CHON DAY - COLLECTION WITH CHIC YOUNG, GUS EDSON, HAROLD KNERR - HFSID 277437

CARTOONISTS: CHON DAY, GUS EDSON, HAROLD KNERR & CHIC YOUNG
Matted collection of signed original art by Day, Edson and Knerr and a signed printed cartoon by Young
Collection of Original Art, matted together to an overall size of 14x11. Four items: 1) Original Art inscribed and signed: "Best wishes/to Richard/Chon/Day", 4½x3. On same surface is his original drawing of a boy playing the trombone, also initialed "CD"; 2) Original Art signed: "Gus/Edson", above which he has drawn Andy Gump saying, "I'm proud to include/Richard Portofee/among my friends", 4½x3; 3) Printed Art inscribed and signed: "To Richard/Portofee/with kindest/regards from/The Bumsteads/and/Chic/Young, to right of print of the Bumstead family (Dagwood, Blondie, Alexander, Cookie and pet Daisy), 4½x3; and 4) Original Art inscribed and signed: "To Richard Portofee -/with hearty good wishes from -/Harold H. Knerr '41", below color ink and pencil drawing of the Katzenjammer Kids with their parents, the kids saying "Gesundheit, Richard!", 4½x3. CHAUNCEY "CHON" DAY, a cartoonist with a dry sense of humor, was featured in publications like The Saturday Evening Post and The New Yorker. Day, who died in 2000, received the National Cartoonist Society's Gag Cartoon Award three times (1956, 1962, 1970). He also drew the comic Brother Sebastian. GUS EDSON (1901-1966), initially a sports cartoonist, took over the popular comic strip The Gumps and ran it until 1959. (Andy Gump, the central character, was a perennial Presidential candidate.) In 1951 he created, with Irwin Hasen, a new, youthful character, Dondi, originally conceived as a World War II orphan adopted by an American G.I. Dondi, inspired a board game and a 1961 movie scripted by Edson. Murat Bernard "CHIC" YOUNG (1901-1973) created "Dagwood and Blondie" in 1930. 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. The Bumstead family inspired a TV show and a long-running film comedy series, and has amused people worldwide for 75 years. Little is known about the background of the reclusive HAROLD H. KNERR (1883-1949), who worked alone in his New York hotel room, but his cartoon characters, The Katzenjammer Kids, were world famous. The Katzenjammer Kids were actually created by Rudolph Dirks in 1903. When Dirks demanded a leave of absence from the strip, William Randolph Hearst refused to grant it, and awarded the strip to Knerr, who had been running a similar strip, The Fineheimer Twins, for several years. (Litigation followed, with Dirks continuing the same characters under a new name for the rival Pulitzer newspaper chain.) The mischievous Katzenjammer Kids, with their fractured Germanic dialects, have now been aggravating adults for over a century. (The strip continued, though with diminished circulation, after Knerr's death; it is currently drawn by Hy Eisner.) All four of these highly influential cartoonists are now deceased. Fine condition. Matted by unknown individual.