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Wilhelm Busch
(1832 -1908, Germany) The German nineteenth-century artist Wilhelm Busch is regarded as one of the founders of the modern comic medium. He became interested in art after seeing the work of the Dutch and Flemish painters Frans Hals and Paul Rubens. After completing a polytechnical studies in Hanover and an education in lithography in Dusseldorf, Busch settled in Munich and started drawing caricatures for the paper Fliegende Blätter in 1859, and from 1871 also in Münchener Bilderbogen. Initially influenced by the Swiss artist Rodolphe Töpffer, Busch’s art style eventually developed into a more fluid one, while his storytelling became more satirical. In 1865, he drew his “pictoral stories” with the characters ‘Max und Moritz’, two unscrupulous and sadistic boys. Although the characters appeared in only one story (which consisted of 7 episodes), ‘Max und Moritz’ became Germany’s best known comics characters, were translated in over 30 languages and inspired various artists in the decades that followed.
Most notably, the American artist Rudolph Dirks based his ‘Katzenjammer Kids’ on the two mischeavous boys. In addition, Busch conceived works like ‘Drei Bilderbogen’ (1860-62), ‘Bilderpossen’ (1864), ‘Die Kühnen Müllerstöchter’ (1868), ‘Pater Filuzius’ (1872), ‘Die Fromme Helene’ (1872), ‘Dideldum’ (1874), ‘Flipps der Affe’ (1879), ‘Mahler Klecksel’ (1884), ‘Von mir über mich’ (1879), ‘Eduards Traum’ (1891), ‘Der Schmetterling’ (1895), ‘Zu Guter Letzt’ (1904), ‘Hernach’ (1908) and the posthumous released ‘Schein und Sein’.

(www.lambiek.net)


Der Eispeter

Katze und Maus

 
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Oscar Pletsch
(1830–1888),
German illustrator, educated at the Dresdner Kunstakademie, where he came to know Ludwig Richter and was commissioned to execute wood carvings for him. Later Pletsch became Richter’s pupil, something that becomes evident in his genre pictures of pretty, rosy-cheeked children. Pletsch often rendered animals and playing children in rural homes. The girls wear aprons and play being housewives caring for their dolls, while the boys play being soldiers. Often his illustrations were framed by flowers or other objects. Pletsch’s illustrations of domestic comfort and idyll were beloved by the German bourgeoisie, and his drawings were frequently used both at home and abroad, particularly in children’s periodicals and to illustrate children’s verse and doggerel. Among his best-known works are Die Kinderstube (1860; English trans., The Nursery), in which he introduces his distinctive style; Wie’s im Hause geht nach dem Alphabet (Things Happen in the House According to the Alphabet, 1862) in folio size; and illustrations to a splendid edition of Hans Christian Andersen’s Märchen (Fairy Tales, 1874).

(answers.com)


 
Out Our Way
was a single-panel cartoon by J. R. Williams which was syndicated for decades after it first appeared in a half-dozen small-market newspapers on March 20, 1922.
Distributed by Newspaper Enterprise Association, the cartoon series was noted for its depiction of American rural life and the various activities and regular routines of families in small towns. The panel introduced a cast of continuing characters, including the cowboy Curly and ranch bookkeeper Wes. The content was based on Williams' own life experiences, as noted by Michael H. Price in the Fort Worth Business Press: Cartooning can become a higher art, if motivated by urges greater than rattling off an easy gag or beating the next deadline. Thus do any perceived barriers between Charlie Russell and J.R. Williams prove irrelevant. Williams’ mass-consumption newspaper cartoons come from a font of artistry and inspiration as deep and personal as anything that drove Russell. Jim Williams’ Out Our Way is the great masterpiece of cowboy cartooning, surviving in obscurity for an eventual rediscovery. The feature draws upon the writer-artist’s personal background as a muleskinner (and industrial machinist, and prizefighter, and family man) in ways that make the individual episodes — each self-contained panel suggesting a larger story — as resonant today as when new... “It was just this little knack I’d developed for drawing things,” Williams told The Saturday Evening Post in 1953. “Nobody outside the bunkhouse or the machine shop had ever seemed to want my style of small-town humor, but I was too stubborn to give up.” By the 1950s, Out Our Way had attracted a readership in the millions. Williams’ range of experiences, coupled with a gentle sarcasm and a keen observational sense, made his work unique. He tapped into the commonplace happenings of everyday life — childhood in a small town, the earthy humor that lightens the rigors of ranch life and the factory floor — and became an entertaining chronicler of a day before the 20th Century had come of age.
(wikipedia.org)
James Robert Williams
J. R. Williams (1888 – 1957, USA)
Looking for adventure, James Robert Williams ran away from home when he was in his mid-teens. He worked at a ranch for a while, then signed up with the U.S. Cavalry for three years, and played football with a young Lieutenant George Patton. Returning home to his parents in Ohio, J. R. Williams got married and took a steady job at a crane manufacturing company, where he started drawing cover designs for the company’s catalog.
In 1921, after years of submitting ideas for strips to various syndicates, his one-panel cartoon gag series ‘Out Our Way’ appeared for the first time. The success of this series led to a Sunday feature, ‘Out Our way, With the Willits’. Artists George Scarbo and Neg Cochran assisted Williams on the strip, that ran until 1978. Another strip he did was titled ‘Bull of the Woods’, about a machine shop boss. Williams bought his own ranch in 1930, and died in 1957.
(lambiek.net)