Canadian Cartooning Greats Digest - Autumn 2016

CANADIAN CARTOONING GREATS AUTUMN 2016

Digest

Volume: 1 Number:

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Walter Ball’s RURAL ROUTE “MY MEMORIES”

by JEFF WILSON

“Bing”Coughlin’s HERBIE “LIGHTER SIDE OF WAR” 1977 Creation of the “CANADIAN CARTOONISTS SYNDICATE”

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My Memories of Walter Ball’s Rural Route

by JEFF WILSON

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A few years ago, I had rediscovered a favourite feature that was a bit before my time, BIRDSEYE CENTER. From it, I began to vaguely recall a strip about a farmer, his wife and a little kid, but there was just no information about such a strip. I didn’t even recall the strip’s title.

Then, one day my mother was clearing out some old magazines and scrapbooks She happened to find three clippings of old RURAL ROUTE comics from the late 1950s. Slowly but surely, the strip came back to me and with the proper title, information began to emerge. I even met a woman in a cartooning class who had won a Star Weekly gag-writing contest, in which her submitted RURAL ROUTE gag was drawn by Walter Ball.

Ball was born in Cookstown, ON. and raised on a farm.

RURAL ROUTE was based largely on Walter’s experiences of growing up on a farm, even though many of the props and scenes were updated to reflect contemporary times. I Googled “Walter Ball” one day and found many links leading to a limited catalog of RURAL ROUTE cartoons that was held in public and university libraries across Canada.

The document seemed to hail from the Grimsby Art Gallery.

I recall having read something about Ball once holding exhibitions of his cartoons at the gallery, so began to dig deeper.

In time, I found Ball first exhibited a RURAL ROUTE collection in Grimsby back in 1975. The gallery had now become the proud host to over 100 RURAL ROUTE

strips in a permanent exhibit.

They had even created a lovely catalog of cartoons, one of which I was delighted to purchase. My wife Barb and I made plans to view the collection on August 25, 2013.

To my immense surprise and yes, slight disappointment, the comics were not displayed on the wall like other pieces of art, but in boxes.

They almost looked like film boxes, similar to those one would find in a publishers darkroom from the 1970s to 1990s. I had a feeling this may have been how Ball himself stored the strips, as I have a similar system for storing my own comics. With only one exception, the cartoons were done on a typical Hi-Art graphic board, that had yellowed a bit, but were still in wonderful shape. The pieces were catalogued, stored in order and separated from one another by large sheets of parchment.The one exception was a beautiful strip drawn on a glossy stock. In my RURAL ROUTE catalogue, there is a passage about Ball forgetting the occasional strip on the subway and quickly whipping off a replacement, before the engraver came knocking.

This perhaps explains how this unique strip came to pass.

All in all, I would highly recommend a tour of the Ball exhibit at the Grimsby Art Gallery, if only to see a piece of rare Canadian newspaper comics history and a glimpse of a simpler time, when 80% of Canadian city dwellers had the common background of growing up in a rural area, if not actually on a farm. ~Jeff Wilson

“Bing” Coughlin’s “HERBIE!” The Lighter Side of War

by JEFF WILSON William Garnet “Bing” Coughlin was born in Ottawa in 1905, but moved to Philadelphia in 1923, when his mother remarried. There, Coughlin studied in an industrial art school, graduated and got married in 1929.

When WWII broke out, he enlisted with the Canadian army, serving in Sicily with the 4th Princess Louise Dragoon Guards. About this time, Sgt. Coughlin’s drawing talent was discovered by Major James Douglas MacFarlane, who conscripted him into regularly drawing cartoons in the daily Maple Leaf military newspaper.

As legend would have it, at MacFarlane’s advisal, Coughlin embraced the idea of a sad sack ‘everysoldier.’ This character was named “Herbie” (supposedly also a MacFarlane suggestion, allegedly being a despised birth name he later had removed).

Coughlin later received a MBE (Member of the British Order, eventually leaving cartooning and the service behind for a career in designing exhibitions in the U. S. Survived by 5 children, William Garnet “Bing” Coughlin passed away on September 4, 1991 at the age of 85 and was buried at Springfield, Pennsylvania.

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FLASHBACK: The Cartoonists Co-operative Syndicate of 1977

by JEFF WILSON

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ANADIAN ARTISTS Above: Jeff Wakefield, Jim Craig and Jim Simpkins proudly trumpet the dawn of a new age for Canuck cartoonists. Below (L): “Jestin’” Jim Craig (L) went on to storyboard fame at Nelvana Animation. Below (R): Jim Simpkins wasn’t even mentioned in the 50th anniversary issue of Macleans Magazine, where “Jasper” had run for decades.

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All-Canadian comics, written and drawn by Canadians, printed by Canadian presses and marketed to the world from Canada by Canadians, was not a new idea. No one could even deny it was a good idea.

And yet, not since the “Canadian Whites” period during the height of the Second World War had anyone boldly tried it with any realistic hope of success.

In the mid-1970s, three successful cartoonists, Marvel Comics maverick penciller Jim Craig, comic strip artist Jeff Wakefield and Jim Simpkins, creator of iconic comic strip “Jasper,” had a dream of setting up a co-operative feature syndicate that would showcase Canadian talent. Since newspapers began printing comics, a hefty percentage of Canadian newspapers bought their features from U.S. based syndicates, but readers and publishers alike bemoaned a dearth of quality domestic material.

The syndicate was received well early on, but U.S. syndicates could afford to reduce prices to win back Canadian markets. When American syndicates signed gifted Canadian cartoonists, such as Lynn Johnston and Jim Unger to lucrative deals, the bonanza ended and the great Canadian dream would be squashed again.

Also in the 1970s, British-born cartoonist Richard Comely spent himself belly up in debt, trying to prove it could and should be done again, creating the All-Canadian “Captain Canuck” in Winnipeg at a cost several times higher than better known U.S.-based titles.