CHIC YOUNG - COLLECTION WITH JOHNNY HART, HANK KETCHAM, MORT WALKER, TOM HATTEN, WALTER LANTZ - HFSID 90615

CARTOONISTS: HANK KETCHAM, WALTER LANTZ, MORT WALKER,CHIC YOUNG, TOM HATTEN and JOHNNY HART
Individual signed drawings by each of these 6 cartoonists, framed together in the Gallery of History style to 42x20.
Comprises: (1) HANK KETCHAM. Original Art signed: "Hank Ketcham". Pen and ink drawing, 3¾x6½, of Dennis the Menace and Joey. Hand-inked word balloon: "Gee, I thought Mr. Wilson got mad easy! But that ol' Mr. Upton! WOW!" Fine condition. (2) WALTER LANTZ. Original Art inscribed and signed: "To/Ray Long - Walter Lantz/1982". Pen and ink drawing, 4½x6, of the head of his most famous creation, Woody Woodpecker. Fine condition. (3) MORT WALKER. Original Art inscribed and signed: "To Jane Mendoza/With Best Wishes!/Mort/Walker". Pen and ink drawing, 5x3 card. Walker has drawn the head of Beetle Bailey at left margin. Fine condition. (4) CHIC YOUNG. Vintage Cartoon inscribed and signed: "To Rhea/S. Werner/With kindest regards/from Blondie, Dagwood,/Baby Dumpling and/Chic Young/12-18-40". Pen and ink cartoon, 4¾x3¾, featuring Blondie, Baby Dumpling, Dagwood and the family dog, Daisy. Lightly creased and yellowed. Minor vertical stain touches the flourish of the "g" in Young. Overall, fine condition. (5) TOM HATTEN. Original Art signed: "Tom Hatten/1984". Pen and ink drawing, 4¾x2¾, of Popeye. Handwritten word balloon: "Me/Too!". Fine condition. (6) JOHNNY HART. Original Art signed: "Johnny Hart". Pen and ink drawing, 5x5, of a character from "B.C." Fine condition. Cartoonist HANK KETCHAM (1920-2001) introduced "Dennis the Menace", based on his son of the same name, in 16 newspapers in March 1951. When Ketcham retired in 1994, the strip, which appeared in some 1,200 newspapers in 48 countries (translated into 19 languages) continued, drawn by other artists. WALTER LANTZ (1900-1994), who was working in film animation from age 16, took over Universal Film's animation department in 1926. In 1935, the organization separated from Universal and became Walter Lantz Studios. Lantz was already producing popular movie cartoons, including Oswald Rabbit and Andy Pandy, when a noisy woodpecker at his wooded honeymoon cottage inspired him to produce his most popular character. Lantz produced Woody Woodpecker shorts - never a feature film - until 1975. Woody lives on, of course, under licensing agreements. The woodpecker's unforgettable laugh, originated by Mel Blanc, was furnished by Lantz's wife Grace Stafford (who had auditioned anonymously) after 1950. In 1979, Lantz received a special Academy Award for "bringing joy and laughter to every part of the world." Cartoonist MORT WALKER (1923-2018) sold his first cartoon at the age of 12, was regularly contributing cartoons to magazines by age 14 and was the comic strip artist for a daily metropolitan newspaper when he was 15. In 1950, he introduced Beetle Bailey, who first came to life as a college cut-up before accidentally stumbling onto an Army recruiting post in 1951, resulting in soaring popularity. "Beetle Bailey", which first appeared in 50 newspapers, was picked up by King Features in 1950 and is now seen in 1,800 newspapers, making it the third most widely distributed comic strip. Beetle and his army buddies also appear in 92 compilations of the strip. Walker is also the co-creator, with Dik Browne of "Hi and Lois" (1954), a spin-off of "Beetle Bailey" (Lois is Beetle's sister), and a number of other comic strips. He was named Cartoonist of the Year in 1953 and has won numerous other awards for his work. Cartoonist MURAT BERNARD "CHIC" YOUNG (1901-1973) created "Dagwood and Blondie" in 1930. Dagwood and Blondie Bumstead were "married" in 1933 (Blondie's maiden name was Boopadoop). Their son, Alexander, was introduced in 1934, and their daughter, Cookie, was named in 1941 (the year after Young signed this cartoon) in a reader's contest that attracted half a million votes. The characters are seen in daily and Sunday strips by over 250 million readers in over 2,000 newspapers in 55 countries. In 1948, Young was awarded the Reuben Award for Outstanding Cartoonist of the Year by the National Cartoonists Society for the strip, which continues today under the direction of Young's son, Dean, who worked with his father for ten years before Chic's death. Actor and cartoonist TOM HATTEN (born in 1927) is best known to national TV audiences for hosting Popeye and Friends (1976-1988). He also hosted The Popeye Show (1956-1964) in Los Angeles, for which he was nominated for three Emmy Awards. On the latter show, Hatten, who was known as "Skipper Tom", introduced his Squiggle game, creating a drawing (usually a Popeye character) from a squiggle drawn by a member of his studio audience. The versatile Hatten has also appeared on stage and in feature films, including Sweet Charity (1969), The Secret of NIMH (1982, voice of Farmer Fitzgibbons) and Spies Like Us (1985), and he has guest starred on several TV shows, such as Gomer Pyle, U.S.M.C. (1964, 1965, 1966), Hogan's Heroes (1966, 1970, 1971) and Hawaii Five-O (1973). Hatten is also a writer and producer and the co-founder (1996) of the Musical Theatre Guild. JOHNNY HART (1931-2007) debuted "B.C." nationally on February 17, 1958. The strip has appeared in 1,300 newspapers worldwide and is read by some 100 million people. Hart, who drew cartoons for "Pacific Stars & Stripes" while in the military, sold his first cartoon to the "Saturday Evening Post" in 1954. In 1960, he and collaborator Brant Parker created another popular strip, "The Wizard of Id". Fine condition. Six items. Framed in the Gallery of History style: 42½x20.