Henry & Philbert
One day two years ago in Wisconsin a hard-working cartoonist named Carl Anderson sweated over an idea for a drawing he hoped to sell the Saturday Evening Post. Slowly, painfully the idea took form as a swaybacked, pot-bellied horse and two small boys. One boy was bald as a buzzard. The other boy lifted him up until his naked pate pressed against the horse's sagging belly. Asked the second boy, "Does your head feel warmer now, Henry?"
The $50 paid him by Satevepost for that cartoon looked exceedingly good to Carl Anderson, but the new character he had drawn for the first time looked even better. Henry's personality appealed to him. The very name somehow seemed ideal. Artist Anderson concentrated on Henry, perfected the simple lines of his domed head, big ears, full cheeks, skinny neck. Eyes, nose & mouth, indicated by circles and dots, formed an expression of sublime self-assurance, competence, unconcern. Henry, according to his maker, was not really bald; he Jiad just had all his hair shaved off.
Carl Anderson's Henry quickly became a weekly feature in the Satevepost. Rendered in pantomime without benefit of caption, his escapades were masterpieces of reticence. Inquisitive, ubiquitous, fearless, Henry nearly always remained master of the situation, practically never resorted to slapstick. Typical Henrys:
Behind a beefy orator's back, Henry helps himself to a generous drink from the water pitcher.
A furniture mover lugs a huge over-stuffed chair from van to house, with Henry taking his ease in it.
A market-woman with arms full of children and a heaping tray of fruit balanced on her head is trailed by a hopeful Henry carrying a long-handled net.
A mousy father trundling a baby-carriage full of triplets encounters Henry "thumbing" a ride.
At the rear window of a honeymooners' automobile, Henry settles himself in an attitude of patient expectancy.
Tucked away in the back advertising pages of Satevepost, Henry's adult humor attracted an enormous following. Fan mail deluged him. Advertisers demanded position next to him. Foreign papers reprinted him. Traveling in Germany last autumn Publisher William Randolph Hearst discovered Henry in the Berliner Illustrierte Zeitung, promptly called for a secretary, a cablegram blank. Few hours later in Manhattan Hearst's syndicate chief, Joseph Vincent Connolly, received word: "Get Henry." He took the next train for Madison, Wis. There in a feverish half-hour between trains he signed Carl Anderson to a fat contract with King Features Syndicate.
Last week Henry was appearing in some 50 U. S. dailies, 15 of them Hearstpapers. A Sunday color page was in the making. Henry was being readied for the cinema. Henry dolls were on sale. Nine publishers were clamoring for rights to reprint Henry in 10-c- booklets. And last week brought a crowning glory when the first Henry book appeared.*Composed of 60 examples from the Satevepost the Henry book shows the moppet at his best.
Rare indeed is the quick rise to fame and fortune to match Henry's. And practically unknown to the modern newspaper public is Henry's creator. Artist Carl Anderson, who has been plugging away over a drawing board for more than 40 years, will be 70 next week. Born in Madison, two months before Lincoln was assassinated, he first worked in his Norwegian father's planing mill. Learning the carpenter's trade, Son Carl in his early 20's took to the road, drifted to Omaha, San Francisco, Seattle, where he worked until the 1889 fire nearly erased that pine-built town.
At 25 Carl Anderson wanted to learn to draw. Because the only school he could find that specifically advertised courses in pen-&-ink work was the Pennsylvania Museum & School of Industrial Art, he went there. His first job was on the defunct Philadelphia Times at $12 a week. Later a bright young editor named Brisbane hired him for Pulitzer's New York World, where he did a Sunday page about "The Filipino & The Chick." When Hearst, the newcomer, began raiding Pulitzer's staff, Anderson joined the parade to higher wages, joined Hearst's Journal where he drew "Raffles & Bunny." Since then he has produced innumerable bits for newspapers and magazines, mostly without distinction until he hit upon Henry.
In Madison, Bachelor Anderson lives with three sisters in a house his father built near Lake Mendota. A brother, Isaac, is on the New York Times Book Review staff. Artist Anderson gets many a Henry idea from watching moppets in the streets. Big-framed, grey, mild, plain as homespun, he looks and talks like a Norwegian woodworker, lacks the jargon of the comic-stripper. For fun he goes to a carpenter's bench in his house, turns out odd pieces of woodwork. A child's desk of his design is marketed in Milwaukee for about $3.
Last week Artist Anderson was in Manhattan, bewildered by the fuss made over him, wrestling with the job of making Henry act funny seven days a week. One thing eased that task: Though Henry remains for the most part as mute as ever, his companions in the newspaper strip may talk.
Worthy running mate to Henry is a strange little character named Philbert in Cottier's. Spotted in the back of the magazine, as Henry was in Satevepost, Philbert also has scored spectacular results since his birth a year ago, will soon make his cinema debut.
Philbert is a horrid-looking infant of prodigious strength and resourcefulness. His face is long and ratlike and his customary costume is diaper, shoes and black socks. He does not speak, but his outrageous behavior usually is explained by his doting mother.
Philbert's mother finds him in the oven. (Caption: "So you stayed in there an' let the roast burn without tellin' Mamma!") Mamma makes Papa remove his suspenders in the street, to lower Philbert into a sewer. ("He thinks he sees a dime, don't he?") Tied to stilts, he helps Mamma sweep the floor. ("Another thing I thought of was sawing the broom off to fit him.'') He walks across the dinner table carrying a heaping dish. ("See if you can't take those Brussels sprouts over to Mrs. Dooley without stepping in Papa's plate again!") When his parents displease him he retires to a fully furnished packing-box stockade in the corner of a room, named "Snitzy Arms." ("So you're not living with us any more!") When Mamma loses Philbert in a department store she finds him in the rattrap department, inside a trap. When she loses him at a cinema theatre, the usher finds Philbert stuck to the chewing gum under the seat. Last month Philbert achieved one distinction never granted Henry. He appeared on Collier's cover, in full color, for New Year's.
Creator of Philbert is Frank Owen, 28, an easy-going smalltown Texan who rousted about in oil fields, refineries, lumber camps, until he got a job cartooning sports and editorials on the Dallas News. He went East, free-lanced for Judge, Life, Satevepost, New York American, landed a place on Collier's two years ago to do general cartooning. Philbert came to life when Cartoonist Owen discovered he "had been drawing him all the time and didn't know it." Many of his best ideas come from his pretty young wife, Swedish-born Vera Blomquist. The Owens live on Manhattan's Riverside Drive. Both are keen admirers of Henry.
*HENRY -- Carl Anderson -- Greenberg, New York City ($1.50). -
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