Pete Hoffman (February 22, 1919 – September 7, 2013) was an American cartoonist. He is known for his work on the adventure strips ''Steve Roper'' (later ''

Steve Roper and Mike Nomad ''Steve Roper and Mike Nomad'' was an American adventure comic strip that ran (under various earlier titles) from November 23, 1936, to December 26, 2004. Originally ''Big Chief Wahoo'', the focus and title character of the strip changed over t ...

'') and ''Jeff Cobb''.

Biography

Early life

Born in

Toledo, Ohio Toledo ( ) is a city in and the county seat of Lucas County, Ohio, United States. A major Midwestern United States port city, Toledo is the fourth-most populous city in the state of Ohio, after Columbus, Cleveland, and Cincinnati, and according ...

, the youngest of four children of Rose and Abraham Hoffman, Hoffman showed artistic talent early, publishing an

Old West The American frontier, also known as the Old West or the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that began with European colonial ...

-themed drawing in the '' Toledo Times'' when just a kindergartner at Warren School. He attended the

University of Toledo The University of Toledo (UToledo or UT) is a public research university in Toledo, Ohio. It is the northernmost campus of the University System of Ohio. The university also operates a Health Science campus, which includes the University of T ...

, where he earned a

bachelor's degree A bachelor's degree (from Middle Latin ''baccalaureus'') or baccalaureate (from Modern Latin ''baccalaureatus'') is an undergraduate academic degree awarded by colleges and universities upon completion of a course of study lasting three to six ...

in advertising and marketing while cartooning for the student newspaper and serving as art editor of the yearbook. After working for six months as an advertising artist for a local department store, Hoffman served in the

U.S. Army Air Corps The United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) was the aerial warfare service component of the United States Army between 1926 and 1941. After World War I, as early aviation became an increasingly important part of modern warfare, a philosophical ri ...

in England during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

, achieving the rank of captain and receiving the

Bronze Star Medal The Bronze Star Medal (BSM) is a United States Armed Forces decoration awarded to members of the United States Armed Forces for either heroic achievement, heroic service, meritorious achievement, or meritorious service in a combat zone. Wh ...

Early career

Afterwards, he returned to Toledo and stopped by to see ''Steve Roper'' authors

Allen Saunders Allen Saunders (April 24, 1899 – January 28, 1986) was an American writer, journalist and cartoonist who wrote the comic strips '' Steve Roper and Mike Nomad'', ''Mary Worth'' and '' Kerry Drake''. He is credited with being the originator of t ...

and

Elmer Woggon Elmer Woggon (November 4, 1898 – April 1978), who signed his art Wog, was the creator of an early newspaper comic strip that eventually developed into the long-running '' Steve Roper and Mike Nomad''. Biography Born and raised in Toledo, ...

; he had met them as a student cartoonist and had been sending them additional sketches during the war. Liking his work, Saunders hired him as a new ghost for Woggon because

Publishers Syndicate Publishers Newspaper Syndicate was a syndication service based in Chicago that operated from 1925 to 1967, when it merged with the Hall Syndicate. Publishers syndicated such long-lived comic strips as '' Big Chief Wahoo/Steve Roper'', ''Mary Wort ...

had complained that the artwork still looked too cartoonish for an adventure strip. The strip continued to appear as "''Steve Roper'' by Saunders and Woggon." Hoffman's name was seen only in the sequence of June 9–14, 1947, when Roper's friend Sonny Brawnski wrestled "Poison Pete Hoffman" after threatening to throw him into Toledo's

Maumee River The Maumee River (pronounced ) ( sjw, Hotaawathiipi; mia, Taawaawa siipiiwi) is a river running in the United States Midwest from northeastern Indiana into northwestern Ohio and Lake Erie. It is formed at the confluence of the St. Joseph and ...

. Hoffman gave the postwar ''Steve Roper'' the more serious look it needed as it settled into a modern urban setting. Hoffman said of his work, "The strip was in a transition stage and a more illustrative style of drawing was desired. My style fit their needs. I enjoyed ghost-drawing the characters for nearly nine years." The ghost was no secret, however: a 1953 article on ''Steve Roper'' in the ''

Toledo Blade ''The Blade'', also known as the ''Toledo Blade'', is a newspaper in Toledo, Ohio published daily online and printed Thursday and Sunday by Block Communications. The newspaper was first published on December 19, 1835. Overview The first issue o ...

'' described Hoffman's role in the strip and pictured him working with Saunders and Woggon in their studio.

''Jeff Cobb'' and ''Why We Say''

Hoffman launched his own strip on June 28, 1954, leaving ''Steve Roper'' to produce

General Features General Features Corporation was a Print syndication, syndication service that operated from 1937 to 1974. It was founded by S. George Little and billed itself in the early 1950 as "America's Leading Independent Syndicate." By 1967, General Feature ...

' ''Jeff Cobb'', about an investigative reporter for the ''Daily Guardian''.''Jeff Cobb''
at

Don Markstein's Toonopedia Don Markstein's Toonopedia (subtitled A Vast Repository of Toonological Knowledge) is an online encyclopedia of print cartoons, comic strips and animation, initiated February 13, 2001. Donald D. Markstein, the sole writer and editor of Toonopedi ...

Archived
from the original on October 8, 2016. The parting was amicable, and Saunders and Woggon sponsored him when he joined the

National Cartoonists Society The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the ...

in 1955. Hoffman said in said, "Hopefully, some of Allen Saunders' expertise rubbed off on me when I worked on ''Steve Roper''." Similarly to Steve Roper, Cobb was an attractive, clean-cut, two-fisted reporter who defended his standards, fought crime, and endured near-fatal threats to his life. On the other hand, Hoffman's ''Jeff Cobb'' developed a greater range of expression and a more mature level of fine-line photorealism than his Roper. Like Saunders, he also emphasized characterization in plot development, and said he never ran out of ideas; stories were inspired by newspaper articles he read, and characters were often based on real people. During this same period, Hoffman illustrated the single-panel feature ''Why We Say'' (also for

; 1950–78), which was written by Robert Morgan and explained word and phrase origins in laypersons' terms..

Later career

When ''Jeff Cobb'' ended in 1978, "a victim of the phase-out" of newspaper continuity strips in general, Hoffman turned to freelance work and

alumni projects.

Honors

Hoffman continued to live in his native Toledo, and in 2004, on the 50th anniversary of ''Jeff Cobb'', he was honored there by fans and by a collection of fellow cartoonists' caricatures, each sporting a ''Jeff Cobb'' eye-patch.

Personal life

Hoffman never married, regarding himself as "married to the drawing board". He died of a heart attack, aged 94.

References

Notes

Sources

* Rothman, Seymour. "Evolution of a Comic Strip," ''Toledo Blade'', Pictorial, August 9, 1953, p. 5-6; reprinted in ''Steve Roper and Wahoo'', Blackthorne Publishing (Book 2).

External links

National Cartoonists Society: Pete Hoffman
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hoffman, Pete 1919 births American comic strip cartoonists University of Toledo alumni 2013 deaths United States Army Air Forces personnel of World War II United States Army Air Forces officers People from Toledo, Ohio