WALTER
C. HOBAN
(1890-1939) •
Original Sunday page, “Jerry on the Job” (1931) from a
“Screwball
Art” master.
Hoban
is not a household word among even most serious comic
art collectors, so we’ll
let expert Paul Tumey extol this artist’s virtues:
“Screwballism is an acquired
taste for many people, I'm discovering., What's always
been funny to me isn't
to most folks. Audiences in the 1920s and 30s, when
screwball comics hit their
peak, had a daily dose of the stuff. They were educated
consumers of screwball
comics. They knew enough to appreciate that the flip
takes Walter Hoban drew
[and probably invented] were artful in comparison to the
average comic's plop.
When The Marx Brothers argued over why a duck and
declared they didn't believe
in Sanity Clause, people were primed to get the humor
and to laugh.
“Here's
the question I ponder: was a screwball strip like Jerry
On The Job as weird in 1924 as it seems
today? Keep in mind that we are talking about a
generation that embraced a
squinty-eyed, grizzled old sailor as a beloved
character. The generation that
raised screwball comics to an art form was also
the generation that went
through the horrors of one World War, slid into economic
depression and the
nightmare of a second, unimaginably terrifying and evil
war.
“…Hoban
created Jerry
On The Job over a
weekend when his paper, The New York Journal, needed a
new comic strip. The comic started
December 29, 1913. Hoban wrote and drew Jerry On The Job
for the rest of his life,
approximately another 25 years. He created and drew
other amazing screwball
strips as well (such as Needlenose
Noonan), but Jerry was the through-line in his
life's work.
“In
some artfully smart subconscious way, Hoban's Jerry
seems to give shape to the alienation and
suppressed anxiety of the lost generation. Just as
Shulz's Peanuts is so much more than a gag
strip about little kids, Hoban's Jerry has a lot to
offer the faithful reader. Hoban
was an accomplished artist.” ---Paul Tumey, quoted from
his wonderful “Masters
of Screwball Comics” web site (2012). Hoban’s original
art rarely comes up for
sale. Only one “Jerry on the Job” Sunday, for example,
was ever auctioned by
Heritage.
Medium/Size/Condition: The
original is drawn with pen and ink on heavy
Strathmore Drawing Board (embossed Strathmore symbol
intact) measuring 29
inches wide x 15 high. The right edge is tattered but is
well outside the image
area (nearly 2” ro the right). Some smudging and
fingerprint stains along the
outside edges, but nothing unusual for a strip over 80
years old. Overall fine
condition.
Provenance: This Hoban Sunday is from the
collection of James Kitchen, where it has been for more
than twenty years.
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