 1935:

Mr. and Mrs. Hatlo were going to dinner aboard ship as the vessel steamed up the lower Central American coast, having just passed through the Panama Canal, Mrs. Hatlo slipped and fell in a companionway, striking her head. Hallo assisted her to their cabin where she complained of feeling ill. but asked him to go on to dinner without her.
When he returned a short time after dinner she was missing. A search of the vessel failed to locate her. It was believed by ship's officers that she went to the rail for air, and becoming dizzy, lost her balance and fell overboard unnoticed.

Creepy!

Next up, love the tilted-up, overhead perspective:

(01-04-32)

And for today's last example, more domestic bliss:

 

(Undated)

Can you believe all these comics come from the same series? Amazing, isn't it? And consider this: if this feature ran daily for six or seven years, there would have been well over one thousand of these. Incredible. More to come!

Note: I've goosed these scans a little for a better appearance on the web, but you may have noticed that some of these have a slightly pinkish cast. I assume the pink newsprint indicated an evening edition of the paper.

Part two is here. Part three is here.

Quickie: Callista Went To The Prom!

Newt and Callista Gingrich arrive at the White House Correspondents' Association Dinner on Saturday, April 28, 2012 in Washington. (AP Photo/Kevin Wolf) 

How much fun did Goddess Callista have at the White House press gala thingy? This much fun:

I'm sure she liked having a "dress as a rich lady" night, after all that toning it down (!?) on the campaign trail. That looks to be about five figures of diamonds around her neck. Welcome back, Callie!

Art Collection: Picasso-Themed Gags By Jimmy Hatlo, Ca. 1931

(Photo by Erica Abbey. Click for bigger!)

Today's selection from my collection of original comic art drawings is an early gag panel by Jimmy Hatlo, drawn circa 1931 for the San Francisco Call-Bulletin. It measures 17.5" x 16", and is pen, brush, and ink with collage and pencil underdrawing on Strathmore illustration board.

The oft-repeated legend is that once upon a time in 1929, a shipment of Indoor Sports artwork by Tad Dorgan (there he is again!) failed to arrive at the Call-Bulletin in time for publication. Panicked, and with a large hole to fill, the editors called upon staff cartoonist Jimmy Hatlo to fill the space with something similar. What Hatlo came up with was a panel he called They'll Do It Every Time. Dorgan died soon afterwards, and Hatlo's replacement feature was a hit with readers, so the series continued, and was eventually distributed nationally by King Features beginning in 1936. (UPDATE: This legend is almost certainly false. See more info here. I've also reworded the next paragraph to reflect this.) The series was a massive success, and lasted well beyond Hatlo's death until 2008 (!).

Before hitting the big time with TDIET, Hatlo drew a daily series of unrelated editorial and non-fiction gag cartoons for the paper, each time changing the theme and format, basically reinventing the untitled feature for every installment, not unlike Pony Pal™ Mark Newgarden's self-titled alt-weekly comic strip from the late 80s/early 90s.

The one shown here is a classic of the "cartoonists make fun of modern art" genre, and Hatlo certainly had a lot of fun spinning gag after gag free-associated from a study by Pablo Picasso for his 1929 painting Nude Standing By the Sea, which is clipped and taped onto the upper left corner. Not content to only poke fun at Picasso, the comic also features jokes about Herbert Hoover, Babe Ruth, Old Gold cigarettes' ridiculous "Keep Kissable" ad campaign, also mocked by Hatlo in other drawings from this period, and even Paul Chabas's kitsch masterpiece September Morn, making this a unique piece of period satire.

Hatlo's They'll Do It Every Time is well known, but these early gag strips have never, to my knowledge, been reprinted in any form. Luckily, I just picked up, in addition to this original drawing, a cache of 25 clippings of this series from the Call-Bulletin, so stay tuned for some rare, inventive, hilarious stuff!

UPDATE: John del Valle, to whom this drawing is dedicated (after production, no doubt), is almost certainly John Austin del Valle (1904 - 1997), who was a drama critic and columnist at the same newspaper, and later a Hollywood publicist.  Here is his obituary at Variety.

Doughy Meatbag Loses, But Callista Gets Hairdo Tune-Up!

Republican presidential candidate, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, right, is embraced by his wife Callista, left, before speaking to supporters at an election rally in Concord, N.C., Tuesday, April 24, 2012. (AP Photo/Chuck Burton)

Oh, Callie, your hairdo looks so much better now! It's freshly spherical again after looking all droopy lately, and dyed back to the stunningly naturalistic blonde we've come to expect from such a goddess. Yay!

Too little, too late, however, because Newt –surprise!– lost, like, twenty primaries yesterday to... a Mormon! LOL.

