''The Cheerful Cherub'' is an American single-panel newspaper comic written and drawn by Rebecca McCann, originally published in the Chicago '' Evening Post'' and syndicated by

George Matthew Adams George Matthew Adams (August 23, 1878 – October 29, 1962) was an American newspaper columnist and founder of the George Matthew Adams Newspaper Service, which syndicated comic strips and columns to newspapers for five decades. His own writings ...

. Every installation features the title character, accompanied by his pet dog, speaking a short poem, generally in an iambic meter, offering wisdom, wit, observation, or insight on sundry topics, such as ambition, education, friendship, lies, sin, and work.

The author

Rebecca McCann was born in

Quincy, Illinois Quincy ( ), known as Illinois's "Gem City", is a city in and the county seat of Adams County, Illinois, United States, located on the Mississippi River. The 2020 census counted a population of 39,463 in the city itself, down from 40,633 in 2010. ...

and attended the

Chicago Academy of Fine Arts The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum and ...

. Her biography is given in brief by her friend Mary Graham Bonner in the introduction to ''Complete Cheerful Cherub'', but the exact dates of her birth and death—not to mention the dates of the comic's publication—are not clear; nonetheless, her death occurred in 1927, aged 32.Neglected Books
cf. Robert F. Gish: ''Frontier's End. The Life and Literature of Harvey Fergusson.'' (Modern German Culture and Literature) 1988, p. 167 Bonner's memoir describes the circumstances under which Julian Mason, then-editor of the Chicago ''Evening Post'', accidentally discovered McCann's Cherubs after they fell from her bag; the introduction also tells of the author's three marriages, the last to novelist

Harvey Fergusson Harvey Fergusson (January 28, 1890 – August 27, 1971) was an American writer. Life and career Fergusson was born and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His father was Harvey B. Fergusson, the attorney and Congressman. He attended hi ...

, and the publication of her book "About Annabel." Bitter Sweet Poems a book of McCann's serious poems was published in 1929 two years after her death.

References

American comic strips 1916 comics debuts 1927 comics endings Fictional angels Gag cartoon comics American comics characters {{comics-stub