Frederick Francis "Fred" McCarthy, O.F.S., (5 September 1918 – 26 October 2009) was an American Franciscan cartoonist, creator of the popular ''Brother Juniper'' single-panel comic strip.

Early years

McCarthy grew up in Boston, Massachusetts and drew cartoons from an early age, some of which he submitted (without success) to the ''

New Yorker New Yorker or ''variant'' primarily refers to: * A resident of the State of New York ** Demographics of New York (state) * A resident of New York City ** List of people from New York City * ''The New Yorker'', a magazine founded in 1925 * '' The ...

''. He attended

Boston College Boston College (BC) is a private Jesuit research university in Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts. Founded in 1863, the university has more than 9,300 full-time undergraduates and nearly 5,000 graduate students. Although Boston College is classifi ...

, but, feeling called to becoming a Franciscan friar, transferred to

St. Bonaventure College St. Bonaventure University is a private Franciscan university in St. Bonaventure, New York. It has 2,381 undergraduate and graduate students. The Franciscan Brothers established the university in 1858. In athletics, the St. Bonaventure Bonni ...

Olean, New York Olean ( ) is a city in Cattaraugus County, New York, United States. Olean is the largest city in Cattaraugus County and serves as its financial, business, transportation and entertainment center. It is one of the principal cities of the Souther ...

. He entered the Order and was given the religious name of Justin.

Career

McCarthy began drawing a cartoon

friar A friar is a member of one of the mendicant orders founded in the twelfth or thirteenth century; the term distinguishes the mendicants' itinerant apostolic character, exercised broadly under the jurisdiction of a superior general, from the o ...

while a student there, at first for his own amusement, and then for posters and flyers. He named the short, freckled, and ever-cheerful (if sometimes naive) character "Brother Juniper" in 1942, after the historical Brother Juniper, a companion of St.

Francis of Assisi Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a mystic Italian Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most venerated figures in Christiani ...

. McCarthy later served as art director of ''Friar'', a national

Franciscan , image = FrancescoCoA PioM.svg , image_size = 200px , caption = A cross, Christ's arm and Saint Francis's arm, a universal symbol of the Franciscans , abbreviation = OFM , predecessor = , ...

magazine, and this led to the Brother Juniper character coming to the attention of the

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 ...

, a distributor of comic strips. The ''Brother Juniper'' strip was published from 1958 until 1989. Running in over 100 American newspapers as well as overseas, ''Brother Juniper'' was the only religious-themed comic ever syndicated in daily newspapers internationally. McCarthy also created two less-successful religious-themed strips, ''Sister Suzie'' about a teaching nun, and ''Brother Rufus''. He published these under the pen name "Fred Francis". McCarthy, a Secular Franciscan from 1938, was ordained as a Catholic priest in 1945 but left the friars and the priesthood in the early 1960s. He remained active as a Franciscan, however, resuming his life as a Franciscan

tertiary Tertiary ( ) is a widely used but obsolete term for the geologic period from 66 million to 2.6 million years ago. The period began with the demise of the non- avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at the start ...

, in which he was active till the end of his life. He taught at a number of colleges and universities.

Death

McCarthy died on October 26, 2009, in

Delray Beach, Florida Delray Beach is a city in Palm Beach County, Florida, United States. The population of Delray Beach as of April 1, 2020 was 66,846 according to the 2020 United States Census. Located 52 miles (83 kilometers) north of Miami, Delray Beach is in the ...

, and was survived by his wife, Lilly.

Publications

*McCarthy, Fred. ''Brother Juniper''. (1957). Garden City:Hanover House. *McCarthy, Fred. ''More Brother Juniper''. (1958). Garden City:Hanover House. *McCarthy, Fred. ''Brother Juniper Strikes Again''. (1959). Garden City:Hanover House. *McCarthy, Fred. ''Brother Juniper at Work and Play''. (1960). Garden City:Hanover House. *McCarthy, Fred. ''Inside Brother Juniper''. (1963). New York:Pocket Books. *McCarthy, Fred. ''Well Done, Brother Juniper''. (1963). Garden City:Doubleday. *McCarthy, Fred. ''The Whimsical World of Brother Juniper''. (1963). New York:Pocket Books. *McCarthy, Fred (as "Fred Francis"). ''Brother Rufus''. (1964). Garden City:Doubleday. *McCarthy, Fred (as "Fred Francis"). ''Sister Suzie''. (1964). Garden City:Doubleday. *McCarthy, Fred. ''The Ecumenical Brother Juniper''. (1965). Garden City:Doubleday. * Includes the eight previously published Brother Juniper collections in one volume.

References

External links

The Brother Juniper Rejuvenation Project at BrotherJuniper.com
at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
Archived
from the original on February 22, 2018.

{{DEFAULTSORT:McCarthy, Fred 1918 births 2009 deaths Artists from Boston St. Bonaventure University alumni American comics artists American Friars Minor 20th-century American Roman Catholic priests Laicized Roman Catholic priests Former members of Catholic religious institutes Secular Franciscans Burials in Florida