And it really has been the most puzzling campaign ever. I guess I can understand why Newt hung in there, because the whole point of his run has been to publicize himself. Now, when Mitt Romney loses, he'll be able to say, "I tried, I tried," and dummies will say, "If only we had nominated the REAL conservative, Newt!" And thus the right wing cycle of delusion will continue, and so will Newt 'n' Callista's lucrative speaking engagements and book deals and weird Papal videos and audiobooks about American Exceptionalism™. So they might seem like losers today, but all this should keep our beloved Space Goddess in Tiffany for quite some time.

What I can't figure out, though, is what Sheldon Adelson and his wife get out of all this. Mrs. Adelson gave, like, five more millions dollars to Team Newt just last month, when it was already obvious to everyone that Gingrich 2012 just wasn't going to happen. Why did she do it? Did she find five million dollars in the couch, shrug, and hand it over? What, exactly, did she purchase? I'm bewildered.

But anyway, eventually Newt will die first, and then the Goddess Callista will be up for grabs! And then she and Ellis the bulgy-crotched elephant will ride off together into the sunset with enough diamonds and pearls to keep them living luxuriously until Jesus returns. It's like a fairy tale!

Until then, thanks for the beautiful memories:

The tenderness!

Jennifer Rubin Suddenly Discovers Homophobia In The GOP

This is rich: PSP girlfriend Jennifer Rubin noticed that a bunch of Republicans are unhappy that Mitt Romney hired a hairdresser, and so, startled, she decided that it's finally time, in 2012, to ever-so-gently suggest that –hold on to your hats!– the GOP might be homophobic, and this might be a problem. Revelation!

This from the woman who never said a bad thing about Rick Santorum until this year.

Also, Jen, if you're going to call out gay bashers, you may wish to start with... Mitt Romney, who gave tons of money directly to the National Organization for Marriage, and who knows how much indirectly through his tithing to the Church of Latter Day Saints. One wonders, too, if Ms. Rubin is prepared to "take on" the intense, insane homophobia spouted by Orthodox Jewish leaders. Something tells me she may just avoid that issue.

So is Jennifer Rubin going to become a crusader for gay rights? LOL, no. Keep in mind that she's not denouncing homophobia to defend gays, she denouncing homophobia to defend Mitt Romney.

But I love Jen's inane post anyway, not because I believe it's all that sincere, but because it's yet another example of the battle within the GOP: Neocons and "paleoconservatives" on one side,  and nutball religious fundamentalists on the other. It's my favorite spectator sport.

Condi Veep Rumors Will Rise Again!

Several Pony Pals have emailed me about the new CNN poll which shows, once again, that Republicans really, really want Condoleezza Rice to fill their lame presidential candidate's veep slot. These same Pony Pals know, of course, that this will never happen because 1. it will never happen, and 2. seriously, not in a million years. But if this is to follow the usual Condi Veep Rumors template, expect endless, unfounded speculation and typical Condi denials to follow, which then everybody will ignore so that they can get back to their wistful speculation.

That Condi, such a heartbreaker!

UPDATE: Here is the (latest) denial:

In a question-and-answer session following her speech at Harding University here, Rice said she would not be Mitt Romney’s running mate. “Thank you for that enthusiastic response, but no,” she said.

This will dispel all those Condi Veep Rumors! Until the next ones!

Let's Pause And Reflect Upon The Depth Of The Mortification Felt By The Callista Gingrich Staffer Who Must Dress Up As The Horrible Ellis The Elephant

(Providence Journal photo / Steve Szydlowski)

There's the Goddess Callista earlier today, once again in the ill-advised company of the terrible elephant furry which doesn't even resemble the character in her earnest, dull book. Can you imagine how bored those kids were?

And, seriously, imagine what it would be like to wake up one morning and BE the staffer who knows that later that day, s/he would have to don a clammy, padded nylon ersatz elephant skin and then sit in a chair while Callista drones through Sweet Land of Liberty for the umpteenth time.

But this... this is how the Gingrich campaign is spending its time these days, by sending Callista to elementary schools and tiny college Republican club meetings in Rhode Island. It's almost like our beloved Moon Goddess, once at Newt's side at every stop, has become the "Where's Waldo?" of the 2012 campaign. Fun!

By the way, did you know that they have a great flickr feed? Yeah, me neither. It's brimming with fab Callistapix!

Her hairdo is just a little longer, a little looser, less spherical; she needs to tighten that coiffure up!

Oh, right, and Newt got bitten by a penguin, which proves that the best jokes are the obscure ones that don't have to have punchlines.

Bookshelf: "Indoor Sports" Collection By "TAD" Dorgan, Ca. 1915, Part Four

The joys of DIY home repair. Click all for bigger.

OK, you've all been very patient. What can I say? Callista Gingrich hasn't been shot by a wire photographer for weeks, so what am I to write about? What this blog needs is a new spectacular hairdo to follow.

