Raemaekers in America

In the summer of 1917, the famed Dutch cartoonist Louis Raemaekers took up temporary residence on Long Island, New York. As part of his tour of America, he granted an interview to Harold M. Harvey, who wrote a feature article in the September issue of Cartoons Magazine.

"Three years ago, Louis Raemaekers was practically unknown, a painter of portraits and landscapes like his illustrious forefathers and a contributor of an occasional cartoon to an Amsterdam newspaper. Today he is hailed as the greatest cartoonist of the world war. Millions of women have wept over his vivid pictures of devastated Belgium's sufferings; millions of men, fired by his graphic tirades against German cruelty, have sprung to arms with vengeance in their hearts."

"How I Deal with the Small Fry" by Louis Raemaekers, distributed by Land and Water, London, 1917.

There is nothing subtle about Raemaekers's work. Kaiser Wilhelm was typically depicted as the murderer of children in their beds, strangler of Belgian girls, and slaughterer of martyrs. At first, these shocking images were too much for his editors in the officially neutral Netherlands, but they proved immensely popular, and were republished in international newspapers and sold on post cards. "I would not be held in check by an editor," Raemaekers told Harvey. "I will not now. I draw what appeals to me. I will not draw what another man tells me I must draw if I do not believe the idea will bring results."

Because of his inflammatory cartoons, the German government is said to have put a price on his head, prompting him to leave Amsterdam for Paris, and thence to New York.

"This Is For the Hospitals" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, August 24, 1917

Raemaekers resorted again and again to cartoons of skeletons representing Germany, as with the above cartoon drawn to amplify reports that German planes over Verdun had bombed a hospital, then strafed doctors, nurses, and patients as they fled the burning building.

"The German Tango" by Raemaekers, in the Chicago Examiner September 5, 1917

Religious imagery and derisive references to German "Kultur" were two more leitmotifs, coming together in this example.

"Kultur at Wittenburg," by Louis Raemaekers, distributed by Land and Water, London

America favorably impressed Raemaekers, who marveled at the powerful lines of New York City architecture. He found Woodrow Wilson and Teddy Roosevelt eager to meet with him, and shared this observation of the incumbent president with Mr. Harvey:

"Mr. Wilson, your president, is a remarkable man. A year and a half ago, I did not admire him. I could not understand his delay in entering the war. Today, I admire him all the more for his hesitancy. He was studying his people. He was acting for their best interests. When the psychological moment came, when he knew that the people would support him, he seized the sword and the nation followed. Only the greatest of men could do a thing like that in the face of world-wide criticism."

"Wait and See" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner,  August 13, 1917

The promotional cut line below Raemaekers's cartoon of Kaiser Wilhelm and Woodrow Wilson may give the false impression that the Dutch cartoonist came to work in Chicago; he had contracted with William Randolph Hearst's International News Service out of New York — in spite of, or even because of Hearst's reputation as having pro-German sympathies. But as Raemaekers told it, he considered Hearst's subscribers to be "the most important target group because the readers are poisoned daily by tendentious articles."

Whatever Hearst's leanings, his Chicago newspaper proudly displayed Raemaekers's cartoons on its front page, while its own cartoonist, Harry Murphy, remained on his customary spot on the editorial — that is, the back — page.

"A Fair Return" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, August 15, 1917

One issue Raemaekers took on in September came right to Chicago. There were still Americans against the war, even though they risked arrest for taking what had become a very unpopular stand. The International Workers of the World trade union, which reached a peak of 150,000 members in August of 1917, declared that it would fight against, not for, American capitalism. In response, the Department of Justice raided their headquarters in several cities, and a Chicago federal Grand Jury indicted 166 I.W.W. members for conspiring to hinder the draft and encourage desertion.

Another officially suspect organization was the "People's Council of America for Democracy and Terms of Peace."

"As Thou Sowest" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, September 16, 1917

When Chicago Mayor William "Big Bill" Thompson allowed the People's Council to hold a convention in the Windy City, the Examiner's headlines joined Raemaekers in condemnation. The People's Council  had been denied permission to hold its convention in several other cities, states, and the District of Columbia. Milwaukee's Socialist Mayor Daniel Hoan had put out the welcome mat only to have it revoked by Republican Wisconsin Governor Emanuel Philipp.

