Strand Magazine: The American Cartoonist

Gus Frederick, whose blog is the [Homer] Davenport Project , discovered my site while researching turn-of-the-century editorial cartoonist Rowland Claude Bowman because of a write-up in the October, 1902 edition of Strand Magazine: "The American Cartoonist and His Work" by Arthur Lord. The article profiles the New York Journal's Homer Davenport, Harpers Weekly's W. A. Rogers, and the Chicago Tribune's John T. McCutcheon, in addition to R. C. Bowman of the Minneapolis Tribune.

"Where Davenport, in short, would make an enemy, Bowman would make a friend, so great is the difference in the styles of the two men. Bowman is a careful student of politics, and his picture editorials always present a strong argument. He possesses a rare originality and spontaneous humour, and that his drawings are well thought out is proved by their simplicity in detail. ... Bowman is a humorist and not a satirist, and has attained his success through close adherence to well-defined principles of directness, simplicity, and gentleness. The Tribune reader opens his paper with the knowledge that he is going to get a laugh, and the man made fun of may open his copy with the knowledge that he is not going to squirm."

The Strand article includes three more samples of Bowman's cartoons (I suspect they are details of portions of cartoons, however). The article appears to be one of a series, insofar as it promises more about Bart Bartholomew of the Minneapolis Journal in the next issue.

And, as long as I'm on the topic of R.C. Bowman again, here's another cartoon, from page 14 of the 1900 edition of his cartoons, in which the Populist Party is depicted as a bunch of frogs pestering Vice Presidential hopeful Adlai Stevenson Sr.

Stevenson hollers for help.

I wonder if the Illinois Senator laughed at the gentle treatment of consistently being drawn wearing a little girl's dress.