Cartoons and Caricatures, or, Making the world laugh E-Book

Eugene Zimmerman

• Herausgeber: Edizioni Savine
• Kategorie: Lebensstil
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2023

Beschreibung

FAME brings its glories and its trials. I constantly receive letters asking for “straight tips” how to win out in the Pictorial field. My spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak; I cannot attempt to answer the thousand and one questions put to me by kindly correspondents, so I do the next best thing. I give you in these pages the concentrated essence of nearly thirty years of experience as a Cartoonist making the world laugh.
Eugene "Zim" Zimmerman

Leseprobe

High Court Jester to His Majesty the King of Laughter

Printed and Published by

Correspondence Institute of America Scranton, Pa.

1910

The ripened fruit of nearly thirty years with pen, crayon and brush, worked into a book by Eugene Zimmerman, and copyrighted by him in the archives of Washington, D. C., March, nineteen hundred and ten.

“Just a drop of ink makes millions think” Aye, ’Tis so, and in this 1910 edition of my book on Caricature you can get for five plunks (in real Money) the fruits of over twenty years hard work which has brought me much fame, SOME money and an earnest desire for rest. In publishing my book The Correspondence Institute of America is doing a noble work for young. aspiring artists.

Yours fraternally.

THE AUTHOR.

In Caricaturing you will note your own face gradually reflects the leading feature of the person you are sketching.

TO know Eugene Zimmerman is to love him; to study his work is a liberal education in the power of a few strokes of the pen to create laughter and at the same time hold the respect of all interested. “Zim” has had nearly thirty years in CarIcaturing and Cartooning—a longer actual art career than any other living Cartoonist. He takes his work as his Life’s work—to do things well he says is a serious thing —a duty we owe to ourselves and our friends, the public. Yet “Zim” as a man is bubbling over with humor. He’s a jolly character—a man among men—King of Cartoonists and Prince of Caricaturists. He, among our great artists of to-day, is credited with having the greatest amount of humor; is well known in all circles of Bohemia and Art—yet, loves the hours best that he spends in Chemung county, New York. When I first approached him regarding his new book, “Cartoons and Caricatures, or,Making the World Laugh,” I. found him, the Artist in his Studio on Fifth avenue, New York. Later when I was commissioned to get “Zim” to thoroughly revise the Art Course of the Correspondence Institute of America, I found him a man of leisure amid the thousand and one artistic creations of his retreat in upper New York State. In both cases he took life easy, for he feels he deserves to do so and the one great charm about him is his cheery optimism. “Laugh and the world laughs with you.” seems to be his motto, and yet he has had his ups and downs. He is forty years young—as genial as a school-boy, happy as a man always is who loves his work—fatherly in his advice— brotherly in his big-hearted friendship for those who admire him—and he has thousands of admirers. Just the kind of a comrade to warm up to—a true artist and a good citizen. When you take into consideration the reputation artists as a rule enjoy for being erratic, it means a lot when I say Eugene Zimmerman has always been a leading cartoonist in political campaigns for the past thirty years and has never been defiled by taint of party politics or plunder and the wealth he enjoys has been the legitimate proceeds of his art. He is a Swiss, having been born in Basle, May 25th, 1862, and two years later, upon the death of his mother, he was sent to live with an aunt in Alsace until the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. The din of war and the clash of strife sunk deep into his youthful nature and he loves to dash sketches of what he thinks they ought to have

let him do to cool his martial ardor. (These and nearly one hundred of his sketches appear in the Art Course of the C. I. of A.) The war had just started when they shipped “Zim” in care of a friend to join his father, a baker in Paterson, N. J. He attended the public schools of that city and received much chastising for drawing pictures on his slate, on the blackboards and in his school books. He asserts his work was not popular with his teachers. He drifted into this and that, and his life story reads like a dime novel, only truth in this case is stranger than fiction. Between the years of 15 and 22, “Zim” tells me he was a star actor on Life’s Stage and played many parts—tragic and otherwise: He was a farmer’s chore boy, assistant peddler of fish, a baker, attended bar, a sign writer, a painter upon fences, and a whitewasher of fences, a worker in a silk mill, odd man on a farm; with brief intervals between each engagement and his resignation was accepted at all times, for he believed he was cut out for but one career—that of a newspaper artist. His mind was on one subject and in cultivating his artistic talent he undoubtedly neglected at times the duties he was supposed to attend to. He says he endured many hardships but he never despaired of being some day a cartoonist. He really broke into art by becoming a sign painter in New York City. “Zim” admits his signs attracted attention. “They were funny,” is the way he summed them up, and judging them by his sketches I quite believe they were. While working on signs, some of his work came to the attention of the proprietors of “Puck,” and he joined them in 1884, when he was but 22 years of age. He served out his three years’ contract and joined “Judge,” and he has been for the past 23 years the great caricaturist of the well-known and world-read publication. His humor is delicate and refined. What Eugene Field was to the poetical world, Eugene Zimmerman is to the world of caricature and humor. Some people laugh with their face— others with their whole body—1 “Zim’s” pictures make you laugh all over. He admits from the depth of his wisdom that seventy per cent of those we meet talk with their hands —and “Zim” draws hands and feet—gestures and facial expressions—wrinkles and curves— a dash here and a dot there, as no other cartoonist ever did, and I am pleased to say he has incorporated in the thirty revised lessons of the Art Course of the Correspondence Institute of America, some of his sketches specially drawn as aids to the young student in Illustrating, Designing and Cartooning. “Zim” stands without a rival in his field; no cartoonist can show so much with so few dashes of a pen; he seems niggardly with his lines, yet he is most prodigal in the humor he serves up to us.

