<Archive Obituary> Ed Dodd (May 27th 1991)
Bill Schenley
Readers A Role Model; Retired Cartoonist Dies At Age Of 88
FROM: The Atlanta Journal-Constitution (May 29th 1991) ~
By Tom Bennett, Staff Writer (writerhumor; arts; publications;
personalities; profiles; biography; obituaries; georgia)
Photo: (Mark Trail)
http://www.lambiek.net/artists/dodd-ed/dodd_marktrail.jpg
Artist Ed Dodd, who died Monday at the age of 88, boosted U.S.
conservation efforts and gave readers around the world a wholesome
role
model with his comic-strip character "Mark Trail."
"Ed Dodd probably reached more people with the conservation and
outdoor-ethic message than anyone I know," said Donald W. Pfitzer of
Lithonia, retired assistant regional director of the U.S. Fish and
Wildlife Service.
"I've talked to many people who have told me the thing that stirred
them to become more interested in wildlife or wildlife management was
through reading Mark Trail.' "
Jay Kennedy, comics editor of North America Syndicate Inc. of New
York,
said: "The strip's record of 45 years of uninterrupted syndication is
a
testimony to its appeal. It's good-spirited, action-oriented, and
educational. Those are the reasons for its success."
Mr. Dodd died of congestive heart failure Monday at Northeast Georgia
Medical Center in Gainesville. He had lived in Gainesville since 1980,
when he moved from his longtime home of Atlanta.
The funeral will be at 11 a.m. today at Grace Episcopal Church in
Gainesville with burial at 2:30 p.m. at Arlington Memorial Park in
Sandy Springs.; Strip is 45 years old
Mr. Dodd gave birth to "Mark Trail" in 1946. The Atlanta Journal was
first to buy it, and has carried it continuously for 45 years. The
strip appears in more than 175 newspapers and reaches nearly 23
million
readers worldwide, according to North America Syndicate.
"Mark Trail" is so popular that when The Washington Post decided to
drop it in February, thousands of readers protested. The paper
reinstated the strip in March and ran two full pages of back strips to
bring readers up to date. The Post said it received more mail
protesting the decision to drop "Mark Trail" than it got on the
Watergate scandal.
Mr. Dodd and two associates, Tom Hill and Jack Elrod, produced the
strip for years. He both wrote and drew for it until 1960, and
continued to write for it until he retired in 1978. Mr. Hill died at
age 58 in 1978. Since then, Mr. Elrod, who lives in north Fulton
County, has both written and drawn the strip.
In the strip, Mark is a writer and photographer for an outdoor
magazine. He and his dog Andy, a Saint Bernard, go from one adventure
to another, and get into one scrape after another, until Andy saves
Mark or vice versa. Mark's friend, Dr. Tom Davis, operates a wildlife
preserve, and Mark is romantically involved with Cherry, Dr. Davis's
daughter.
The strip has won numerous awards for its wholesomeness and its
support
of causes such as conservation and the preservation of endangered
species.
Mr. Dodd and his associates worked for nearly three decades at a
combination home and studio he owned on 130 acres on Brandon Mill
Road.
He bought the land in 1950 and built a home and studio there in 1954.
He named the place "Lost Forest," which is also the name of the
wildlife preserve in the comic strip.; Land lost to developers
He was forced to sell about 100 acres in 1973 because he could no
longer afford the taxes. He sold the remaining land and buildings to
The New School, for students with learning disabilities, when he
retired.
The comic strip often reflected unsuccessful efforts by Mr. Dodd to
keep the real "Lost Forest" intact. Land developers sometimes are the
villains in the strip.
A pipe was a "Mark Trail" trademark throughout Mr. Dodd's supervision
of the strip. However, the pipe was dropped about 1983 after a young
reader wrote Mr. Elrod describing the ill effects of smoking.
At times Mr. Dodd said the model for Mark Trail was John Wayt, his
former neighbor in north Atlanta. At other times the cartoonist said
it
was a man he had seen in a New York hotel while trying to sell the
idea
to syndicates.
"He's the kind of man I'd like to be," Mr. Dodd told an interviewer.
"I'm short 5-feet-8 , he's tall. He's a handsome, black-haired man.
You
couldn't call me good-looking. He's a guy who excels at everything and
I'm not a great fisherman or hunter, just a guy who likes to go. Mark
lives my fantasies and daydreams and I enjoy it very much."
The comic strip was a success, its creator said, "because it is
outdoors, and we have animals. It is a twist the other adventure
strips
don't have. There is human interest. And we have tried earnestly to
keep it absolutely clean."
Edward Benton Dodd was born Nov. 7, 1902, in LaFayette, Ga., near
Chattanooga. His father, Jesse Dodd, was a Baptist minister who served
churches in towns all over Georgia.
The future cartoonist met the most influential man in his life, Dan
Beard, a writer and illustrator for Boys' Life magazine, in 1920,
while
attending Mr. Beard's camp for boys in Pennsylvania. Mr. Dodd served
as
an instructor at the camp each summer for the next 18 years.;
Cartooning in college
He attended Georgia Tech in 1921-22 and drew "Tech Types" in the
school
paper. The types included "the bookworm type," "the ROTC type," and
"the king" of them all, the "football type."
Dropping out of Tech, he was a student at the Art Students League in
New York in 1923-24; an instructor in outdoor activities at New York
Military Academy in Cornwall, N.Y., in 1926-27; and a New York
commercial artist in 1929-30.
He created the humorous comic strip, "Back Home Again," in 1930 and
sold it to United Features, moving to Gainesville, where he lived and
worked in a log cabin, drawing "Back Home Again" for 15 years.
In March of this year, Rep. Ed Jenkins of Georgia proposed the
creation
of a national recreation area in North Georgia within the
Chattahoochee
National Forest that would include a 16,500-acre Mark Trail
Wilderness.
It would protect the headwaters of the Chattahoochee River and Horse
Trough Falls and would include 16 peaks more than 3,500 feet high.
Mr. Dodd was married four times. He divorced his third wife in 1968,
and married Rosemary Wood Johnston of Gainesville in 1981. Surviving
in
addition are a stepson, N. Rand Johnston of Gainesville; two
stepdaughters, Jesse Johnston of Gainesville and Honey Secunda of
Marietta; and two step-grandchildren.
In lieu of flowers, the family requested that donations be made to a
non-profit environmental organization created by his friends and named
the Ed Dodd/Mark Trail Foundation, Box 2807, Gainesville, Ga. 30503.
---
Photos:
(Mark Trail) http://www.lambiek.net/artists/dodd-ed/dodd_mtrail.gif
http://www.feathercraftboats.com/Ed%20Dodd%20'56%20cat.%20taking%20down%20the%20top.gif
(Mark Trail comic book)
http://www.whatth.com/images/mtcomicbook001.jpg