History of Hatlo: Cartoonist On Call

When Jimmy Hatlo assumed the position of automobile editor of the San Francisco Call in January of 1925, it appeared that he had once again put his cartoonist days behind him. For nine months he presided over all things automotive at the Call, primarily focused on a weekly Wednesday page entitled The Automotive Section, but later rechristened Motordom under Hatlo's stewardship. Quite a bit of Hatlo's reporting during the spring and summer of 1925 focused on nearby Yosemite National Park, which had recently been opened to automobile traffic. Such was his local fame and reputation that he even occasioned a portrait photo with his byline.

Hatlo the cartoonist reemerged in October of that year as described by Ed Black in his Hogan's Alley article:

"During that time in California, football reigned supreme, and no team was more revered than the University of California at Berkeley. Berkeley had gone undefeated for five years running and was the pride of the Bay Area. A loss to a team composed of former college all-stars called the Olympic Club sent shock waves through the community. A football nut himself, Hatlo drew a cartoon about the loss. Reluctant to deliver the cartoon directly to the Call ’s sports editor, Pat Frayne, he waited until Frayne was out of the office and placed the cartoon on his desk. The next day, the cartoon greeted Hatlo on the front page of the paper’s sports section."

The cartoon was entitled "Christmas on Mt. Olympus" and spanned across five columns of an eight-column page. It distinctly overshadowed the Call's coverage of the game in an article that appeared below it. Hatlo had returned to what was clearly his first love, and in a big way. The cartoon was an immediate success and Pat Frayne wanted more.

And Frayne got more.  And quickly.  Hatlo immediately established a publishing routine that focused on the college football weekly schedule.  He would produce a Friday cartoon that would anticipate the weekend matchups, then follow up with Monday episode lampooning the results. He also peppered in additional material throughout the week, whether self-commissioned or requested by Frayne. Likely feeling just a bit liberated, he even dropped a cartoon onto the automotive page which he continued to edit.  

When football season ended, so did Hatlo's cartooning resurgence, at least until the following spring when it appears Call managing editor Freemont Older recruited him for content that expanded beyond sports into general interest and political humor.  On March 1, Hatlo delivered a cartoon that could certainly be seen as a precursor to They'll Do It Every Time.  Entitled "Spring is in the Air," it featured a husband squeamishly reviewing the price list at a spring fashion show while his wife gushes.  As time and his endeavors would show, Hatlo would never completely abandon an idea or detail that could possibly serve his needs later.  The husband's name was Henry and he bore a distinct resemblance to the character who would become one of TDIET's most popular recurring cast members - Henry Tremblechin.

"Spring is in the Air" marked the arrival of Hatlo on the Call's editorial page and established a residency of sorts as one of the paper's cartoonists.  His contributions to the editorial page would mix both topical and political content and typically appear two to three times a week.  He would pen the occasional vignettes for the sports page throughout the year but dominated the section again once football season began in earnest in the fall.  Thus began the transition of Hatlo from automobile editing to full-time cartooning, and the Call editors were more than happy to allow him to unleash his inner artist over the next few years.

Such was Hatlo's popularity and success, that on a fateful day in 1929 when there was a sudden vacancy to fill on the Call's comic page, managing editor Edgar Gleason knew he already had a man for the job.

UP NEXT:  The Creation Myths of They'll Do It Every Time

History of Hatlo

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Los Angeles and Apologies to Gale

Part 3: Gasoline Gossip

History of Hatlo: Gasoline Gossip

Sometime in early 1919, Jimmy Hatlo left Los Angeles behind and traveled north up the California coast. His name next appeared in print in the March 23rd edition of the Oakland Tribune. Referred to as "CARTOONIST HATLO," he reported on the Santa Monica Races, once again pursuing his interest in automobiles. Hatlo would be credited for cartoons at the Tribune nine more times through the end of that year.

