The Savannah morning news., 1904-07-10


MS cartoons than any other drafts
man of his time, either here or abroad,
and for a while it seemed as if his
hold upon the public was so strong
that it never could be broken. Just
what was the trouble between him
and his publishers-the old firm of
Harper & Brothers-the world has
forgotten, if it ever knew, but what
ever it was it broke the cartoonist'S
hold upon the public. There were
other publishers a-plenty to take him
up, but somehow Nast's pictures,
printed anywhere save on the pages
of Harper's Weekly, seemed out OF
place and lacking in force and
point.
1t is only fair to Nasts memory to
say that though Harper's Weekly has
employed many capable cartoonists
since his time, none other has ever
given its pages such a verle look as
did his. nor has the paper ever been
so strong politically as it was in the
days of Mast. Long ago the Weekly
gave up the notion, apparently, of be-
ing in the van as a cartoon publication,
and to-day its energies are turned in
quite different directions.
After Mast the next great political
cartoonist in this country was Keppler,
one of the founders and for years the
mainstay of Puck, the first weekly
publication on this side of the water
to approach the power of Punch in
England as a weekly whose chief claim
to recognition lay in it's political car
toons. All of Keppler's work that was
worth while was done, like Nast's, on
one paper, but, unlike Mast, Keppler
was never forced to leave his paper by
proprietors who had grown tired of
him. For also, unlike Mast and in fact
every other American cartOoniSt, KEEP
pier was his own cartoonist. His pic
lures were among Puck's most valua-
BILE assets, and long before his death
had made him much more than indie
pendent from the money standpoint.
1t is the judgment of many that the
craftsmen named, Mast, Keppler and
Davenport, have never had their peers
as political cartoonists in the United
States.
There have been, and to-day there
are, scores of clever political picture
makers, aside from these three, in this
country, many of them witty, humor-
Gus 1.-TWO entirely different things) and
convincing, but the work of none of
them has approached in power the
work of the three men named.
Opinions differ as to the amount of
money earned by these three men,
but Keppler's permanent financial
gains We're undoubtedly larger than
the combined earnings of Mast during
his life and of Davenport down to the
present time, for Keppler was that
rare bird among cartoonists--a clever
business man.
More money is undoubtedly being
earned to-day by some of the social
cartoonists than by any of the politi-
cal picture makers, and of course the
two leaders among the social cartoon
lists are c.. D. Gibson and Howard
Chandler Christy. OF these two it is
probable that the latter is just now
reaping the greater financial rewards.
For while Gibson's salaries from
Golfers Weekly and Life are un-
doubtedly larger than any stipend
which Christy has ever received, the
Christy pictures, by themselves, sell
for a good deal more than do the
Gibson drawings: besides, Christy is
understood to have made exceptional
ly good terms with his publishers as
to royalties, and is rumored to be
piling them up like heaps of corn in d
granery.
The really enormous money success
of the social cartoon is wholly mod
ern matter. 1t is not beside the truth.
probably, to say that Gibson, who is
still a young man, was the first to win
superlative money returns for this
sort of work Hogarth. the father of
all the social cartoonists for Anglo
Saxon eyes, was no great shakes as
money Garner, nor was Leech, who
for so many years was the life OF
Punch. Though Du Maurier's pic
lures were watched for weekly on
both sides of the Atlantic for many
years, they never yielded him a 1.-THE
as much as the pictures of Gibson
and Christy have yielded them. Du
Maurier died very well to do, but he
made more money out of "Trilby,"
than out of all his pictures
The financial success of Gibson and
Christy has been like the success of
popular playwright rather than like
the success of any artist before their
time. and the similarity is much
stronger in Christy's case than in
Gibson's. Gibson has to draw GER
tain number of pictures every year
to keep his money mill a-going
but Christy's pictures are like
play.
Everyone who owns the privilege of
beholding one of them has TO
nav tribute to Christy when he
lures like successful plays, have
mighty long runs.
Christy and Gibson, by the way, are
about as different personally as two
| human beings moving in a somewhat
similar professional atmosphere we'll
could be.
Christy has comparatively few in
terests outside his pictures, though
he is devoted to automobiling, which,
of course, he can very well afford.
Gibson, on the other hand, is full of
outside interests. OF dogs he is as
fond as Homer Davenport is of goats;
he likes to travel about all he can with
out curtailing his output of pictures.
and, to please his young and hand
some wife, they say, he devotes lots OF
time and some considerable sums of
money now and then to the cutting OF
a social dash.
II you will look carefully at the pic
lures drawn by the hosts of artists
who initiate both Gibson and Christy
you will be vastly surprised at the
thin line of demarcation between the
work of the successful social cartoon
list upon whom the world showers fame,
the while pouring riches into his lap.
and the work OF the illustrator VINO,
striving just as hard, succeeds only IN
obtaining fair income.
Indeed Il would be quite Impossible
to describe the difference so that the