There are many cartoonists and comic artists—many good men with their heart in their work; men I have had the pleasure of meeting during _ the past fifteen years— men who are real creators—artists who have established the serial drawings, appearing in all the Sunday editions of our metropolitan papers—that create laughter, interest and humor. But who among the vast army of

comic artists and cartoonists can in any measure equal “Zim?” Who besides “Zim” can draw a real hand, a real foot, or a smile upon the face and still make it funny? There are none! “Zim” is in a world by himself, surrounded by a million admirers, who eagerly await each week the welcomed copy of “Judge,” wherein appear “Zim’s” refreshing and refined fountains of mirth, happiness and laughter, at the waters of which we may drink abundantly and drive away the cares of a weary brain, and renew the sunshine of happiness. “Zim’s” drawings have a literary finish, an artistic appreciation, and to these he always adds a sprinkling of refined and delicate humor.

We as an American people, lovers of refined, delicious humor and funny drawings, must all humbly bow at the shrine of Eugene Zimmerman, who has no equal, therefore no superior in the broad field of his fine humor and comedy sketching.

If Byron were living, I believe he would repeat these words in due reverence to “Zim: ”

“Dreams in their development have breath,

_ And tears and tortures, and the touch of joy.”

Eugene Zimmerman is a great man, a great thinker, a great creator and master of originality; the one man who compels millions to laugh. As I have said before, to see him would be to love him—love him because of his genial and sunny disposition; the shake of his hand is a true symbol of loyalty and good, true fellowship.

To be in his presence is to be in the atmosphere of happiness, where care is unknown and trouble a stranger. He loves his work; he loves to make o there happy, and the latch string of his heart always hangs out to those who need help, cheer and consolation. May the good fellowship of love always be his, and may he ever be prosperous and happy in this hard world of strife and trouble.

As a parting toast in behalf of all those who admire him, who enjoy his soft flow of delicious humor and his funny sketches, I cannot do better than to quote Eugene Field, and apply to “Zim” a toast from us all: “Here’s to you, ‘Zim,’

May you live one thousand years To sort’er keep things lively,

In this vale of human tears.

And here’s that we may live One thousand years, too,

Did I say a ‘thousand years? ’

No, a thousand less a day;

For I should hate to live on earth,

And learn that you had passed away.”

INTRODUCTION

FAME brings its glories and its trials. I constantly receive letters asking for “straight tips” how to win out in the Pictorial field. My spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak; I cannot attempt to answer the thousand and one questions put to me by kindly correspondents, so I do the next best thing. I give you in these pages the concentrated essence of nearly thirty years of experience as a Cartoonist making the world laugh. I write more or less haphazard—just as the thoughts come to me— a book of instruction that will, I know, appeal to the young student of both sexes who lack opportunities for personal contact with men of experience, and by whom an Art Education would be difficult were it not for the excellent method laid down in the Course for Home Study put out by the Correspondence Institute of America, Scranton, Pa.

Nearly thirty years with the pen, crayon and brush makes me one of the “Old Guard,” and although an appreciative public has placed me among the leaders, I can never forget my early struggles, and I want, indeed, I earnestly desire to help on the young student because I want him to LOVE HIS WORK as I have loved it, and that WITH APPLICATION is the true secret of Success.

After long years in Comic Art, Cartooning and Caricaturing, I give you in pure but simple language, remarks with humorous illustrations which will point the way to a good, and I know an honest living, for laughter does more for the world than much of its misdirected energy in a dozen ways. Technical terms I cut out, I do not want to confuse you, as you go on you will absorb them easily enough. Neither do I in the instructions I give you deal with tonsorial art, fancy gardening, or artistic horse-shoeing, nor any other cult with which I am not familiar. Caricature I am thoroughly familiar with, and with that through these pages you and I will journey—loaf by the wayside for a breathing spell at times, then go on, and I trust reach our journey’s end with both pleasure and profit.

I really don’t think the dear Lord ever intended that I should write a book. I was driven to it, however, to satisfy the laudable craving for information in the art direction of their talents that all young and aspiring artists (especially those of moderate means and away from art centers) possess.

You can read and profit by my experience. I am basking to-day in the sunshine which a well-spent, hard-worked life brings, but I have gone through, taken all degrees and graduated from the School of Hard Knocks and profited by the buffettings of Fate.