John Ross "Dok" Hager (June 29, 1858 – June 14, 1932) was an American

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

for the Seattle Daily Times, creator of a daily comic accompanying the weather report, and the

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

''Dok's Dippy Duck''.Seattle Daily Times, June 20, 1932, page 1, column 5, bottom. ''Hager, Old Time Cartoonist Of Times Is Dead''.
/ref> Hager's nickname stems from his time as a

dentist A dentist, also known as a dental surgeon, is a health care professional who specializes in dentistry (the diagnosis, prevention, management, and treatment of diseases and conditions of the mouth, oral cavity and other aspects of the craniofaci ...

Terre Haute, Indiana Terre Haute ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, about 5 miles east of the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 60,785 and its metropolitan area had a ...

before he moved to

Seattle, Washington Seattle ( ) is a port, seaport city on the West Coast of the United States. It is the county seat, seat of King County, Washington, King County, Washington (state), Washington. With a 2020 population of 737,015, it is the largest city in bo ...

in 1889 and began working for the ''Seattle Times''. Hager retired in 1925 due to blindness. In Seattle he was known as a weatherman and for his commentaries (using a cartoon of the Umbrella Man and of a talking duck).

Background

He was the son of Jacob H. Hager and Carrie Ross of

. Before moving to Indiana, his family had lived in

Hagerstown, Maryland Hagerstown is a city in Washington County, Maryland, United States and the county seat of Washington County. The population of Hagerstown city proper at the 2020 census was 43,527, and the population of the Hagerstown metropolitan area (exten ...

. He married Anna Hyde, who gave him four children. Two of his children were alive when he died. After he attended school in Europe (his obituary says Germany, but his passport application said Zurich, Switzerland), he set up as a dentist in Terre Haute. He moved to Seattle in 1889, where he continued as a dentist. in 1909 he began cartooning full-time with the Seattle Daily Times and gave up his practice.

Son George Hager

His son,

George Hager George Hager was a Seattle illustrator and editorial cartoonist who worked for the ''Seattle Post-Intelligencer'' in the early 20th century. He was the son of another Seattle cartoonist, John Hager. He is known for being the first illustrator t ...

was also an artist in Seattle, working as an illustrator for the town's rival newspaper, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer. He also edited children's page for the Christian Science Monitor George Hager studied art at the University of Washington and the

Arts Student League The Art Students League of New York is an art school at 215 West 57th Street in Manhattan, New York City, New York. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists. Although artists may stud ...

in New York, where another Seattle cartoonist,

William Charles McNulty William Charles McNulty (1884–1963) was an American artist, who created realistic etchings and drawings of New York. He was born in Ogden, Utah. He studied art in 1908 and 1909 at the Art Students League in New York, where he also later taught ...

taught. Both Hagers participated in the

Seattle Cartoonists' Club The Seattle Cartoonists' Club was an association in Seattle, Washington, of editorial cartoonists and caricaturists in the early 20th century. Working for different papers and companies associated with publishing, the men got together to produce j ...

, contributing caricatures of the famous men of Seattle for the club's book, ''The Cartoon; A Reference Book of Seattle's Successful Men''.

Cartoons

Umbrella Man and the Kid

Umbrella Man

Beginning November 1, 1909, Dok created a daily cartoon to accompany ''The Weather'',Seattle Daily Times, November 1, 1909, page 1.
/ref> which featured a character who came to be known as the Umbrella Man, or "Sport". In the newspaper on May 3, 1913, the weather comic was called ''The Umbrella Man'', in a front–page box naming the paper's features. Later on, as Dok began to do more cartooning, he gave Sport a sidekick, named the Kid.

The Kid

''The Kid'' was a talking duck. He was not part of the ''Dippy Duck'' or ''The Waddles'' cartoon strips, but was the sidekick to the Umbrella Man.Historylink.org. ''Patten, Robert W. (1832-1913), Seattle's famed Umbrella Man''.
/ref> He became a regular feature on the front page of ''The Seattle Times''. Like the Umbrella Man, the Kid sometimes sported an umbrella hat. The two wandered the streets of Seattle in the comic, dispensing wit and wisdom along with weather forecasts.

Other cartoon ducks

Dok's Dippy Duck

DOK's comic strip, ''Dok's Dippy Duck'' started out as a daily comic strip without a name, May 31, 1912.''Seattle Daily Times'', May 31, 1912, page 1.
/ref> In the early strip, the unnamed duck stood around on the street corner picking fights with whomever passed by. Doc's duck became a traveler during World War I and the cartoons show him interacting with both sides of the conflict.''Seattle Daily Times'', February 10, 1915, page 1.
/ref> The duck in this cartoon is also known as ''The Kid''.Seattle Daily Times, February 11, 1915, page 1. ''Dok's Dippy Duck''.
/ref> On May 3, 1913, in a front-page box called "Features of Today's Paper", Dok's cartoon was called "''The Duck''. By Dok." On February 10, 1915, the strip was named ''Dok's Dippy Duck'' with no change in what was happening in the plot; the February 10 strip addressed what had happened in the previous day's strip. One change that did happen was to make the comic vertical and larger, with fewer frames; it had only four frames, where earlier strips had as many as seven. This cartoon has been characterized by a comic historian as one of the pioneers of humanized animal comic strips.
/ref>

The Kid becomes Waddles

Waddles was a duck drawn by George Hager for the Christian Science Monitor in the cartoon strip ''The Adventures of the Waddles''. According to the Seattle Daily Times, Waddles was a continuation of his father's duck, associated with the weather man.Seattle Daily Times, November 9, 1935, page2, column 2. ''Strolling around the town''.
/ref> Dok had to discontinue his illustrating when his eyes went, and his children ran the Waddles comic strip. Dok's daughter, Mrs. George Dearborn wrote the rhyming lines to go with the cartoon, while son George Hager did the illustration.
/ref>

Books

*''The Umbrella Man'' by Dok. Lowman and Hanford Company, Seattle, Washington, 1911. *''Sport and the Kid'' by Hager, J.R. "Doc". Lowman and Hanford Company, Seattle, Washington, 1913. *''The Cartoon; A Reference Book of Seattle's Successful Men'', Frank Calvert (ed.), Metropolitan Press, Seattle, 1911
Online text

References

External links

Dippy Duck sample at Lambiek Comiclopedia
* ttp://visions.indstate.edu:8888/cdm/singleitem/collection/vcpl/id/7554/rec/11 Biography of John "Doc" Hagerbr>Online book: ''The Cartoon; A Reference Book of Seattle's Successful Men'', Frank Calvert (ed.), Metropolitan Press, Seattle, 1911.Article with information on DOK as well as the Umbrella Man, with photos.
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hager, John American editorial cartoonists American caricaturists American comics artists American illustrators 1858 births 1932 deaths American dentists Artists from Seattle People from Indiana American blind people