Cool, Cat, Cool

Saturday Leftover Day. 

Today's postcovers two of my hobbie. I like the work of cartoonist Jack O'Brien.  Well maybe, like is too strong a word. I come across his work a lot and I admire his talent of selling stuff and ideas everywhere. He started out in the army, where I believe he stayed at least until the mid fifties. He sold cartoons everywhere, from the regular mid tier magazines to the sexy cartoon outfist of the late forties and fifties. He turned up as one of the contributors to The American Cartoonist, a trade magazine for cartoonists, which had info about sales and markets (and which was also the infamous magazine that showed Mort Walker he was the best selling cartoonist in 1949). In the late fifties he had a daily gag series about the army, some of which I may have shown here. He also edited the later issues of Charlton's Crazy magazine (one of the Mad imitation mgas covered in my book Behaving Madly) from his home in New York. He also was one of the contributors on The American Air Force Features premade Sunday section for army papers between 1955 and 1965 (many of which I showed here as well). After that he joined Harvey as their regular artist on the Sad Sack series and several others. But not before doing half a year's work on another daily cartoon, called Cool Cat to two Riverside papers which shared a comics page. My attention was drawn to it, when I saw on Facebook that Scott Shaw shared the cover of the third issue of a 1962/3 Prize comic book version of the same character. O'Brien's quick and easy style may not be for everyone, but apparently he had no problem selling it.

Oh and the other hobby? That's my love for beginnings and endings of strips and daily cartoons. Today with the added bonus of a Jack O'Brien photo.

 

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