Mail Order Geniuses

This glorious history-and-compilation from Marschall Books is long overdue— filling a hole in the chronicle of America’s cartoon and comics heritage.For generations, there was hardly a major cartoonist or animator in Americanwho had not been a youthful “student” of the many mail-order cartooning“schools” and correspondence courses. At one time these institutions providedrites of passage for aspiring cartoonists, illustrators, and animators.

Instant discovery of, and cultivation of, talent invariably was promised bythese schools and books… as was success (“Cartoonists Make Big Money!!!”).Thousands of youngsters, over several decades, dutifully bought their tools,set up their bedroom or basement “studios,” and laboriously copied the lessonsabout perspective, anatomy, shading, wrinkles, folds, action, animals, thehuman form (ah, the human form)… even those little shadows under characters’ shoes. Many students mailed their drawingsin and anxiously awaited corrections by the masters themselves (or reasonable facsimiles of celebrity cartoonists).

Mail-Order Geniuses surveys the legendary correspondence courses of the Landon School, the Federal School, W LEvans, ZIM, Clare Briggs, Billy DeBeck, Russell Patterson, Jefferson Machamer, Charles Kuhn, Bill Nolan, Joe Musial,Art Instruction Institute, Famous Cartoonists, and others.

The book will reproduce the lessons — in truth, many of these courses were excellent teaching tools — including tips,sketches, wisdom, and drawing-board photos of the great cartoonists of their time. Some lesson books will be reprintedin facsimile. The book will also document the many success stories and accomplished students who “graduated” fromthe American institutions of another day — Roy Crane and Milton Caniff were Landon School students; the W L EvansSchool touted a letter from the satisfied, but barely published, student Chester Gould; Charles Schulz’s work as a studentso impressed what is now the Art Instruction Institute that they hired him as an instructor of students’ work.

This “class reunion” is more than good history, good art, and good fun: it is a vital piece of cartooning history, neverdocumented until this landmark volume.