|
Eugene Francis Byrnes (March 18, 1889 – July 26, 1974)〔"United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/VML4-7M9 : accessed 21 Feb 2013), Eugene Byrnes, July 1974; citing U.S. Social Security Administration, Death Master File, database (Alexandria, Virginia: National Technical Information Service, ongoing).〕 created the long-running comic strip ''Reg'lar Fellers'', which he signed Gene Byrnes. His humorous look at suburban children (who nevertheless spoke like New York street kids) was distributed by the Bell Syndicate and other syndicates from 1917 to 1949. Born and educated in New York City, Byrnes was ten years old when he entered a contest that involved drawing a picture in a store window and won the prize, a $5 suit. He took a job as an office boy at ''McClure's'' when he was 15, and a year later he went to work in his father's harness business and soon started his own business, making horse collars. He also worked as a bug spray salesman, shoemaker and shoe salesman, introducing electric shoe repairs to New York. Byrnes planned a career in sports, but after he broke his leg during a wrestling match, he began copying the cartoons of Tad Dorgan while recuperating in the hospital. He was a graduate of the Landon School of Illustration and Cartooning correspondence course, which displayed his name in its advertisements. ==Cartoons to comics== Byrnes met Winsor McCay who gave him a letter of recommendation which led to work as a sports cartoonist. At the ''New York Telegram'' where ''Things That Never Happen'' was part of Byrnes' larger feature, ''It's A Great Life If You Don't Weaken'', syndicated by the ''New York Evening Telegram'' from 1915 to 1919. ''It's a Great Life If You Don't Weaken'' became a rallying cry of the American Army during World War I. In 1917, this cartoon feature introduced the ''Reg'lar Fellers'' characters. In 1919, he began ''Wide Awake Willie'' as a ''New York Herald'' Sunday page, and this too featured ''Reg'lar Fellers'' characters. With ''Reg'lar Fellers'' running as a daily strip in 1920, he changed the name of the Sunday strip to ''Reg'lar Fellers''. Byrnes and his wife lived in New York with a summer home in Lake Champlain. During a 16-day trip west by automobile in 1922, they saw Carmel, California and decided to live there. They acquired the stone house then known as the Foster house, built in 1906, and remodeled it.〔 In 1923, he was interviewed by Helen Hilliard of ''The Oakland Tribune'': :I sat and watched Gene Byrnes draw a cartoon of himself for me. And I marveled as I watched. How anybody could sit down off-hand, take up pencil and paper, and start right off on a picture. When I had asked him for a photograph, he had looked rather dubious. He had his doubts if he had any pictures of himself. “But,” he continued, “I can make that all right.” A soft drawing pencil appeared magically in his fingers, and deftly he began to trace various figures on a square of drawing paper. As I looked on the lines gradually began to take shape until I could see the faint resemblance to a man. The pencil suddenly disappeared and its place was taken by a pen. This he dipped in India ink and with big swift strokes blotted out the penciled lines with streaks of heavy black. A small paint brush put on the finishing touches. And lo and behold! there was the picture all finished, showing Gene Byrnes, cartoonist, with two ''Reg’lar Fellers'' on the top of his desk.〔(Hilliard, Helen. ''The Oakland Tribune'', 1923 )〕 Byrnes, who was soon earning $25,000 a year, also did two topper strips—''Daiseybelle'' and ''Zoolie''. He overcame his limited drawing skills by hiring a phalanx of talented cartoonists to assist and ghost his strip, which continued to run in newspapers until 1948. Benjamin Thackston Knight (1895–1977), aka “Tack” Knight, was Byrnes' assistant on ''Reg’lar Fellers'' from 1924 to 1929. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gene Byrnes」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
|