Slow Ball Cartoonist

<P><i>Slow Ball Cartoonist</i> takes readers on a journey to an earlier era in America when cartoonists played a pivotal role each day in enabling major daily newspapers to touch the lives of their readers. No American cartoonist was more influential than the <i>Chicago Tribunes</i> John T. McCutcheon the plainspoken Indiana native and Purdue University graduate whose charming and delightful cartoons graced the pages of the newspaper from 1903 until his retirement in 1946.</P><P></P><P>This book chronicles McCutcheons adventure-filled life from his birth on a rural small farm near Lafayette in 1870 to his rise as the Dean of American Cartoonists. His famous cartoon Injun Summer originally published in 1907 was a celebration of autumn through childlike imagination and made an annual appearance in the <i>Tribune</i> each fall for decades. McCutcheon was the first <i>Tribune</i> staff member to earn the coveted Pulitzer Prize for his poignant 1931 cartoon about a victim of bank failure at the height of the Great Depression. Born with an itch for adventure McCutcheon served as a World War I correspondent combat artist occasional feature writer portrait artist and world traveler.</P><P></P><P>While the gangly and tall McCutcheon looked the part of the down-home characters featured in his cartoons the world-wise flavor of his work influenced public opinion while making readers smile. Hard-hitting and even vicious attacks on public figures were common among his contemporaries; however McCutcheons gentle humor provided a change in pace thus prompting a colleague to borrow a phrase from baseball and anoint him the slow ball cartoonist.</P><P></P><P>Slow Ball Cartoonist is a timeless story about a humble man who made the most of his talents and lived life to the fullest being respectful and fair to allincluding the targets of his cartoonists pen.</P>