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Fontaine Talbot Fox Jr., (1884-1964)

 

 

Fontaine Fox was a famous cartoonist and illustrator born near Louisville, Kentucky.

Fox is best known for writing and illustrating the Toonerville Folks comic panel that appeared from 1913 to 1955 in 250 to 300 newspapers across North America. It is about a small-town, which seemed to operate in its own little universe, and the gentle humor of the feature dealt with the antics of the various denizens and featured semi realistic situations. It was one of the most popular comics in the World War I era.

 

Life before Toonerville

Fox started his career as a reporter and part-time cartoonist for the Louisville Herald. He spent two years in higher education at Indiana University in Bloomington; nevertheless, he continued sketching one cartoon a day for the Louisville Herald. After two years of college, he abandoned his studies in favor of his true calling, writing and illustrating comics. From 1908, Fox started a series of daily cartoons about kids for the Chicago Evening Post. His panel was noted by the Wheeler Syndicate, which started distributing his work nationwide, this eventually led to the creation and distribution of Toonerville Folks, the panel, which expanded its circulation from a few papers to hundreds between 1915.

 

 

 

 

His work was considered innovative for many reasons. He presented the panel in a rather unique illustration style. At first glance, Fox's drawing style seems deceptively simple, but under scrutiny, bits of his interesting technique become apparent.

 

According to Fox,

“In drawing a cartoon I always try to keep three things in mind -- it must have an original thought: it must be something that has happened or could happen: and it must be laughable. That's all there is to it!”

 

 

During the '20s, a series of two-reel live action comedies were produced, however, they never matched the success of the panel.

The populace of Pelham NY insists the comic strip was based in part on the artist’s experience during a trolley ride on a visit to Pelham in 1909. They alleged that Fox repeatedly said that he was inspired to create the Toonerville Trolley and its skipper based on a trolley ride he took in Pelham. During that ride, he observed the trolley car operator gossip with passengers and, once, stopped the vehicle to pick apples in an adjacent orchard. One piece of that evidence is an article that appeared in The New York Times on July 30, 1937, the day before the last journey of the Pelham trolley due to its replacement by a bus route. The article reported, among other things, that Mr. Bailey piloted the Pelham trolley from 1900 to 1914.

According to the article:

"Back in 1909, when Mr. Fox took a ride on the Pelham line, then served by a rickety little car, he watched the 'skipper' gossip with the passengers and stop the car to pick apples for them; thus he drew his inspiration for his 'Toonerville Trolley' comics."

 

Fox continued the Toonerville Folks comic panel until 1955, changing syndicates twice, eventually gaining all rights to his comic panel. He later moved to New York and spent winters at 610 N. Ocean Blvd. in Delray Beach, FL. Apart from drawing comics, he was a fervent golfer, winning several tournaments.  He was honored in a 1995 U.S. postage stamp series. Upon retirement, he refused to let his brainchild pass into another cartoonist's hands. Fox also wrote three books, Fontaine Fox's Funny Folk (1917), Fontaine Fox's Cartoons (1918), and The Toonerville Trolley and Other Cartoons (1921), as well as illustrating several others. Fox died at the age of 80 in Greenwich, CT in 1964. His famous epitaph reads, "I had a hunch something like this would happen."

 

 

 

 

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

 

 

 

Mr. Bang

Katrinka

 

1936 Toonerville Inventor

 

 

 

 

The world lost a great inventor when Fontaine Fox became a cartoonist.

It is true that not a single one of his inventions has ever run, except on paper, and the United States Patent Office would look at his contraption if he tried to patent them, but they bring him fabulous royalties just the same.  They also demonstrate that an inventive turn of mind is just as necessary to the successful cartoonist as to the scientific experimenter or basement workshop fan.

     The Toonerville Trolley was invented in 1908 and has been running steadily with capacity laughter loads ever since.  It made such an immediate hit that young Fox was forced to invent and populate the entire village of Toonerville.

     Flem Preddy is Toonerville’s local inventor and his gadgets are all the more amusing because they should be taken seriously as horrible examples of what not to invent.

     Fontaine Fox’s working habits are those of any successful inventor.  He doesn’t sit around waiting for inspiration.  When an idea doesn’t come readily, he sits down and patiently figures it out in cold sweat.

     The phenomenal popularity of Fontaine Fox over a period of years marks him as one of the greatest cartoonists of all time.  Toonerville folks have been as generous with him as he has been with them.