Tuesday, November 5, 2024

Cartoon Lessons by Charles Kuhn (1892-1989)

Though born in Illinois, cartoonist Charles "Doc" Kuhn lived and worked in Indiana for many decades. Kuhn was an editorial cartoonist at the Indianapolis News from 1922 to 1948. In middle age, he decided to make a change in his cartooning career, launching Grandma, a syndicated comic strip, on April 14, 1947. Originally syndicated by Richardson Feature Service of Indianapolis, Grandma was picked up by King Features Syndicate the following year and ran in American newspapers until 1969. Kuhn lived with his wife in Acton, Indiana, just southeast of Indianapolis, until 1964, when they moved to Florida. Kuhn died on January 16, 1989, at age ninety-six.

Like so many early cartoonists, Kuhn was a jack-of-all-trades. In addition to drawing editorial cartoons and a nationally syndicated comic strip, he created instructional books on cartooning for children. These included The Boy and Girl Cartoonist: A Complete Course in Cartooning, published by Saalfield Publishing Company of Akron, Ohio, in 1936. The cartoons below are from that book.

Charles Kuhn's Lessons 57 and 58 from The Boy and Girl Cartoonist (1936), showing the stereotyped Republican elephant and Democratic donkey. They look very different here of course . . .

Now see if you can guess which one has his big, fat hand out to the taxpayer. Look closely. Can you tell the difference? Neither can I. And these are the people we're going to elect today and then install in office in a few short weeks.

Text copyright 2024 Terence E. Hanley