The Press: Stripper Irvin

Rarely does a magazine cartoonist undertake the routine of drawing comic strips for newspapers. Outstanding of the new artists who have succeeded as comic strippers are Percy Crosby ("Skippy") and Gluyas Williams ("Suburban Heights" et al.). Artists whose newspaper comics have fallen short of their magazine popularity include John Held, Jr. ("Margy"), Ellison Hoover ("Outlines of Oscar"), Jefferson Machamer ("Petting Patty").

Last week famed Cartoonist Rea Irvin broke into the "funnies" with a new full-page Sunday series. Other publishers had been watching to see whom and what the New York Herald Tribune would procure for itself and its syndicate to replace "Mr. & Mrs." by the late great Cartoonist Clare Briggs. Instead of replacing "Mr. & Mrs." the Herald Tribune has continued it, drawn by a "ghost" (Cartoonist Arthur Folwell). But also the Herald Tribune engaged Rea Irvin. His title is "The Smythes;" his characters, the conventional father, mother, small son & daughter, Pekinese pup; his theme, the conventional burlesque of U. S. middleclass home life. Sample episode: Mrs. Smythe insists upon buying Pekinese, to utter disgust of Mr. Smythe who snorts, "I don't know what you can see in that mutt." Mrs. Smythe, in desperation, goes to bed. Later, Tootums (the Pekinese) awakes and sneezes. Unable to arouse his wife, Smythe arises, grudgingly walks the floor with Tootums, finally melts, talks baby-talk to Tootums, nurses it back to sleep. Whereupon Mrs. Smythe, awake, triumphantly mocks her husband: "I don't know what you can see in that mutt!"

Like many another famed cartoonist, Rea Irvin served his apprenticeship on a San Francisco newspaper.* After intermittent work on newspapers and as an itinerant actor, he gained prominence as the illustrator of Author Wallace Irwin's "Letters of a Japanese Schoolboy" in Life. The oriental stamp of his "Hashimura Togo" sketches has reappeared from time to time in burlesque kakemono (Japanese scroll pictures) which he prepares for the New Yorker, of which he is art director. Cartoonist Irvin will continue his series of funny advertisements for Murad ("Be Nonchalant") cigarets.