Today on the site:
Michael Tisserand joins us to profile comic strip artist Austin “Pete” Peterson, one of our last living links to the pre-WWII newspaper pages.
When the Great Depression put cartoonists’ jobs on the block, Jimmy Swinnerton, a friend to William Randolph Hearst who had the Chief’s ear, lobbied for his colleagues. Occasionally, he was successful. In November, 1930, Swinnerton reminded Hearst that Jimmy Hatlo, creator of the panel They’ll Do It Every Time, was a “big shot on the paper and might have his financial rash cured by some salve but not too much.” Swinnerton’s plea worked; Hatlo received a raise and kept drawing his popular comic for Hearst’s King Features.
Yet even Swinnerton was unable to help his young protege, a Los Angeles Herald cartoonist named Austin “Pete” Peterson. Swinnerton and Peterson were close; Peterson had even dated Swinnerton’s daughter, until the girl threw him over for a college boy. Swinnerton once had stepped in to help Peterson find work with Hearst, and in November, 1930, he stepped in again to help Peterson keep his job on the Los Angeles Herald’s sports page.
Elsewhere:
The New Yorker looks at The Best American Comics 2014.
Nick Gazin wraps up the New York Artist Book Fair.
Blaise Larmee interviewed in a good format.
PW does a NYCC round-up.
A look at Christie Scheele's Marvel coloring in the 1980s.
A Quimby's-related "what's on their shelves" feature.
