104 years ago, David Johnson Leisk was born in New York City. Â For his pseudonym, he would later add his childhood nickname “Crockett” to his middle name… becoming “Crockett Johnson.” Â Below is an ad for the second collection of the comic strip that made him famous: Barnaby (1942-1952). After this volume (published 1944), Johnson planned
Crockett Johnson was not a teller of jokes. His sense of humor was wry, subtle, sardonic. He’d quietly offer a well-turned phrase or make an off-hand observation that perfectly addressed the moment. However, in contrast to his gentle delivery, he “had this sort of earthy laugh,”1 a “marvelous laugh.”2 Courtesy of Nina Stagakis, here is
One side effect of writing The Purple Crayon and A Hole to Dig: Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss (forthcoming, 2012) is that I could write pages on how Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon (1955) has influenced subsequent artists and writers – and, for that matter, on Harold’s antecedents. (The list of works discussed in the
With a nod to the survival of the U.S. auto industry, here’s an ad campaign from when American automakers were thriving. Â Created for Ford in 1947-1948, Crockett Johnson based these ads on his untitled cartoon, popularly known as The Little Man with the Eyes, which ran in Collier’s from 1940 to 1943. Â In each cartoon,
Though they had lived together since 1940 and married in 1943, this 1944 photograph is the first one to include both Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss. Â Taken by Frank Gerratana, it appeared in the Sunday Herald (Bridgeport, Conn.) of October 1, 1944. Â In my biography of Johnson and Krauss, I’m using a print of the
A 1943 letter from Crockett Johnson. Asked about himself, he dodges the question.
Two high-school cartoons by Crockett Johnson. Neither has been seen since the 1920s.
Different kinds of scholars, different kinds of scholarship. But many paths to success in academia.