Time for An E. Simms Campbell Cartoon Anthology
The Spill ventures out its New Yorker bubble every so often when a New Yorker artist’s work has become more identified with another magazine (think Sam Gross and The National Lampoon). Although E. Simms Campbell contributed one (beautiful!) cover and 25 cartoons to The New Yorker between November 1932 through January 1942, the majority of his efforts landed on the pages of Esquire, and elsewhere.
The latest Spill library purchase, the 1952 Avon paperback, Chorus of Cuties (shown below), led me to thinking more about Mr. Campbell’s long career. Chorus of Cuties, like the three previous Campbell collections (and the one published following his death) consists entirely of the “Cuties” cartoons. But — as far as I can tell — his non-Esquire, non-“Cuties” cartoons were never collected in book form.
The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum has a number of Campbell’s drawings in its collection as well as letters and photographs. If you link to the Billy Ireland page you’ll see mention of Campbell’s work appearing in Life, and Judge, and Playboy, as well as The New Yorker and Esquire. Campbell’s wikipedia entry lists further publications where his cartoons appeared: The Chicagoan, Cosmo, Ebony, Opportunity: A Journal of Negro Life, Pictorial Review, and Redbook. His work is also said to have appeared in Collier’s and The Saturday Evening Post. Considering his place in history as the first Black nationally syndicated cartoonist, as well as, in all likelihood, The New Yorker‘s first Black cartoonist [Emily Richards, now Emily Sanders Hopkins, was, in all likelihood, the first female Black New Yorker cartoonist], and the abundance of non-Esquire Campbell work out there, I’d think it’s time for a comprehensive E. Simms Campbell collection, including a variety of work from the above mentioned publications, as well as a sampling of his illustrations and ad work, and, of course, an expanded biography. Perhaps someone out there is already working on this. I hope so!
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Chorus of Cuties, Avon 1952.
Further reading:
From The Society of illustrators, this piece on Campbell by Lucy Sheldon Caswell,
Professor and Curator, The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.
From Print Magazine, “Insiders Histories: Black Cartoonist E. Simms Campbell” by Michael Dooley.
From Chris Wheeler’s fab gallery of cartoonists, his Campbell page, with Campbell’s books, and a 1949 King Features profile of Campbell.