Guess the Cartoonist

I wonder if this cartoon was inspired by the famous photo of the Times Square kiss on V-J Day? Can you name the cartoonist?

I’m as good as anybody at recognizing the work of somebody I’m familiar with, but looking at this I see no hint whatsoever of his later style. He was a successful, well-known contemporary of Charles Schulz. In fact, for about the first ten years of ‘Peanuts’ he was more successful than Schulz.

7 thoughts on “Guess the Cartoonist”

  1. The cartoon is indeed the work of Hank Ketcham, who was known for his smooth ink line. I tried to recognize it in this drawing, but what I see instead is some influence from James Thurber.

  2. You know, the cartoon has those loose “brush marks” like Ruff had in Dennis the Menace but senile old me has trouble enough remembering my cell phone number, and the clues helped jar the noggin! Was he in the O.S.S. like Julia Child was recently revealed to have been-it was a predecessor to the C.I.A.

  3. Hank Ketcham it is! Did you know that he once worked for the CIA? Well, if you believe Wikipedia, he did!

  4. One of those names is correct. He didn’t draw comic books, he didn’t do political humor, he didn’t draw macabre characters, and he didn’t draw adventure strips. That should narrow it down.

  5. Walt Kelly? Al Capp? Hank Ketchum? Charles Addams? Jack Kirby? I’m desperate here. The guy who drew “Terry and the Pirates?”

  6. Well, I’d sure like to say that was a good guess, but Chic Young’s appearance in the comics pages predates Schulz by twenty years!

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