In the Hogan's Alley article, Ed Black reports that after World War I, Hatlo worked briefly as a movie publicist before moving to an agency that represented automobile dealers. His Tribune material was comprised entirely of automobile related content, with a particular focus on Chevrolet, supporting the notion that Hatlo was working for an outside interest and not necessarily on the Tribune staff. In fact, one of Hatlo's Tribune cartoons showcased a Chevrolet branch manager and "his aggressive sales organization," further reinforcing the publicist nature of his work there.

In January of 1920, it is noted in multiple bay area newspapers that Hatlo was working for the Elliot Pabst Company while acting as an official observer of a Fageol-manufactured truck test run between San Francisco and Los Angeles.  Hatlo would ultimately write an article on the Fageol demonstration for the Tribune.  Throughout much of 1920 and into early 1921, he would continue to produce "publicity" cartoons that appeared in various California newspapers.

Black reports that Hatlo became the automobile page editor of the San Francisco Bulletin in 1923, but that actually occurred earlier in 1921.  The Automotive Section was a weekly feature of the Bulletin, published every Saturday.  Hatlo assumed his editorial duties on May 7, 1921.  Cartooning immediately took a back seat (pun intended) and his bylines became attached to articles, not art.  In July of 1923, he started his own weekly column entitled Gasoline Gossip, that featured a cartoon self portrait in the header.  On May 28, 1924, Hatlo was featured in a front page in-house advertisement showcasing five Bulletin staffers.  The ad described him as a "former cartoonist" who is now one of the "best-liked automobile writers on the Pacific coast."

In September of 1924, two significant things happened.  First, Hatlo was elected to the position of vice president of the San Francisco Press Club, further reinforcing his newspaper reporting credentials. But then ironically, he returned to his artistic roots and created a new cartoon for the Automobile Section.  It was his first large scale, full panel effort in three years.  It was especially significant in that it would foreshadow material Hatlo would produce some three decades later for Sunday editions of TDIET.  Entitled "If There Be Hell Then Pity These," it could easily be considered the very first episode of Hatlo's Inferno.  Hatlo produced one more auto-themed cartoon for the Bulletin in late October.  It was his last printed work for the paper.  It can be assumed that this was when he left the Bulletin to become the automobile editor at the San Francisco Call.  His first byline for the Call appeared on January 3, 1925.

UP NEXT:  The sports cartoon that set everything in motion.

History of Hatlo

Part 1: Introduction

Part 2: Los Angeles and Apologies to Gale

History of Hatlo: Los Angeles and Apologies to Gale

Where and when does the History of Hato begin?

For my purposes here, I am starting the story with what appears to be Jimmy Hatlo's first attributed work as a cartoonist.  The biographical background is that Hatlo dropped out of high school after his freshman year and took a job as a linotype apprentice with the Los Angeles Times.  He moved  to the art department of the paper in 1917.  While likely doing unattributed work such as spot illustrations and advertising pieces, his Hatlo signature first appeared on October 6, 1917; the art was a page wide banner cartoon featuring silhouettes of individuals celebrating the beginning of the 1917 World Series between the Chicago White Sox and the New York Giants.

Featured on the same page was a one-panel comic entitled "The Battle of Ball Run" by the Times own established cartoonist Ted Gale.  It would be the first in a series of sports page vignettes about the World Series that Gale would hand over to Hatlo beginning with the fifth installment.  It noted, "continued by Hatlo" in the bottom right corner.

Installment #6 would further elevate the young staff artist.  The cartoon credited Hatlo a byline at the top right which he would retain for the remainder of the series.  He signed the piece with "apologies to Gale."  The art distinctly showed the influence of Bud Fisher's Mutt & Jeff, a comic strip the Times was then running.  "The Battle of Ball Run" concluded with the eleventh installment which showcased the triumphant White Sox.  The illustrations Hatlo produced featured rather strong and often stark World War I imagery including trench warfare, bombs, a field ambulance, tanks and biplanes.  Following the conclusion of the World Series, Hatlo produced a few additional cartoons for the Times sports page throughout the rest of October 1917.