Illinois Governor Frank Lowden similarly ordered Chicago Police to prevent the convention; and when that failed, he sent in the state militia and troops at Fort Sheridan. But by then, the People's Council had wrapped up its meeting and departed.

"How Can They Think Anything Wrong of You, William?" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, September 14, 1917

In the aftermath, members of the city council demanded that Mayor Thompson resign or that the courts move toward his impeachment. Alderman Albert J. Fisher told the Chicago Examiner, "It is the duty of all those in authority — from the Governor down and from the Mayor up — to see that no aid or comfort is given to the common enemy. It was treasonable to allow the pacifist meeting to be held."

"There's no law against free speech here," said Mayor Thompson. "Thank the Lord some folks haven't the power to change the Constitution every half hour or so."

The Examiner blared triumphant banner headlines of a subsequent pro-war rally at the Coliseum, at which an estimated 18,000-20,000 heard Elihu Root brand peaceniks as "traitors," and American Federation of Labor president Samuel Gompers swore that "there can be no peace" while a single "Teuton" remained in France or Belgium. According to reports in the Examiner and Chicago Tribune, people in the crowd derided Thompson as "Yellow Bill."

And although Thompson would be reelected Mayor two years later, the incident undoubtedly doomed his planned run for the U.S. Senate in 1918 and thus his dreams of the Presidency.

Incidentally, while the Dutch Raemaekers saw fit to draw the above cartoon about the Chicago Mayor's role in this controversy, the Examiner's Murphy, who otherwise drew plenty of cartoons about state and local politics, left the topic alone.

"The Helping Hand" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, September 15, 1917

Also in the headlines in September, 1917 was the accusation that despite being officially neutral, Sweden was allowing Germany and its embassies in Latin America to communicate using Swedish code systems. Sweden had promised in 1915 to end the practice, but in September, Britain revealed that facilities of the Swedish foreign ministry had been used to send a telegram from the German embassy in Buenos Aires to Berlin proposing that certain Argentine ships be "sunk without trace."

I bring this story up because it allows me to close this post with one of the very, very few exercises in levity in Raemaekers's wartime cartoons:

"That Conference" by Louis Raemaekers in Chicago Examiner, September 17, 1917

Funny Paper Caper: Denouement

I've spent much of this summer rehashing a 34-year-old parody I drew for the UW-Parkside Ranger, and today the time has finally come to post the final chapters. The plot is too far along to give a synopsis here; suffice it to say that our nameless police lieutenant is being held at gunpoint by the suspect in the murder investigation that has been underway, but has managed to slip a coded message to a co-worker.

What follows will be familiar to any fan of "Fearless Fosdick."

As Lt. No-name observed of Dick Thelma, very few of Dick Tracy's villains survived long enough to be tried for their crimes under Chester Gould's story-writing. It saved the cartoonist from having to spend long, tedious months watching Tracy fill out the paperwork and sending Tracy to testify in court. The drawback was that memorable characters such as the Brow and Flattop weren't available to become recurring characters — except on the rather silly Saturday morning TV cartoon version.

In a real continuity strip, this would have been the launch of a new story line, but that was never my intent. I doubt I could have gone thirty more episodes without somebody needing to call the Lieutenant by name.

Elements of Surprise, Part II

Smackback Saturday continues last week's essay on Surprise in Cartoons by some guy named Summerfield Butler, writing 100 years ago in Cartoons Magazine. Referring to cartoon conventions conveying shock, surprise and befuddlement as "symbols," Professor Butler had cited several examples of protagonists executing back-somersaults out of the frame, a cliché that has since been consigned to the dustbin of history. Today, Dr. Butler moves on to a cliché that managed to last a bit longer.

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I confess myself somewhat at a loss to account for the origin of the surprise symbol which consists of the violent unsettling of the hat from its normal position on the top of the head. Is it the cartoonist's idea that the hair rises as forcibly as all that, or is it that the start of astonishment is so cataclysmic as to cause all loosely attached portions of one's habiliment inevitably to separate from one's person?

