Word: cartoonable
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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Last week the industry's biggest buyer of gag cartoons sat in his gag-littered office at Collier's and shuffled through the week's receipts: more than 2,000 roughs. (Out of 15,000 mailed in each year by unknown hopefuls who just know they can draw, Collier's finds only three good enough to buy.) Said mustached, soft-spoken Gurney Williams, 42: "The other day I found myself staring at the millionth cartoon submitted to me since I became humor editor here. I wish it could have been fresh and original. Instead, it showed...
Among Manhattan's magazine cartoon editors, Wednesday is gag day. How it began, nobody remembers for sure. Every Wednesday morning, a dogged little army of free-lance cartoonists trudges the rounds of magazine offices in midtown Manhattan to hawk their wares. They are the funnymen who draw the little back-of-the-book panels that have put millions of readers into the habit of leafing through the ad pages. Grateful advertising men call them "stoppers...
...peddling process has become as ritualized as transactions in a Bagdad bazaar. The artist 1) mopes in a waiting room, 2) is waved in to see the cartoon editor, 3) unzips his briefcase, 4) hands over a batch of rough sketches. Small talk is permitted, but he never cries "This'll kill you!" The editor riffles through the roughs, seldom grins, hands most of the sketches back, holds out a few on approval. At lunchtime many of the artists get together at either of two Manhattan restaurants-Pen & Pencil or Danny's Hideaway-to talk over their troubles...
Traffic Jam. Last week they had plenty of both to talk about. The major cartoon-buying magazines (Satevepost, Collier's, True, This Week, etc.) were using twice as many gag panels as in 1941, and paying more for them. (Prices were up, too, in the New Yorker's exclusive stable.) But competition was getting tougher, even for the 50 artists who make 70% of the sales to the majors...
Editors like Gurney Williams consider Gardner Rea, veteran of 37 years in the business, and Virgil Partch, a comparative newcomer, two of the top artists in the country. (But Peter Arno gets top pay. When he bothers to turn out a cartoon the price is reputed to be $1,000.) Partch, no Wednesday go-to-market man, lives in North Hollywood, Calif., has never been east of New Mexico, tells editors he can make his characters just as gruesome in the West as he could in New York...