Hatlo surfaced again on November 13th with another full page banner cartoon, this time featured on the paper's Automobile page and tied to the city's Auto Show.  Four days later he produced a cartoon recapping the show entitled "Impressions of the Auto Show by Our Eminent Cartoonist."

These cartoons from late 1917 would be prescient of the subjects that would largely influence and inform Hatlo's output for the next two decades.  Sports and automobiles, but primarily sports, would more or less define Hatlo's work in the years leading up to the debut of TDIET.  He would byline additional material at the Times throughout 1918 but it was occasional rather than consistent.  Thirteen bylines can be found, all relating to either sports or automobiles.

As previously noted, I'm primarily using the 2012 Hogan's Alley article "Jimmy Hatlo-Man of Many Hats" by Ed Black as my biographical source material, but I have found one inconsistency with it and my own research.  Black states that " . . .in early 1918 some of his cartoons about Kaiser Wilhelm made the front page as editorial cartoons."  As noted, there are thirteen Hatlo bylines in 1918, but none made the front page nor were any editorial in nature.  It is possible that material by Times cartoonist Ted Gale has been mistakenly identified as belonging to Hatlo.  Gale's editorial cartoons frequently made page one and there is at least one example of his work featuring Wilhelm in January of 1918.  Gale's and Hatlo's styles are similar and it is possible the young Hatlo was emulating the more experienced Gale.

UP NEXT: Hatlo travels up the California coast to Oakland and San Francisco

History of Hatlo - Introduction

Hatlo's first appearance as his cartoon self in They'll Do It Every Time on April 15, 1929

It seems history has left Jimmy Hatlo behind.

In the mid 20th century, cartoonist Jimmy Hatlo was undeniably a comic strip superstar, as popular then as later creators Charles Shultz, Hank Ketchum and Lynn Johnston would become in future decades.  Throughout the 1940s and 1950s, Hatlo's They'll Do It Every Time was arguably the most popular comic in the country and the name Jimmy Hatlo became a brand unto itself.  He tragically left the world at what now feels like a very young sixty-six years of age.  His creation went on to endure without him for more than forty years.  Unfortunately, in that time, the name Jimmy Hatlo slowly faded into obscurity.

Sadly, the lasting legacies of comic strips are more often the memorable characters produced rather than the individuals who created them.  Creators frequently rode the coattails of their creations, i.e. Shultz with Charlie Brown, Ketchum with Dennis the Menace and Smythe with Andy Capp.  While TDIET did feature a stable of regulars such as Henry Tremblechin, Lushwell, Bigdome and most notably Little Iodine, those characters were secondary to the overall format and dynamic of the strip.  Little Iodine made the greatest impact, channeling TDIET notoriety into a spinoff Sunday feature, comic books and even a modest B-grade feature film.  But the popularity of TDIET sprang from its concept of showcasing the frustrations, absurdities and hypocrisies of the human condition (as submitted by readers), and its recurring characters were never able to enter the popular culture to any significant degree. 

Hatlo died on December 1, 1963. As I was only two years old at the time, it is safe to say I was never exposed to Hatlo and his own original work on TDIET. Hatlo debuted the one-panel comic in 1929 and was it's creative force until his untimely death. As an avid comic strip reader growing up, I occasionally encountered the strip on the pages of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette when it was being shepherded by the team of Bob Dunn and Al Scaduto. But I never developed a continued interest in it as my family subscribed to the city's other daily, the Pittsburgh Press, which without argument had the better comics pages.

In researching other mid 20th century comic strips over the past decade or so, I kept bumping into TDIET and was subsequently impressed with the rather dense dialog and detailed artwork that was unusual for a gag-a-day one panel.  I managed to trace it back to its 1936 debut with the Kings Features syndicate and began to archive it for my own personal reading.  Miraculously, a short time later, the archives for the San Francisco Call-Bulletin became available. That was the newspaper where TDIET began in 1929 and where Hatlo essentially honed his skills and refined his craft.  It is now certainly revelatory to have access to the whole of the TDIET collection and be able to trace the evolution of one of the medium's more notable talents.