I still don't know who this Canadian cartoonist was.

A little of both, I dare say. Certainly when Mutt's hat flies off, there is always perpendicular hair visible beneath it. Certainly, however, this is not the case with Baron Bean. And the Baron is evidently so shocked that he not only loses his hat, but his cigar holder. Once I remember the saturnine Mr. Herriman caused only the top of the Baron's hat to fly off, and near by this extraordinary phenomenon were inscribed words to the effect that the new device was to satisfy the Anti-Hat-Flying-Off Chapter of Chronic Kickers. ...

"Baron Bean" by George Herriman

Petey Dink is also a habitual hat loser. So is Pa Perkins. So indeed are nearly all the comic characters. In that remarkably unconventional dénouement of Jerry on the Job which I mentioned above [see last week's installment], it should be noted that Jerry's hat has not flown off into the empyrean, but rests peacefully on his face. Just how it got there is not explained, nor is any explanation necessary.

Cartoonists who have a little more patience have devised somewhat subtler symbols than these. The face is, after all, the instrument upon which surprise is most commonly registered. But for some reason or other, the face of the ordinary comic character is not readily subject to exaggeration in this respect. That is why, perhaps, the cartoonists contrive so often to eliminate the face of an astonished character altogether.

[I already posted the article's illustration of a surprised Jeff last week. My bad. Here's a surprised Mutt.]

But Bud Fisher, when he set about to compiling his symbols for the character of Jeff struck off a masterpiece under the head of surprise. Those arched eyebrows, that fingered mustache, that utterly vacuous expression (heaven knows how he gets it) are classic in the literal sense of that word. Restrained, simple, every unnecessary detail removed, there is something about the countenance of a startled Jeff that sums up in itself the whole experience of the race, of the race that being blessed with half an angel's brain foresees dimly, yet is forever incapable of foreseeing clearly, and so is always subject to surprise and bewilderment.

Mr. Sterrett's Pa Perkins is almost as good as Jeff. The single hair rising on end, the helplessly rubbed baldness around it, the wide open eyes, the wrinkled old forehead have infinite symbolic value, but lack the simplicity that Mr. Fisher has achieved. . . .

"Polly and Her Pals" by Cliff Sterrett

[At this point, Professor Baldwin wanders off into a lengthy discussion of the phenomenon of comic characters getting hit in the back of the head by hurled bricks, cast iron skillets, flower pots, and like missiles. While one might well be surprised by such an assault, and the assault might indeed suffice to doff one's hat -- viz.:

-- your humble blogger considers this a needless tangent, insofar as the assault does not in and of itself serve as an indication of the victim's surprise (indeed, the victim ought to be instantly rendered unconscious prior to experiencing any surprise at all). It does, however, allow me to include a snippet of a more famous comic from Baron Bean's creator.]

"Krazy Kat" by George Herriman

Among the more amusing arbitrary symbols for surprise I have come across recently is a strip from the Petey Dink cartoons. Petey is at Palm Beach, but exceedingly anxious to go home. He is smoking a cigar and listening cynically to the conversation of his women folk in the next room. They are talking about their lack of new clothes, and in the next to the last picture, Petey says something about how he knew when their clothes ran out, they'd come along without a fuss.

"Petey Dink" by C.A. Voight

In the final picture, the scene has shifted, and Mabel is remarking to Henrietta how nice it is that they can get plenty of new clothes right there at Palm Beach, "although they are frightfully expensive." Through the curtain of the next room comes a cloud in which is inscribed in large letters the ominous symbol CRASH.

Poor Petey! He is ever doomed to the shocks of disillusionment. Of course, he had been leaning back in his chair . . . [sic] but still! Mr. Voight deserves congratulations for this bit of work.

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Elements of Surprise, Part I

Stunback Saturday today presents an excerpt from Summerfield Baldwin's scholarly treatise on the topic of the Elements of Surprise in Cartoon, from the July, 1917 issue of Cartoons Magazine, the foremost academic journal of comicologists in its day.  Take it away, Mr. Baldwin:

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Carlisle, I believe, is responsible for the statement that "it is in and through symbols that man, consciously or unconsciously, lives, works, and has his being; those ages, moreover, are accounted the noblest which can best recognize symbolical worth, and prize it the highest." No more appropriate motto could be inscribed over the gate to a cartoonists' hall of fame, for it is by means of symbols that the cartoonist has most of all contrived to charm and amuse the generation to which he has come.

