Tom Eaton, 1940-2016

Tom Eaton, whose illustrations for more than three decades enlivened iconic Boys’ Life characters like Pedro the Mailburro and Dink and Duff, died Dec. 11, 2016, in Kansas City, Mo. He was 76.

Eaton wrote and illustrated The Wacky Adventures of Pedro, Dink and Duff, Webelos Woody, and several other comics and puzzles for the magazine.

Thomas N. Eaton was born March 2, 1940, in Wichita, Kan. In college, he studied engineering at the University of Kansas but his lifelong interest in drawing and cartooning precipitated a life-changing decision.

“I realized one day that I would probably make a mediocre engineer,” he told Scouting magazine in 2016. “Whereas I would probably make a better cartoonist if I followed my passion.”

He began a career at Hallmark Cards before being drafted into the Army. After his service, Eaton returned to Hallmark, later worked at Scholastic Books, and then returned to Kansas City to pursue a freelance career. Which is how Eaton began his long association with Boys’ Life magazine.

Aside from the art, Eaton also took pains with the language in Pedro, which often featured alliteration and elaborate word plays such as “queasy quadruped” and “entrepreneurial edible innovation.”

Best known for his work on Pedro, Eaton believed his success was finding the right blend of entertainment and life lessons for his young readers.

Joe Harris, 1928-2017

Joe Harris, an advertising artist who helped to create the Trix rabbit and Underdog, died March 26 in Stamford, Conn. He was 89.

While working in the 1950s at an ad agency, Harris created Tricks, the iconic, floppy-eared rabbit mascot for Trix cereal, and also came up with the slogan “Silly rabbit! Trix are for kids.”

Harris later joined some fellow employees to create Total TeleVision, devoted to creating Saturday morning cartoons to help sell General Mills products. Harris drew the storyboards and designed the characters, which included King Leonardo, Tennessee Tuxedo, Klondike Cat and, most memorably, Underdog.

Their most enduring success came in 1964 with The Underdog Show, an NBC series about the humble Shoeshine Boy, whose heroic alter ego Underdog appears whenever love interest Sweet Polly Purebred was being victimized by such villains as Simon Bar Sinister or Riff Raff. Underdog nearly always spoke in rhyming couplets as in “There’s no need to fear, Underdog is here!” in a voice famously supplied by Wally Cox.

Harris also was credited with cowriting the series familiar theme song. After Total TeleVision stopped producing cartoons, Harris returned to advertising, and later wrote and illustrated children’s books.

On exhibit

■ The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum is celebrating 40 years with a pair of benchmark exhibits. “Founding Collections: 1977-1987” celebrates the story of the library’s founding and its first decade of collecting, beginning with works from its original collections, the archives of Milton Caniff (right) and illustrator Jon Whitcomb. It continues with important figures in the history of cartoon art such as pioneering licensing agent Toni Mendez, and preeminent cartoonists Will Eisner, Edwina Dumm and Walt Kelly, whose early donations helped to establish Ohio State University as the premier institutional collector of comics and cartoon art.

“Tales From the Vault: 40 Years/40 Stories” explores 40 stories about fascinating collectors, groundbreaking comics, controversial cartoons, influential characters, innovative cartoonists and more from 40 years of the Museum. Both exhibits through March 17. See cartoons.osu.edu for more.

■ At the Charles M. Schulz Museum, “It Was a Dark and Stormy Night” takes a look at the heavily parodied phrase that found new life in Peanuts, where the opener was used in the portrayal of Snoopy as the “World Famous Author,” pictured atop his doghouse with a typewriter. The exhibit features original art and ephemera; through Sept. 10. Also: “A Friendship Like Ours.” Marcie and Peppermint Patty, Linus and Charlie Brown, Snoopy and Woodstock — rediscover these enduring duos in this exhibit of 69 original comic strips, sketches and ephemera. Through Nov. 6, 2017

■ Through Sept. 3 at San Francisco’s Contemporary Jewish Museum is “Roz Chast: Cartoon Memoirs.” Her award-winning 2014 graphic memoir Can’t We Talk About Something More Pleasant? forms the basis of the exhibit, with all of the 150-some drawings from the book on view. With dozens of other New Yorker cartoons and covers and related personal material.

■ The work of Edward Koren, best known as the creator of the iconic, fuzzy-haired, long-nosed creatures that grace the pages of The New Yorker, is on display in “Seriously Funny,” at the Brattleboro (Vt.) Museum & Art Center. The exhibit, which features a selection of Koren’s original drawings and prints, is on view through June 18.