Finding accurate biographical and historical information on Hatlo and TDIET is a challenge.  The Wikipedia entries are sparse and often inaccurate and the citations often lead to equally sparse and inaccurate sources.  The best and most clearly reputable information can be found in a 2012 article from the publication Hogan's Alley that has been thankfully archived on the magazine's web site.  "Jimmy Hatlo - Man of Many Hats" by Ed Black is an extensive and exceptionally well-researched biographical piece that fills in many gaps in Hatlo's life and details much of the history of the TDIET strip.

My exploration of TDIET here at Boom Pop! is intended to expand upon Ed Black's material and provide a more specific chronology of times, places, events and individuals as benefited by material that has only more recently become accessible.

To be continued - soon!

But He Sure Doesn't Act Like a Bear!

Yogi Bear was an established feature on the Sunday comics pages for two decades, but he did enjoy a brief stint as a one-panel strip in the early 1960s.  The daily dose of Yogi could be found in newspapers from late 1962 through fall of 1963.  Here's a bit of meta humor from January 7, 1963.

Kits and Caboodles: Returning to a Hobby from My Youth

Reliving the past is certainly the focus of my endeavors here.  During my teenage years, one of my more devoted hobbies was building model kits, primarily those featuring vehicles and scenes from movies and television shows.  Back then, I was a modeler of average skill and was generally happy with my efforts.  But assembled model kits are fragile things and sadly, they did not survive the multiple moves of my early adulthood.

Over the past number of years I have returned to the hobby, with the specific goal of revisiting many of the kits I built in those earlier years.  Fortunately, many of these products have been reissued in recent decades with others being generally not difficult to find via eBay and collectible retailers.  My modelling skills have improved greatly and I am very much enjoying my return to the hobby.

Some of the earliest kits I purchased were from the Addar Planet of the Apes series, released in the early 1970s. I  modeled General Ursus (Beneath the Planet of the Apes) and General Aldo (Battle for the Planet of the Apes).  The series also included Cornelius (Beneath the Planet of the Apes), Dr. Zaius (Beneath the Planet of the Apes), Zira (Planet of the Apes), Caesar (Battle for the Planet of the Apes) and the Stallion and Soldier (Planet of the Apes).  Polar Lights reissued Cornelius, Zaius, Zira and Ursus in the early 2000s under the Aurora brand.  I purchased all four at the time and squirreled them away, finally returning to them in my recent modeling.

 I was inspired to work on General Ursus first, as I remember being totally in love with the kit as a kid.  The simple brick wall building ruins captured my post apocalyptic imagination.  In returning to the kit, I decided to embellish on that theme.  I ditched the tree limbs, built up a pile of rubble and added a Fallout Shelter sign to further emphasize the bomb-destroyed ruins of New York City from Beneath the Planet of the Apes,  The overall aesthetic ran a bit darker than I intended, but I was more or less pleased with the result.

 

I don't remember for certain if I owned the original Addar Cornelius kit, but if I did, I don't remember ever building it.  My skills had ramped up some in the few years between Ursus and my recent build of the Aurora Cornelius reissue.  I went for a straight build with no modifications; the base was especially well done, featuring the crumbling ruins of the New York Stock Exchange (an interesting choice on the designer's part as the character of Cornelius never visited the New York ruins in any of the films).

I still have the Zaius and Zira kits to complete, and I managed to track down an original Addar General Aldo that I am excited to revisit.  Caesar and the Stallion and Soldier kits were never reissued and are exceptionally rare and beyond my budget. 

Knock, Knock - Anyone There?

Probably not.  But what the heck.  Retirement beckons and it's time to visit some old haunts.  More to come, if only for my own self-satisfaction.