Dr. Seuss, Ad Man: the hidden past comes out

[Fletch]

As the 1930s fade from living memory, among the most overlooked figures of that more and more overlooked era are the "sellouts."

The stories from that decade that live today are those of silent suffering and bold activism. It might seem trivial, even tasteless, to consider the talent and creativity that hired out to the mercantilists for a going rate of much less than thirty pieces of silver.

Yet much of that so-called hack work was of a quality that would be impressive indeed today - if only we had a place for it in what we understand as history and culture.

Consider the example of Ted Geisel, Dartmouth class of '25, a young commercial artist gifted with a zany imagination, a rubber pen, and - yes - a sure sense of salesmanship that won him a wildly diverse array of commissions in the dark years.

Yet the generations that brought him fame were not born then. They knew nothing of his first career - not even his name. Well, all right...they knew his middle name.

The Advertising Art of Dr. Seuss

 

[LizzieMaine]

Before his ad career, the Doc was an excellent gag cartoonist for Judge magazine, but gag cartooning for humor magazines didn't pay the rent. His Flit ads were a national craze in the thirties, and for years after that he was better known for those than he was for his children's books.

Those 'Gansett trays were easy to find around New England, until the kitsch merchants started gobbling them up.

 

[Undertow]

Fantastic thread! See the similiarities between his ad work and his children's books; he most certainly had a style of his own. There are the animals with elongated necks and large upper lips, the men with nobs for noses, the wide eyed smiling creatures, the simple V-shaped hands, etc.

These are great ads in and of themselves. I think Fletch has a good point that this would be remarkable advertising today, even in an age of computer graphics, photoshop and smarmy irony.

*note: check out the little guy in the colored Ford ad. He looks familiar!

 

[dhermann1]

It's interesting to see that his cartooning style was pretty conventional for the era. Compare his characters with Smokey Stover, for example. He just developed that style brilliantly, while other artists went with the more minimalist drawing styles of the 50s.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A Seussian cover for Judge -- it was extravaganzas like this that got him the Flit account.

 

[Two Types]

I never describe him as a great children's author - he was quite simply one of the greatest ever authors.

The Lorax is amazing - The Sleep Book provided so many of my childhood memories - A Pair of pale Green Pants frightened me .... the list could go on forever.

 

[motorpsycho67]

I met him when I was a kid in the mid 70s and he signed one of my Dr. Seuss books (don't remember which one). Wish I still had that book....

 

[Undertow]

Look at the balance between noisy and sparse on that Judge cover.

His ability to capture your imagination was profound. You're not distracted with too many animals running away, but you have enough creatures to have this fantastic idea of what story's being told.

I couldn't imagine something like this, of this quality and care, in today's marketplace.

 

[AmateisGal]

He also had some amazing political cartoons before and during WW2.

Here's a sampling:

Dr. Seuss Went to War
http://libraries.ucsd.edu/speccoll/dswenttowar/

 

[Mr Vim]

Haha! That's Hitler in the GE hell ad!