BILL HOLMAN AND SMOKEY STOVER

years in Nappanee, Holman returned to the sports page, but his first real cartoon­ Sugar Crick School was building by then, Crawfordsville for summer visits with his ing experience came with his drawings for with Holman acting as the senior member grandmother and worked as a soda jerk at a column made famous by Ring Lardner, of the group. the Crawford Hotel. “ In the Wake o f the News.” Freelancing helped Holman develop Although Holman dreamed of In his two years with the Tribune, H ol­ his unique brand o f humor and set the becoming a fireman, by age eight or nine man worked his way up to sixteen dollars stage for the next act in his career. “When his artistic ambitions had begun to take a week. Cleveland’s Newspaper Enterprise you find that your stufFs appearing before shape. A friend’s (probably Fred Neher’s) Associates, however, offered a better living the public in a big national publication, father kept a clothing store in town and (thirty-five dollars a week) and a more you get confidence,” he noted. “You un­ gave the boys discarded white cardboard comfortable setting. Beginning in 1921, consciously open up, forget your inhibi­ from fabric samples to use as their draw­ Holman worked with a number o f well- tions, and do the things that are easiest ing paper. Holman also collaborated with known cartoonists, including Chic Young and most normal.” If he was inhibited and Merrill Blosser on advertisements for Mr. (Blondie) and fellow Hoosiers Blosser and “normal” before the decade began, Hol­ Blosser’s shoe store. Located on the same Edgar E. Martin (Boots and Her Buddies) man was certainly neither by the time it block was Clemmer’s Dime Store, where in the same building that housed the had ended. as a child Holman sold popcorn while Landon school o f cartooning. Holman’s After spending the first half o f the Neher hawked ice-cream cones at three initial effort was a pair o f syndicated 1930s as a freelancer, Holman returned to for ten cents. Like Blosser and many other animal strips, J. Rabbit Esquire and Billville newspaper syndication in 1935, steered cartoonists before and after him, Holman Birds, but neither lasted more than a few toward the New York Daily News by Price subscribed to Charles N. Landon’s mail­ months. and Walter Berndt (Smitty). Captain order cartooning course and as a teenager Holman’s days at NEA were among Joseph Medill Patterson, cofounder and began to look to a career in art. the happiest o f his life, but he lost his job director o f the News, was interested in a By age fifteen, Holman and his mother there and moved on to the New York Her­ recurring character— a zany fireman— in were living in Goshen, Indiana, where he ald Tribune in 1924. He spent the rest of Holman’s gag cartoons and asked him to went to work as a soda jerk, earning $2.50 the decade drawing a kid strip called Gee develop a full-fledged com ic strip based a week plus all the food he could eat. In Whiz, Jr. in the company o f cartoonists on the character. O n a Christmas trip to 1919 the Holmans were on the move Winsor McCay (Little Nemo in Slumber- Crawfordsville, Holman drew up a sample again, this time to Chicago. Anna labored land), Charles Voight (Betty and Petey), and mailed it o ff to New York. Patterson in a department store workroom while her and Clare Briggs (Mr. and Mrs.). He also liked what he saw and, on March 10, son found a job at Marshall Field’s whole­ met Will Rogers and learned to juggle 1935, Smokey Stover made its debut. Hol­ sale house. At night he studied under from W. C. Fields. Holman later remi­ man’s career got a boost only two months cartoonist Carl Ed (creator o f Harold Teen) nisced that, “as a punk, I hung out with later with the untimely death o f Hoosier at the Chicago Academy o f Fine Arts, but damn nice people.” cartoonist Gaar Williams. As an employee was forced to quit after just six months for In the late twenties, Holman self- o f the same syndicate, Holman inherited lack of funds. Holman also cartooned for syndicated another animal com ic called not only Williams’s newspaper clients, but the Nicholas Senn High School newspa­ Wise Quacks. After both Wise Quacks and also his many cartoon titles, including The per, but he left school after landing a job at Gee Whiz, Jr. gave up the ghost, Holman Strain on the Family Tie, It's All in Fun, and the Chicago Tribune, never to complete his turned to freelance cartooning, count­ Nice People. Holman continued Williams’s education. W hile still a teenager, Holman ing Judge, Life, Liberty, Captain Billy’s titles for four years, but finally claimed the was soon rubbing elbows not only with Whiz Bang, and Ballyhoo among his many feature as his own with the title Nuts and Ed but also with Frank King (Gasoline magazine clients. In the process Holman Jolts in 1939. Nuts and Jolts, a screwball Alley), Sidney Smith ( The Gumps), future made, as he remembered it, a “hell-of-a-lot com ic panel, appeared in daily newspapers New Yorker cartoonist Garrett Price, and o f money.” At about that time he roomed until 1970. Harold Gray, a fellow Hoosier and later with Linn in New York City and spent a Smokey Stover was a Sunday feature creator o f Little Orphan Annie. Starting good deal o f time dragging young Hoosier for most o f its run. The title character is as a six-dollar-a-week office boy, Holman cartoonists around to the editors and art a gangling, cigar-smoking fireman with drew layouts and thumbnail sketches for directors he knew. The reputation o f the pipe-stem limbs and a hat with a hinged

50 | TRACES | Summer 2012