But here is the rest of the collected first year of "Tad" Dorgan's Indoor Sports cartoons from 1914. I love looking at these early ones, because the figure drawings are so much more crude than his slick 1920s IS panels, but it only makes the really successful figures seem all that more impressive.

Below is one of the few sympathetic portrayals of an attractive woman I seen in Tad's work, unlike the nattering dummies shown above. I don't know if I'd call him misogynist; he was reportedly devoted to his wife. Basically, I think he simply lived in a man's man's world, palling around with Damon Runyon, gamblers, boxers, etc.

The ubiquitous "little white terrier" finally becomes the center of a gag:

The battle of the spouses rages on. I love the complex dynamics of the social interactions shown in this one:

I've never read anything about Dorgan's attitude towards religion, but comics like this make me think he thought of it as just another theater for cynicism and pettiness:

Silly young salesgirls:

And more church-centric squabbling:

A lot of these scenes of domestic woe, such as the two below, have the unmistakeable aroma of gripe sessions over poker games:

And, finally, more office hijinks:

I have more original "Tad" drawings in my collection, including a book illustration, a boxing gag strip, another 20s Indoor Sports panel, and a significant "funny dogs" strip from considerably earlier, so more to come!

Part one is here, part two is here, and part three is here.

Bookshelf: "Indoor Sports" Collection By "TAD" Dorgan, Ca. 1915, Part Three

Another theatrical boarding house gag. Click any for bigger.

Here's part three of the scanned collection of T. A. Dorgan's Indoor Sports cartoons. It's impressive enough that Tad drew this panel as a daily feature, but his accomplishments become truly daunting when you consider that during most of Indoor Sports' run, he was also turning out his daily Silk Hat Harry's Divorce Suit (later called Judge Rummy's Court or Old Judge Rumhauser) strip, as well as additional sports illustrations, editorial cartoons, Sunday features, and covering baseball games and boxing matches as a sporting news reporter.

How did he do it without burning himself out? That's a trick question: he didn't. He suffered a heart attack at a Jack Dempsey fight in 1920, and by 1921 had been ordered by his doctor to leave the big city and boxing matches behind. For the nearly ten years until his 1929 death, Tad rarely left his home in Great Neck, NY, living with the knowledge that he could literally drop dead at any time. All the while, he never stopped cranking out drawings by the thousands, and perhaps the isolation and lack of distraction enabled him to achieve new heights of skill in draftsmanship and observation.

Back to 1914, here's Tad, a lifelong city dweller, lashing out at the "hicks" again:

The cartoons in this book preceded alcohol prohibition, but booze was still something to be handled with discretion:

Another office scene. I'm not sure what kind of pose Tad's trying to show in the main character, but it sure doesn't work:

Another awkward moment:

Men "of the cloth" had to be even more discreet with their booze:

Holiday for urban orphans:

Tad's incessant "nobody home" gags take a literal turn:

Office politics get ugly:

Stag night rudely interrupted:

A familiar situation:

Another card game gag, this one incomprehensible to me:

More backbiting at the office:

And the guest who wouldn't leave:

Part one is here, part two is here, and part four is here.

Bookshelf: "Indoor Sports" Collection By "TAD" Dorgan, Ca. 1915, Part Two

(Click any for bigger.)

Continuing onward with scans from the collected Indoor Sports comics by "Tad" Dorgan from the New York Evening Journal, ca. 1914. What's interesting about these earlier drawings to me is that Tad's pen technique is so good, totally refined and in-control, but his figure drawings are still occasionally terrible, like the man on the right seen above. Five years later, all the awkwardness was totally gone.

All the same, Tad was really getting to be a master of body language, and came up with some wonderful figural compositions, like this hilarious retail scene:

Caveat emptor:

Just look at Dorgan's amazing hatching/crosshatching. I'm guessing that he only resorted to dot screens when he was up against a deadline:

More  mayhem in the workplace:

And always, always lots of newspaper and journalism gags. Below, on the right, is a caricature of legendary editor Arthur Brisbane:

The battle of the sexes never wanes in Tad's world:

Another newsroom scene:

I love this one, a superb scene of religious awkwardness and hypocrisy:

The impossibility of privacy in a modern urban middle class family household:

And the unlikelihood of escaping that environment:

Classic "bullpen" scene showing Dorgan himself behind the drawing board. Some of these guys are obviously caricatures, but of whom I do not know. Note the reference to Tad's pal George Herriman of Krazy Kat fame:

Itinerant salesmen in a second-rate hotel:

The battle of the sexes, suffused with delusion and deception, rages on:

Baby's caterwauling threatens to interfere with some old-fashioned air duct eavesdropping:

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the newspaper offices:

Literally counting their chickens before they're hatched. And speaking of hatching, this one looks unfinished on the right, and notice the ugly dot screens used to finish the characters:

Tad got lazy! Not in this drawing, though:

Part one is here, part three is here, and part four is here.