On Webster’s Wall – The Thrill That Comes Once In A Lifetime

“Take all that stuff off the walls and get rid of it —”

★

T.H. WEBSTER drew this large one-panel cartoon for the New York Tribune daily newspaper of 2 October 1937, in his series The Thrill That Comes Once In A Lifetime, and thought up the joke, captioned ‘The new art editor decides to clean house,’ staged in an editor’s-office with walls filled with original artworks, 17 of the visible drawings are signed and drawn by different American fellow artists. Webster, ‘Webby’ for friends, was 52 at the time. Did Webster enjoy himself composing this wall? Did he personally know these originals? Or the artists? Were there any New York Tribune colleagues among them? The eldest of the 17 shown here was born in 1851, the youngest in 1884. How many of them were not among the living anymore? Who was the eldest? And who was the youngest? Were all these sub-signatures ‘signed’ by Webster himself, you think?

1. DAN SMITH
(1865-1934, Dan Smith)†

The Story of Superstitions
2. A.B. FROST
(1851-1928, Arthur Burdett Frost)†

Our Cat Eats Rat Poison
3. F. Opper
(1857-1937, Frederick Burr Opper)†

Happy Hooligan
4. SWINNERTON
(1875-1974, James Guilford Swinnerton)

Little Jimmy, Little Bears And Tykes
5. Frueh
(1880-1968, Alfred Joseph Frueh)

theatrical caricature
6. HERRIMAN
(1880-1944, George Joseph Herriman)

Krazy Kat
7. ZIM
(1862-1935, Eugene Zimmerman)†

This & That About Caricature
8. Davenport
(1867-1912, Homer Calvin Davenport)†

Cartoons by Homer C. Davenport
9. J.N. DiNg
(1876-1962, Jay Norwood Darling)

Tillie Clapsaddle
10. C.G. BUSH
(1842-1909, Charles Green Bush)†

The Political Cartoon
11. TAD
(1877-1929, Thomas Aloysius Dorgan)†

Tad’s Favorite Indoor Sports
12. McCUTCHEON
(1870-1949, John Tinney McCutcheon)

Bird Center cartoons
13. BRIGGS
(1875-1930, Clare Aloysius Briggs)†

When a Feller Needs a Friend
14. Herbert Johnson
(1878-1946, Herbert Johnson) 
Cartoons by Herbert Johnson

15. T.S. Sullivant
(1854-1926, Thomas Starling Sullivant)†

Fables for the Times
16. Art Young
(1866-1943, Henry Arthur Young)

Journey through Hell
17. F. Fox
(1884-1964, Fontaine Fox)

Toonerville Folks
18. WEBSTER
(1885-1952, Harold Tucker Webster)

The Timid Soul

★

THANKS TO
Rob Stolzer, Brian Walker, Richard Marschall, Ulrich Merkl and Alex Jay 

VAN OPSTAL, 2014