The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1901-05-09
IDEAS OF HUMoR CHANGE.

Comicalities Relished a Generation
| Ago Are Now Regarded as Very
Stupid.
There appears to have been a vast
change in the pictorial work of the
humorous periodicals in the last few
years, so much so, in fact, that the
| humorous ideal seems to have been
shifted. A few years ago the illustra-
| lions in certain class of these pa
pers were almost invariably of some
artistic merit in a serious though
often unmeaning way; now they are,
for the most part, grotesque and
broadly comic. Before the Joke" was
to be found in the text beneath the
picture. Now it is in the picture itself
and often the text is dispensed with
altogether. Most of the humorous
| papers still retain one or two artists
whose work is of the finer order, as
a connecting link between the old
manner and the new and in order
that he may furnish a slight coun-
terpolse to the comic preponder-
ance. But the man whose wares are
most readily accepted and which
command the highest figure is the
caricaturist or the Original" who
has discovered some distorted point
of view of things. Their pictures
amuse in themselves and the text, if
text there be, is Fictitious aid, says
the New York Post.
A New York artist who used to
command a comfortable living by
drawing for the humorous papers
comments rather ruefully on this
change in style. Have you OBJ
served" he said, that the he and
she picture has gone the way of all
flesh? There is no market for it
now. I used to support myself do
ing he and She pictures and nothing
else. They would take as many of
them as | cared to draw. All that |
had to do was to put a man and a
woman on bench or a sofa or stroll
ing down a shady lane, or sitting on
the seashore, and their funny men
did the rest. / would not know what
joke was going with the picture I'M
til l saw it in the paper. The jokes
were always 'He'-then his remark,
and 'She'-and her reply. That is
the way this type of picture got its
name.
Finally, however, the editors of
these papers drew the artistic reins
tighter. They said that there was
nothing in the expressions of the he
and she to indicate that they were
saying the lines the funny man had
given them. Some times, you see,
would have a man leaning carelessly
over the back of rustic seat smil-
ing down at girl, while, according
to the lines, she was giving him the
'mitten.' The members of the he
and She school were gradually
crowded out by the comics and if
they could not adapt themselves to
the new style had to seek other
fields. Of course 1 do not mean to
say there are no more he and She
pictures in the comic papers. They
will appear, but you will observe that
they are not only very well done
from an artistic point of view. but
that the action in them squares with
the sense of the lines beneath.
"What is the reason for this
change in the humorous papers?''
echoed the artist to a question
"Well, it would be hard to say. 1t is
more than a fashion, l think. Call it
rather an evolution. One reason, ]
believe, is the great improvement in
the last few years of the illustrations
in the serious monthlies and week
lies. The public sees so much excel
lent pictorial work in these nova
days that it would be surfeited if it
found this work in the comic papers
too. They turn to them for the
funny pictures"
FEST of Sanity gT-