Longtime readers of this space know that Friend of LOAC Bill Chadbourne has provided us with material from his personal collection that we’ve shared with you in Installments # 1, # 2, # 3, # 4, # 5, # 6, # 7, # 8, # 9 ,and # 10.
Chad befriended both Alex Toth and Milton Caniff during his work as a writer, editor, and designer for both the U.S. Government and for Woody Gelman’s Nostalgia Press. Yet he’s more than just a comics fan and scholar, he’s a cartoonist in his own right, producing some work for publication, and some just for fun.
What follows is a sampling of work from Bill Chadbourne, artist –
Chad attended high school in Covina, California. Preparing to attend a school reunion, he prepared the autobiography-in-comics-form you see above – but “I never sent it,” he told us. So this marks the first public of this wryly self-deprecating piece.
One of the part-time jobs Chad alluded to in his biography gave him a chance to produce artwork and comics, though the opportunity had humble beginnings. “I started working for the Evening Star in Washington, D.C. as a part time, evening telephone salesman,” Chad said. “It was always a woman who answered the phone, and when they heard me being especially polite, calling them ‘ma’am’ and offering them door delivery and the option to drop their subscription at any time, I racked up the sales. Unfortunately, those subscribers often quit within the month since their newspapers were too often stolen from their doorstep.”
He continued: “Word got around the Star and the Circulation Manager learned that I did cartoons and such. He got me to help him with the boring pamphlet for the news carriers. I redesigned that four-page, all-text/no-art monthly pitch that used to feature ‘Uncle Jim.’ What we had was limited in scope, but I started my issues with a front page of art and a back-page message cartoon that was better than the ‘sermon’ from Uncle Jim the carriers used to get.” Here are two of those published comics from the back pages, bookended by their front covers, from the special Star Gazer pamphlet. Chad also included black-and-white original art for a third Star Gazer back-page narrative. (Click each image for an isolated view.)
“I threw in an occasional puzzle and some jokes,” said Chad. “I also did work for the Star‘s Promotional Department, helping out the ad salesman, doing flip charts and other art-oriented jobs.” (Did you spot Chad’s note at the bottom of “Success Game,” pointing out the identity of the model for the page’s sole character?) “It was a lot of work to carry for a part-time employee, but the Circulation boss told me: ‘Always ask a busy man to do the extra job and it will always get done!’
“I had a little office in the basement of the Star with no windows, like a janitor’s closet. I left after more than a year, when I got orders to ship out for a base near Kansas City. I worked there for a couple of years before I volunteered for Vietnam.”
Finally, years after his hitch in Southeast Asia, and long after retirement, Chad resides in the Mid-Atlantic region, where a variety of four-legged and winged visitors are regularly seen in his backyard, including a pair of buzzards Chad dubbed Buzz and Beeky. Three years ago, he made them the viewpoint characters in another autobiographical comic, this one done specially for his helpful neighbors. Chad’s right-margin notes tell the full story
Chad’s work reminds us how comics continually reaffirms its universal appeal as both medium and artform. That appeal can take the form of “must see” entertainment for tens of millions of newspaper readers, or source material for blockbuster motion pictures, or just an observation of one’s surroundings while paying tribute to helpful neighbors, but each application showcases one comics’ many strengths.
