W I L L R O G E R S M E D A L L I O N A W A R D
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Tips and Tidbits for Writers
Comics, Cartoons, and Cowboy Culture
By Charles Williams
I believe I had the best boyhood America can give. I grew up on a farm (great place to grow up, lousy place to make a living), during and just after World War II (the apex of America’s power – and confidence), when education was about learning (not indoctrination), and you could drive from here to there without traffic (or even seeing another vehicle). I learned all I ever needed to know about cows, hard work, chores, weather, and life and death (both starting and ending). It does not make me unique, although I must admit it occasionally puts me in the “old foggy” camp. What was unique about it was my relationship with cowboy culture. I, and most other rural kids, learned about cowboys from comic books, radio programs, and occasional movies. We had an intimate knowledge of what it takes to move an animal from here to there, whether on horseback or on foot. We knew what it was like to fire a gun, and what happened at the business end of them. We learned early the Stockman’s Creed - animals first, then humans. We learned it takes hard work to put food in animal’s mouths – and equally as hard work to clean up the other end of the process. So, we already had a base knowledge of what cowboys did that never showed up on the silver screen. After all, Roy or Gene or Hoppy never had to treat for screw worm or help birth a calf or break ice on a water trough or any of the seemingly endless chores that go into raising America’s food. We could read a comic or see a movie with an experience base which allowed us to understand what was real and what was extraordinary. Not that any of the situations our heroes found themselves in was common or even possible, but we knew men and occasional women like them, and we could aspire to handle those dilemmas the way they (both real and imaginary) did.
While the point of this digression is to highlight one of the reasons why the Golden Age of Westerns (roughly from the late 30s to the late 50s) was aided by a built-in, knowledgeable audience, there are a couple of other factors that also need to be noted. The first is rural electrification, without which there was no radio or, later, television. While most urban areas in America were electrified and had home electric power by the early 20s, it was not until the REA in mid to late 30s and 40s that most farms and ranches got power. Our farm in Upstate New York was typical, in that the cowbarn got power first before the house. By sometime in the early 40s we had electricity in the house – which changed the way we lived. Listening to the radio became a big part of our day, with news, weather, soap operas, and, best of all, Westerns. It should be noted here that cows actually give more milk when country music is played – proven fact.
The second point relates to the size of land grants, and more specifically to homesteads under the Homestead Act of 1862. We all know of the effect this had on the history of the Western lands, but one question that seldom gets asked is why a quarter section? One of the important answers to that question is that 164 acres is about all the average farmer with a team of horses can successfully cultivate, given reasonable land. East of the Mississippi, in most places a family could, from say 1690s until the 1950s, make a good living on that amount of land. When tractors replaced horses, the scale of farming changed, and the quarter-section family farm became obsolete, as a general rule. Ranches were the last to feel this change, both because they started large enough to support grazing animals, and they have been the last to change from horses to motors. That is a process that is still happening across cow country.
The third point is another effect electrification had, while it has been taken for granted, made another big impact – electric light, and specifically, reading lights. Generally, most rural workdays run from dawn to dusk. Now, there was light strong and bright enough to read after dark. While city people had had this luxury from both electricity and gas since sometime in the middle of the 19th Century, a whole new audience opened up.
A fourth factor was the fascination people have had with the frontier. It started with James Fenimore Cooper, when the frontier was West alright – Western New York. Then came the dime novels, often written by people who had no first-hand knowledge of the West beyond the Mississippi, but had active imaginations. The next person to fill that hunger at least knew what he was talking about – Buffalo Bill Cody. He bridges the gap between the dime novels and the movies. In roughly the same time period, two influential writers came on the scene – Owen Wister (he of The Virginian) and Robert Service (the Grandfather of Cowboy Poetry).
More to the point of this essay, during the same time period (the end of the 19th Century and the beginning of the 20th), the first comic strip came into being – The Yellow Kid. Cartoons for political and social commentary had been around since the 1840s, but here was a humorous cartoon, and a series of cartoons making up a humorous comic strip, whose purpose was to help sell newspapers. Created by Micky Dugan (under the pen name Richard F. Outcault) and with the name Hogan’s Alley, it appeared first in Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and later in William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. Here it should be noted there is a fine line, at times nonexistent, between cartoons and illustrations. Basically, illustrations are attempts to show reality or something close to it, while cartoons are simplified and exaggerated scenes only loosely related to reality.
