Dave Gerard (June 18, 1909 – August 31, 2003) was an American humor cartoonist and local politician, known for his contributions to ''

Collier's Weekly ''Collier's'' was an American general interest magazine founded in 1888 by Peter Fenelon Collier. It was launched as ''Collier's Once a Week'', then renamed in 1895 as ''Collier's Weekly: An Illustrated Journal'', shortened in 1905 to ''Colli ...

'', ''

Country Gentleman ''The Country Gentleman'' (1852–1955) was an American agricultural magazine founded in 1852 in Albany, New York, by Luther Tucker.Frank Luther Mott (1938A History of American Magazines 1850–1865"The Country Gentleman", page 432, Harvard Unive ...

'', and ''

The Saturday Evening Post ''The Saturday Evening Post'' is an American magazine, currently published six times a year. It was issued weekly under this title from 1897 until 1963, then every two weeks until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1960s, it was one of the most widely ...

''.George Glazer Gallery – Antique Globes – Cram's Toy Globe by Dave Gerard
/ref>

Early life and education

Born and raised in

Indiana Indiana () is a U.S. state in the Midwestern United States. It is the 38th-largest by area and the 17th-most populous of the 50 States. Its capital and largest city is Indianapolis. Indiana was admitted to the United States as the 19th s ...

, Gerard was a 1931 graduate of

Wabash College Wabash College is a private liberal arts men's college in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Founded in 1832 by several Dartmouth College graduates and Midwestern leaders, it enrolls nearly 900 students. The college offers an undergraduate liberal arts cu ...

Crawfordsville, Indiana Crawfordsville is a city in Montgomery County in west central Indiana, United States, west by northwest of Indianapolis. As of the 2020 census, the city had a population of 16,306. The city is the county seat of Montgomery County, the only char ...

. He was among the Crawfordsville-area cartoonists known as “The Sugar Crick Art School,” Bill Holman perhaps being the most famous of the group.

Career

Gerard began a 35-year relationship with the John F. Dille Co.

newspaper syndicate Print syndication distributes news articles, columns, political cartoons, comic strips and other features to newspapers, magazines and websites. The syndicates offer reprint rights and grant permissions to other parties for republishing content ...

(later known as the

National Newspaper Syndicate The National Newspaper Syndicate, originally known as the John F. Dille Co., was a syndication service that operated from 1917 to c. 1984. It was founded by Chicago businessman John F. Dille and specialized in comic strips and gag cartoons. It al ...

) in 1949 with his comic strip ''Viewpoint'', which ran until 1953. That was succeeded by the popular strip ''Will-Yum'', which ran from 1953 to 1966. (''Will-Yum'' was also featured in a Dell comic book.) Gerard's ''City Hall'' strip was distributed by the National Newspaper Syndicate from 1967 to 1984."Dave Gerard Cartoons: An inventory of his cartoons at Syracuse University,"
Syracuse University Libraries Special Collections Research Center. Accessed October 14, 2018. Gerard was also the creator of ''Citizen Smith'', a strip distributed by the Register and Tribune Syndicate that featured an

everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin The term ''everyman'' was used as early as ...

beset by everyday frustrations; this work appeared in ''The Indianapolis Star'' in the 1970s and 1980s.Comic creator: Dave Gerard
/ref> Dave Gerard was the mayor of

, from 1972 to 1976.

Notes

American comic strip cartoonists American comics artists Mayors of places in Indiana 1909 births 2003 deaths Wabash College alumni {{cartoonist-stub