By Sharon Oliver
Contributing Writer
REGION – There was a time when the only thing that mattered or was worth reading first in newspapers were the comic strips, or as some referred to, the funnies. Long before memes, GIFs, or even political illustrations found life on social media, cartoonists gained popularity through newspapers and comic books. Some of whom were born or worked in the state of Massachusetts.
William J. C. Armend III
William J. C. Armend III is an American cartoonist and native son of Northampton. After getting fired for being unqualified in the animation business, Armend signed on with Universal Press Syndicate and his comic strip “FoxTrot” made its debut in April 1988. The strip centers around the lives of Roger and Andrea (Andy) Fox and their children, Peter, Paige, and Jason. During the 1990s, the character Jason Fox was licensed to Wolfram Research as a product mascot for its mathematical software package.
Shawn McManus
Born in Brookline, Shawn McManus has worked for DC Comics and other companies for over 30 years. Aside from illustrating comic book covers, McManus also worked on the television series “Tales from the Crypt” and the animated series “Dinosaucers.” Some of the notable comics he has worked on include Batman, Aquaman, and Wolverine.
Al Capp
Despite his later controversies, Alfred Gerald Caplin, better known as Al Capp, was a renowned cartoonist best known for the classic satirical comic strip “Li’l Abner.” Capp created the cartoon in 1934 and it ran in newspapers across the U.S. and internationally for decades. The hillbilly burlesque about the Yokum family and other simple-minded townsfolk in the fictional community of Dogpatch was made into a musical comedy film in 1959.
Although Capp was born in New Haven, Connecticut, he moved to Boston where he met his wife in art class and worked on his “Li’l Abner” drawings from a studio space overlooking Amesbury’s Market Square. The couple lived with her parents in Amesbury until he decided to relocate to New York to further his career in 1933. When Capp was nine years old, he was run down by a trolley car and had his left leg amputated above the knee. The tragedy helped shape his cynical worldview, which came through in his comics and separated him from other cartoonists. In 2013, a group of talented locals painted a mural in the Amesbury Market Square archway honoring Capp with depictions of his characters and the humorist’s life retold via text bubbles.
Dr. Seuss
Perhaps the most famous of them all is beloved children’s author and cartoonist Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. Born and raised in Springfield, Seuss started out in the world of advertising, and drew political cartoons during World War II. Generations of adults are familiar with his illustrations and books: “The Cat in the Hat” (1957), “How the Grinch Stole Christmas” (1957), and “Green Eggs and Ham” (1960). Many of them were turned into animation and movies several times over.
William Ellsworth Spaulding, then director of the education division at Houghton Mifflin, tasked Suess with penning a book using only 250 words that first-graders could easily recognize and the rest, as they say, is history. Although Dr. Seuss spent a lifetime writing and illustrating children’s books, he had no children of his own and once said, “You have ‘em; I’ll entertain ‘em.” The Dr. Seuss Museum in Springfield is a popular destination with tourists and locals.
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