Another important difference is that speech in cartoons is usually in bubbles attached to the speaker, while in illustrations it is limited to captions or titles. As comic books developed, this distinction became more and more blurred. During the Golden Age of Westerns, comic books were generally a team effort between a writer, an illustrator, a colorer, and sometimes an inker who also added the dialogue. Early comic books were simply reprints of strips from the papers, but by the mid-1930s (just in time for the Depression), they were coming into their own as separate art forms. Red Ryder, by Fred Harmon, King of the Royal Mounted, by Zane Gray, and Little Joe, by Ed and Robert Leffingwell (cousins of Harold Gray, of Little Orphan Annie- hmmm) were among the earliest successes. They were followed by cowboys in several media forms – comic strips, comic books, Big Little Books, and, at least for Red and King, movies and radio. By the 1940s, comic books (not all Western) were in full bloom, with as many as a million a month sold from grocery stores, five and dimes, drug stores and even an occasional filling station. After the war, popular heroes from the movies and radio began showing up in greater numbers. As a rule, these came from Dell and were not as well written as some of the older lines, but did have a picture of the actor (generally a photo) on the cover. The price -a dime- was right, there were new issues every month, the good guys always won, and it was a great time to be a kid. Cap guns were ultra-popular toys, and we played Cowboys and Outlaws or Cowboys and Indians interchangeably (or sometimes just Guns) without worrying a lot about social implications or deeper meanings. We picked up the Code of the West, or at least Roy and Genes and other heroes’ versions, and it was reinforced by our parents and pretty much society in general.
So what happened? Several factors combined to rather dramatically change the world we lived in. The first was the Russians getting the atomic bomb, combined with the Cold War and the hot war of Korea. The general feeling about that war was frustration that we didn’t win but relief it hadn’t started WWIII and blown us all away. Second, the mood of the country began to change from confidence and optimism to a darker, unsettled view of the future. Third, the population in general moved into the city, or at least the suburbs, and off the family farm – and there was no longer the common knowledge about livestock and rural living. It took different skills to thrive in that environment, and cowboys didn’t generally have those skills. Fourth, was TV and all the good and bad it brought down on us. Large volumes have been written and are still being written about that, but from a personal perspective, there were three major impacts. The first was Vietnam and general mistrust of the Government that grew from that morass. The second was the erosion of values based on rural society which just didn’t fit in the city or seemingly on TV. The third was the change in entertainment, which for me is represented by pro football. Baseball was a part of my life growing up, and I could (and did) practice a form of baseball by myself. It was, and is, easy to visualize on radio. Not so much football, which is the perfect TV game. Gradually, cowboys got replaced by cops and docs, and baseball by football. Comic books grew darker to suit the times, and the Comic Code was installed which pretty much killed comics, even Westerns which generally met the code requirements. They have been replaced by graphic novels, which are graphic, bigger, thicker and much more expensive. They got their start in Japan, and while the Japanese love cowboys, they are not part of their culture. So, while there are occasional Western-themed graphic novels available, Roy and Gene and Hoppy would neither recognize them nor think much of them.
All, however, is not grim. In the hands of a talented historian and storyteller like Nathan Hale, who also happens to be a gifted artist, the graphic novel format can be used to both entertain and educate. That is about as good as it gets with that form. Thomas Yeates, who currently draws Prince Valiant, was the artist on Law of the Desert Born, which was the Louis L’Amour story in well-done graphic novel form. One wishes they had done more of them.
There is another part of the Cowboy Culture of that Golden Era which is still with us but has also changed. The written word is obviously still around, but both the form and the content are profoundly different. The form has gone from the 25-cent paperback and the garishly covered (but generally not well illustrated) pulps to multi-dollar paperbacks on much higher quality paper but only a few magazines which could be called Western, either fiction or nonfiction. Hard back books are still with us, thankfully, as are all sorts of electronic “books.” Their content has also changed, although maybe not as much as we might think. The price on paperbacks started going up right after WWII, and the pulps gradually disappeared about the same time TV became ubiquitous. There was a group of Western authors in that time period whose work still stands up. It includes Jack Schaefer, Walter Van Tilburg Clark, Max Brand, William McLeod Raine, and my father’s (and my) favorites, Luke Short and Ernest Haycox. There were of course others, and toward the late 50s and early 60s, Louis L’Amour became popular. I belonged to a wonderful institution called the Junior Literary Guild, and every month (when we could afford it) a brand-new hardback came in the mail. Among them were Will James’ books, and I still have all of those they sent me. A special note needs to be added about the pulps. They served as a school for authors, and it is no surprise how many best-selling authors, both Western and otherwise, learned their craft writing for them.