. . .

By definition, the art of the cartoonist is to parody fact without imitating it. But parody obviously requires representation, and the solution of this complex and partly self-contradictory problem lies in the symbol. The symbol represents without copying. Hence, to construct an effective parody, one must first invent such symbols as are at once intrinsically humorous and instantly recognizable. The cartoonist has perforce adopted this solution into his æsthetic creed, and, presumably, before he undertakes to create a new comic character, he compiles from his own imagination, and (to a certain extent) from the imaginations of his fellow-artists, an exhaustive dictionary of the symbols necessary to portray his pen-child's reactions upon the highly artificial life it is destined to lead.

"Mutt and Jeff" by Bud Fisher

One of the first entries in this dictionary is unquestionably labeled Surprise. For a good part of the humorous effect of a strip of comics is due to a dénouement in which one of the protagonists is astonished by the word or deed of the other. ... [I]n at least half of the cartoonist's work, the appeal is made by the shock caused by the impertinent, unintelligent, or witty remark, or by some method of a more physical nature. There is, consequently, a tremendous need for a good collection of surprise symbols.

. . . 

The oldest and best known hyperbolical symbol of surprise is the exaggeration of quite an ordinary start into a complete back-somersault. Mr. Voight employs this method considerably in his Mr. Petey series.

"Mr. Petey" by C.A. Voigt

Thus in one of the strips before me, Petey Dink and Henrietta are in their bathing suits (they wintered at Palm Beach, you know); they are posing (so they suppose) for a society photographer. When this courteous young gentleman comes up and asks them to move a little, so that he can photograph the couple behind them, the blow to their self-esteem so shocks them that they immediately back-somersault themselves out of the picture.

The effect of the stout nether extremities of Henrietta is, as you can imagine, deliciously indiscreet. Mr. Voigt apparently funks trying to do the facial expression of surprise, for in most of the astonishment pictures of his that I have seen, he arranges the composition so that the back-somersault carries the faces out of the range of his pen.

The natural temptation of the easy-going but hard-worked comic page cartoonist is ultimately to eliminate the rather complex apparatus of a back-somersault by so cutting off his picture that only the feet and lower legs of the surprised character are visible. Consequently, within recent years, this device has become one of the most common of the symbols of astonishment. 

"Baron Bean" by George Herriman

Probably Tad was the first to employ it. The feet of the Judge, projecting above his official desk, when a sally of some petty criminal or pretty jury woman has upset his judicial dignity, have enough irreverence for law about them to satisfy our suppressed wish (as Doctor Freud would say) to commit contempt of court. Then, too, the desk furnished an excellent excuse for hiding the rest of the Judge's person.

It had a similar value in Mr. Hoban's Jerry on the Job, when the job consisted of being a jack-of-all-trades around a railroad station. Many a lunch-counter customer has by some unintended witticism thrown Jerry off his balance, and eliminated all but the disproportionately large feet of that youth from the picture.

"Jerry on the Job" by Walter Hoban

Jerry, as you know, has been guarding a railroad lately (military business, by the by, has been creeping into the comic section very rapidly) and one day, one Private Matters' idiotic excuse for neglect of orders caused Jerry utterly to lose his equilibrium and to fall flat on the station platform. This particular symbol of surprise was quite a pleasant surprise in itself, especially as with the hyperbole there was coupled a slightly altered arbitrary device for indicating Jerry's state of mind. The usual cloud was present, but instead of the customary star, or question mark, or exclamation point, there was a small, thick black cross, inexpressibly mournful in its connotation. But I am anticipating.

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And here, having already exhausted the attention span of the average internet surfer, Stunback Saturday must take a break. We will continue the with the wisdom of Summerfield Baldwin in half a fortnight at this very same juncture.

Next week: Hold onto your hats, gentelemen!