We've Got The County Covered
We've Got The County Covered
This cartoon panel appeared in the 1940's in the "Chinook Opinion." Many "knock offs" were created after "Ripley's Believe It or Not" became a hit with the readers of period newspapers. This cartoon panel was drawn and syndicated from 1935-1945 with more than 500 panels drawn.
This image shows a cartoon panel Jim Masterson created for Montana newspapers in 1940. The weekly panel shared anecdotes and historical trivia about the state of Montana and its people. Many of Masterson's panels are now on display at the Range Riders Museum in Miles City, Montana.
In this photo artist Jim Masterson is shown at work on his 1940 series of cartoon panels for newspapers titled "It Happened in Montana." Masterson studied art in Chicago and eventually homesteaded near Miles City, Montana. Later he used his artistic ability and experience as a settler to paint "Lo, the Homesteader," a series of paintings about the experiences of the early settlers.
During a stay in Miles city my wife and I visited some of the local tourist attractions. I was especially impressed with the Range Riders Museum. Described as "a celebration of eastern Montana history" the collection includes exhibits of local branding irons to an iron lung. Though the amount of material to view is a bit overwhelming one exhibit, especially, stood out for me: the collection of "It Happened in Montana" panel drawings by artist James Masterson
The particular set of drawings on display was part of Masterson's 1940 series of line drawings that appeared weekly in Montana newspapers. Each of Masterson's hand drawn panels relates and illustrates a story or tidbit from Montana's history. This style of drawings and features in newspapers, first appearing the 1930's, were mostly offshoots or blatant knock offs of the most famous and enduring of the panel cartoons, "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" The line drawings also reminded me of the old "Our Own Oddities" I read as a kid each Sunday in the "St. Louis Post Dispatch." That panel, on the comic page, included line drawings by a local artist of oddities sent in by readers. It was a must read every Sunday.
"Ripley's Believe It or Not!" first appeared in 1918. Robert Ripley originally did a column about sports trivia and sports figures called "Champs and Chumps."
In 1918 he created a new column that would become the centerpiece of his global entertainment empire that still operates. The new column dubbed "Ripley's Believe It or Not!" featured drawings illustrating bizarre and strange events that readers found breathtaking and often unbelievable.
It's said that at its high point of popularity Ripley's weekly panel was translated in to 17 languages and ran in 360 newspapers worldwide with 80 million regular readers. Advances in printing technology during the 1930's caused a boom in the market for the cartoon panels featuring facts and trivia. The popularity of the panels generated many new similar cartoons, some short lived while others established their own dedicated readers.
The creator of "It Happened in Montana" went from art to agriculture...and back
James Masterson was born 1894 in Wisconsin. From 1906 to 1912 he studied art at the Chicago Art Institute and the Academy of Fine Arts. While living in Chicago he saw an ad showing a farmer plowing and turning over a furrow of silver dollars. The ad read "Come to Montana." In the ad Masterson saw a future in Montana where he could get free land and "paint the New West" to his heart's content.
He arrived in the Miles City area and filed for a homestead in 1918. He found little time for doing art but built up a decent herd of cattle. Then came the "hoppers (grasshoppers) and desperation." Masterson served two terms in the state legislature during the 1930's and for a time was the state collector of revenue. He lived in Butte briefly where he was a cartoonist for the "Montana Standard". His artistic ability and hustle carried him through those struggling years.
In 1940, likely following the success of Ripley's cartoon panels, Masterson created the "It Happened in Montana" panel. It's not clear if he syndicated the cartoon panel or simply contacted enough newspapers (51 papers used it) to make the effort worth his time. Eventually his panels were printed into a book titled "It Happened in Montana" (available at the library in Chinook).
In the 1960's Masterson did a series of paintings titled, "Lo, the Homesteader." The paintings chronicle the joys and woes of the homesteader and are believed to be based on Masterson's own experiences as a homesteader. In later years he taught classes in Miles City and did personal portraits on request. The price of a painted portrait was to support a needy child for a year through a charitable organization.
Since the cartoon panel style of syndicated cartoon was so popular I decided to see if either the "Harlem News" or the "Chinook Opinion" used Masterson's work in 1940. Based on the archives I could access, "It Happened in Montana" never appeared locally, nor in the daily paper in nearby Hill County. The Harlem paper had no syndicated cartoon panels, but the Chinook paper printed a couple each week during most of 1940. One cartoon, "Facts You Never Knew!!!," was well known at the time.
"Facts You Never Knew!!!" was created by an illustrator named H.T. Elmo who used the pen name Bob Dart (apparently at least one exclamation point was necessary in the panel's title to alert the reader how exciting the information in the cartoon panels was. Elmo used three!). As alert readers will see from the attached image of "Facts...!!!" the cartoon panel followed the format of Ripley's cartoon panel with two or three illustrated topics in each weekly or daily panel.
The first "Facts...!!!" appeared in newspapers in 1935. Elmo (Bob Dart) numbered the panels and during its 10 year-run more than 550 panels were created. Later researchers found evidence that Elmo was not above reusing a drawing and information, sometimes two or three times.
The old cartoon panels entertained
The old panels provide examples of how folks back in the day relied on newspapers for entertainment. Slick magazines and television stole some of that thunder. Then social media, blogging, online books and other technological breakthroughs basically eliminated the need for the cartoon panels. But some would argue, as did Henry David Thoreau, "They (new ways to communicate) are improved means to unimproved ends." The more things change the more they stay the same.
