Darrell McClure
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Darrell Craig McClure (February 25, 1903 – February 27, 1987), 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 ...
and
illustrator An illustrator is an artist who specializes in enhancing writing or elucidating concepts by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text or idea. The illustration may be intended to clarify complicat ...
best known for his work on 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 ...
''
Little Annie Rooney ''Little Annie Rooney'' is a comic strip about a young orphaned girl who traveled about with her dog, Zero. King Features Syndicate launched the strip on January 10, 1927, not long after it was apparent that the Chicago Tribune Syndicate had ...
'' from 1930 to 1966. The strip took its name from an 1890 song by Michael Nolan. McClure was born in
Ukiah, California Ukiah ( ; Pomo: ''Yokaya'', meaning "deep valley") is the county seat and largest city of Mendocino County, California, with a population of 16,607 at the 2020 census. With its accessible location along the U.S. Route 101 corridor, Ukiah serves ...
, where his mother was the painter Ethel Jamison Docker. At age nine, McClure moved with his family to San Francisco, where he went to art school at night, doing his first professional jobs at age 14. He was 17 when he began an apprenticeship in animated cartoons, and he studied at the
California School of Fine Arts San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a private college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mississippi River. Approximately ...
. After work in logging camps as a lumberjack, he was a sailor on commercial freighters in the Pacific, eventually traveling to New York City on a freighter.


Comic strips

In New York, he took a job at
King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate, Inc. is a American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editoria ...
in 1923 and studied under
George Bridgman George Brant Bridgman (November 5, 1864 – December 16, 1943) was a Canadian-American painter, writer, and teacher in the fields of anatomy and figure drawing. Bridgman taught anatomy for artists at the Art Students League of New York for some ...
at the Art Student's League. He became a contributor to ''
Yachting Yachting is the use of recreational boats and ships called ''yachts'' for racing or cruising. Yachts are distinguished from working ships mainly by their leisure purpose. "Yacht" derives from the Dutch word '' jacht'' ("hunt"). With sailboats, t ...
'' in 1924, married that same year and moved to Connecticut. In the late 1920s, his first strips, ''Vanilla and the Villains'' and ''Hard Hearted Hickey'', appeared, followed by ''Donnie''. In 1930, he took over ''Little Annie Rooney'' (except for Sundays) from two previous artists for the ''
New York Journal :''Includes coverage of New York Journal-American and its predecessors New York Journal, The Journal, New York American and New York Evening Journal'' The ''New York Journal-American'' was a daily newspaper published in New York City from 1937 t ...
''. During the height of ''Little Annie Rooneys popularity, McClure built a house in
Greenwich, Connecticut Greenwich (, ) is a New England town, town in southwestern Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. At the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census, the town had a total population of 63,518. The largest town on Connecticut's Gold Coast (Conne ...
, home to many famous cartoonists, and he lived and worked there from 1939 to 1947. 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 ...
, he served part time with the Coast Guard. After his wife died in the 1940s, he moved to Florida, where he remarried a Navy widow in 1955, gaining a daughter and three grandchildren. In May and June 1956, the couple traveled in McClures' yacht from Fort Lauderdale to Connecticut, with stopovers at Charleston, Norfolk and Annapolis. Later, they relocated to San Francisco, where he spent time sailing and painting. As continuity adventure strips became less popular, McClure and ''Little Annie Rooney'' retired in 1966. He died in
Talmage, California Talmage (variant, Talmadge) is a census-designated place (CDP) in Mendocino County, California, United States. Talmage is located east-southeast of Ukiah, at an elevation of . The population was 986 at the 2020 census, down from 1,130 in 2010. ...
in 1987.Cauthen, Linda. "Comic Strip Artist Visits Yacht Basin", ''Charleston News and Courier'', June 19, 1956.
/ref>


Paintings

He painted many sailing scenes, especially in the
Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the Atlantic Ocean, North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to ...
. His paintings and drawings are in galleries, private collections and museums, including the Maritime Museum in the
San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park The San Francisco Maritime National Historical Park is located in San Francisco, California, United States. The park includes a fleet of historic vessels, a visitor center, a maritime museum, and a library/research facility. The park used to be r ...
. McClure never lost his love of the sea, living at times on his yacht, ''Small Wonder'' and illustrating for ''Yachting''.


Collections

*''Ready About!'' by Darrell McClure; Yachting Publishing Corp. (1965). *''The Best of Darrell McClure: Cartoons Including the Adventures of Cautious Conrad and the McClure Roundup'' by Darrell McClure. Yachting Publishing Corp. (January 1, 1954). *''The Gaff Rigged Yachtsman: Cartoons'' by Darrell McClure; Yachting Publishing Corp. (January 1, 1944). *''Little Annie Rooney Wishing Book'' by Brandon Walsh (author), Darrell McClure (illustrator); McLoughlin Bros. Inc. (1932).


References


Sources

*"McClure painting value complicated," ''Cincinnati Post''; May 20, 2006. *"Memories of Darrell McClure linger in his backcountry Greenwich home," ''Greenwich Time'', Connecticut; September 2, 2003. *"Deaths elsewhere," ''The Washington Post''; Washington, D.C.; March 2, 1987. *"Deaths elsewhere," ''Orlando Sentinel''; Florida: March 1, 1987. *"Deaths," ''The San Diego Union-Tribune''; California: February 28, 1987; p.A2. *"Little Annie Rooney" (sheet music). Duke University Historic American Sheet Musi

*Social Security Death Index. *"A legend in his time," Marcia Wiley; ''Yachting''; v157. April 1985.


External links


Maritime Museum
{{DEFAULTSORT:McClure, Darrell 1903 births 1987 deaths Artists from California American comic strip cartoonists People from Ukiah, California San Francisco Art Institute alumni