Friday, November 20, 2009

Far Flung Hall Syndicate

This has my vote for "Most Self-Effacing Self-Portrait Caricature" ever. And the other portrait caricatures of cartoonists are really swell. I had no idea what Reg Smythe or Irving Phillips looked like. This was drawn in 1967, the year of Pandemonia!


4 comments:

  1. Someone correct me but I think...
    Robert Hall began as a United Feature Syndicate salesman, and then UFS sales manager.
    In 1944 he left UFS to partner with The New York Post and become president and general manager of the Post Syndicate - soon renamed the Post-Hall Syndicate.
    In 1955 Hall bought out The Post and it became The Hall Syndicate.
    In 1967 (the year of the illustration) I have Hall selling his syndicate and it becoming Publishers-Hall Syndicate.
    Is that right?

    Of course Publishers-Hall was a part of the Field Empire and soon folded into the Field Enterprises syndicate. That in turn was bought out by Murdoch and became the News America Syndicate. When King Features bought News America (in 1987) it was renamed North America Syndicate. That is why the still features that still exist from that drawing (Dennis the Menace and Mark Trail) are now run under the auspices of King Features Syndicate, excepting the imported English strips.
    I think I'm getting confused.

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  2. Yes, November 5, 1967 is when the Pogo Sundays show a switch from the Hall Syndicate to The Publishers-Hall Syndicate.

    YOU'RE confused? Yow. Thank you for this syndicate line of evolution.

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  3. Imagine Kelly's delight in giving Hall that extra toe!

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  4. Daniel, you're really paying attention!

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