Johnny Hart & Brant Parker -- Times UK
Hyfler/Rosner
April 23, 2007
Johnny Hart
Award-winning syndicated strip cartoonist who with Brant
Parker created the bizarre and sardonic world of The Wizard
of Id
Johnny Hart doodled through his school years for his own
pleasure and the amusement of his classmates before his
distraction became a livelihood, propelling him to the front
ranks of comic strip artists, where he remained for close to
half a century.
Born and brought up in Endicott, in upstate New York, he
joined the US Air Force after high school and served in
Korea, where his work appeared in the forces' newspaper
Stars and Stripes. After leaving the Air Force in 1954, Hart
worked as a freelance and a few of his cartoons were
published in The Saturday Evening Post and Colliers.
Occasional sales didn't pay the rent, so he joined the art
department at General Electric, cartooning in his spare
time. A friend's suggestion that cave-men might serve as
subjects for a comic strip led to B.C., Hart's
longest-running and most successful venture.
Turned down by five syndicators before finding a home, the
strip, which began appearing nationally in 1958, was in more
than 1,000 newspapers at the peak of its popularity.
The strip examined contemporary issues and made whimsical
observations on human nature as refracted through the lens
of prehistoric cave dwellers. Among his characters, many
modelled upon friends, were B.C., a prehistoric everyman,
Wiley, a peg-legged poet who also managed the local baseball
team, and the hapless Clumsy Carp. On the distaff side of
things Fat Broad and Cute Chick lived with labels rather
than names. Anthropomorphic animals also lent their voices
and offered insights.
In 1964 Hart and his mentor Brant Parker co-created The
Wizard of Id, with Parker providing the drawings and Hart
the jokes. The strip was syndicated to newspapers around the
world, won many awards and spawned several books of
collections of the cartoons.
Hart, who said he came from a family that went to church at
Christmas and Easter, became more concerned with matters of
faith in the past decade. His rededication to Christianity
was reflected in his work and B.C., which had attracted some
criticism in the past for the way it characterised women,
became embroiled in more controversy in recent years. Jewish
and Muslim groups complained about Hart's strips,
particularly those that ran during Christmas and Easter.
Denying he was intentionally critical of other faiths, Hart
claimed that he was promoting Christian values, but some
newspapers dropped the strip. Others refused to run the more
controversial episodes and still others simply placed them
on their religion page.
While many cartoonists have allowed their images to be
reproduced on a vast array of merchandise, Hart was more
restrained in allowing the commercial exploitation of his
characters, preferring to allow local organisations to make
use of the fruits of his pen. Broome County, New York's,
public transit system and local library were both
beneficiaries, as were two ice hockey teams.
In 1972 the Broome County Open golf tournament at the
En-Joie Golf Course in Endicott was renamed the B.C. Open
and has generated more than $7 million for local charities.
Its distinctive trophy, a casting of a Hart character
golfing, is the most distinctive on the professional golf
tour.
The winner of a half-dozen US and international awards for
his cartooning, Hart started his last day as he had
thousands of others. He was working at his drawing board
when he suffered a stroke.
He is survived by his wife, Bobby, and two daughters.
Johnny Hart, cartoonist, was born on February 18, 1931. He
died on April 7, 2007, aged 76
From The Times
April 23, 2007
Brant Parker
Award-winning syndicated strip cartoonist who with Johnny
Hart created the bizarre and sardonic world of The Wizard of
Id
Brant Parker was the cartoonist who inspired the young
Johhny Hart to enter the trade and created with him the
long-running strip The Wizard of Id.
Parker was a young but established cartoonist when, while
judging a school art competition, he was so impressed by the
work of the teenage Hart that he sought him out and gave him
words of encouragement.
They stayed in touch and 14 years later, Hart, who had by
now launched his successful B.C. strip, asked Parker to help
him create a cartoon set in the Middle Ages. The result was
the bizarre land of Id, with an incompetent magician, a
tyrannical but ridiculous king, his ferocious wife, and a
host of sardonic soldiers, dungeon guards and prisoners.
With Parker drawing the pictures and Hart coming up with the
jokes that they then polished together, they presented their
first strip pasted up around a hotel room to a syndicate
executive and he promptly gave them a contract.
They each won the Reuben Award for Cartoonist of the Year,
the National Cartoonist Society's highest honour and Parker
won the society's Humor Comic Strip Award five times and the
Elzie Seger Award in 1986. Parker also worked with Bill
Rechin and Don Wilder on Out of Bounds and Crock, a strip
featuring the French Foreign Legion, but stopped working on
these to concentrate on Id.
Brant Julian Parker was born in 1920 in Los Angeles. He
studied at the Otis Art Institute and then started working
at Walt Disney Studios. He joined the Navy in 1942 shortly
after the US entered the Second World War and on
demobilisation in 1945 returned to Disney where he worked on
several short Donald Duck films as well as Mickey and the
Bean-stalk (1947).
He later became a cartoonist on the Binghamton Press in
upstate New York and it was because of that position that he
came to judge the 1950 school art competition at which he
had his fateful meeting with Hart.
In 1997 Parker's son, Jeff, took over the drawings on The
Wizard of Id and he continued working with Hart until the
latter's recent death. Creators Syndicate has said the strip
will continue with contributions from members of the Parker
and Hart families.
Parker is survived by his wife, Mary Louise, and their five
children.
Brant Parker, cartoonist, was born on August 26, 1920. He
died on April 15, 2007, aged 86