Cartoons are a different story. Generally, a cartoon is a line drawing surrounding an often sharp punch line or a gag. It may or may not be colored. They are descended from line illustrations in the 18th and even 17th century newspapers, but the first one to be called a cartoon appeared in the English paper Punch in 1843. They come in a wide variety of styles, tones, type of humor or point, purpose, and skill level. The best ones are somewhat timeless. They are found in an endless source of places, from books and newspapers and calendars and greeting cards and all over the internet - and on office walls.
The classic Cowboy cartoonists, starting with Charlie Russell and descending through J.R. Williams, Ace Read, Tom Ryan, Stan Lynde, and Jim Willoughby, go through to the more current artists. Sadly, some of the multi-talented genuinely funny men and women who produced sharp commentary on contemporary Western (and other) culture have recently passed away, although their work is still available. This group includes Boots Reynolds, “Mad Jack” Hanks, and Bud McCaulley, among others. Most of the current cowboy cartoonists are members of Cowboy Cartoonists international (CCi) and are listed on that website, which is the best way to access their work. There are a few agricultural newspapers and magazines which still feature cowboy cartoons, along with calendars, greeting cards, mugs, playing cards, and assorted other like products. Occasionally a Western-themed cartoon will show up on the funny pages of urban newspapers.
In many ways cartoons remain the truest reflection of Cowboy culture, as humor is both the universal and the timeless response to the varied and unpredictable interactions between cowboys and their world (including, but not limited to, bovines, horses, dogs, trucks, dudes, bankers, members of the opposite sex, officialdom, hostile vegetation, weather, wooden products, leather products, waste products, electronics, and a myriad of other things that are part of their experience). They remain a link between the trail drivers and fence builders to the computer geeks and three-wheel jockeys. As long as there are cows, there will be cowboys, and as long as there are cowboys, they will do things suitable for cartoons.
As previously noted, the line between cartoonist and illustrator is very fine and almost non-existent. One of the differences is that illustrators most often work on a series connected with a story, usually in book form. If one follows that definition, a great many cartoonists are also illustrators – and vice versa. The craft of visualizing a story blends history, humor, mood, action, detail, scale, author’s intent, suitable background and color, and, most of all, artistic talent into pictures that are not only worth a thousand words but are worthy of the story. Illustrations are a guide to the imagination without filling in the blanks, as TV does. Many illustrators have provided cartoons for the cover of the Will Rogers Medallion Award Program, and have done so by capturing various aspects of Will’s charm in drawings. Commonly, young readers’ books are illustrated, and the best of them are very good indeed. At the other end of the spectrum are the photographic essays, quite often called “Coffee Table Books,” with text wrapped around photographs. Authors of historical non-fiction often add photos, generally from the period. Those are great, as long as you can tell who (or what) is being shown. Here too, illustrators (and maps) may get the information across more clearly. The balance is always between too much and too little, both in detail and number.
The art and science of cover illustrations, while vitally important, is way beyond the scope of this essay. In summary, Cowboy Culture lends itself to visual representation. Artists in all mediums have shared their visions of the breathtaking grandeur, the colorful inhabitants, the fascinating history, and the astonishing (or astounding) actions of the American Cowboy in the West of reality and imagination.
-Charles Williams is the former Executive Director and Founder of the Will Rogers Medallion Award. He served as Vice President of the Academy of Western Artists, is a poet, professional storyteller, and has presented classes on writing and performing poetry. He produced "Campfire Tales" at the Fort Worth Stock Show and the Texas State Fair and is the author of multiple books including : A Hand to Draw Too, Is That Story True?, Reminisces, Ramblings, and Recollections, Cooking with Gas: A Quiet Revolution in Texas Kitchens, and Dust from Distant Trails. Now retired, Charles is working on his latest book (with the Civil War letters of Edward H, 6th Texas Cavalry), builds an occasional model, watches old Westerns, picks up his granddaughter from school, writes an occasional essay, NAPS, and watches any sport played on a green field (except soccer).