Editing George Herriman (section)

===1900–1905: Early career in New York===

<!-- [[File:George and Mabel Herriman - Wedding - 1902-07-07.jpg|thumb|right|upright|alt=A black and white photograph of a woman wearing a dress and a man wearing a suit.|George and Mabel Herriman on their wedding day (July 7, 1902)]] --><!-- copyright staus in question -->

[[File:Herriman090706.jpg|thumb|alt=A black-and-white cartoon drawing. A short, fat man labeled "Parker" and a tall, thin man labeled "Herrin" are in a farmyard, whose barn is labeled "Republican Stables". The two are looking at a horse with a human face and an enormous collar. The horse is labeled "Gillett". The caption reads, "Parker: 'Will he stand without hitching?'; Herrin: 'Sure! See that collar?'"|Herriman's earliest published works were humor and editorial cartoons. (September 7, 1906)]]

When he was 20, Herriman clandestinely boarded a [[Rail freight transport|freight train]] bound for [[New York City]], hoping his chances as an artist would be better there. He was unsuccessful at first, and survived by working as a [[barker (occupation)|barker]] and billboard painter at [[Coney Island]], until one of the leading [[humor magazine]]s of the day, ''[[Judge (magazine)|Judge]]'', accepted some of his cartoons. Between June 15 and October 26, 1901, eleven of his cartoons appeared in that magazine's pages, in the heavily [[Hatching|crosshatched]] style of the day. He often used sequential images in his cartoons, as in the emerging comic strip medium. On September 29 that year, his first real comic strips were published, one in the [[Pulitzer, Inc.|Pulitzer]] chain of newspapers on a non-contractual, one-shot basis and another on a continuing basis in the Philadelphia North American Syndicate's first comic strip supplement. His first color comic strips appeared in the [[McClure Newspaper Syndicate|T. C. McClure Syndicate]] beginning October 20.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=33}}

His success with these syndicated strips convinced Herriman to give up on magazine submissions.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|pp=33–34}} For the Pulitzer papers on February 16, 1902, he began his first strip that had a continuing character, ''Musical Mose''. The strip featured an [[African American|African-American]] musician who impersonated other ethnicities, only to suffer the consequences when discovered by his audience. ''Professor Otto and his Auto'', about a terrifyingly dangerous driver, followed in March, and ''Acrobatic Archie'', a "kid strip" with a child protagonist, first appeared in April.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=34}} With his future as a cartoonist seemingly assured, Herriman traveled back to Los Angeles to marry his childhood sweetheart and returned with her to New York.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=36}}

In the November 1902 issue of the literary magazine ''[[The Bookman (New York)|The Bookman]]'', Herriman wrote of his profession self-deprecatingly, while poet La Touche Hancock, in an article in that issue titled "The American Comic and Caricature Art",{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=36}} wrote, "Art and poetry is the characteristic of George Herriman. Were his drawings not so well known one would think he had mistaken his vocation."{{sfnm|1a1=Hancock|1y=1902|1p=263|2a1=McDonnell|2a2=O'Connell|2a3=Havenon|2y=1986|2p=36}} Herriman's work was increasing in popularity, and he occasionally had front-page, full-color strips for the Pulitzer supplements, such as ''Two Jolly Jackies'' about two unemployed sailors, which began in January 1903.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|pp=36–37}} He began drawing the cowboy strip ''Lariat Pete'' in September for the McClure syndicate after ''Two Jolly Jackies'' was ended.{{sfn|Blackbeard|1983|p=51}}

[[File:Major Ozone's Fresh Air Crusade 1906-04-21 panels 11 and 12.png|thumb|left|alt=In two comic strip panels, two men obsessively in search of fresh air are led to an insane asylum, where they are locked away.|The comic strip ''Major Ozone's Fresh Air Crusade'' (1904–1906) was an early success for Herriman. (April&nbsp;21,&nbsp;1906)]]

In June, Herriman was employed by the ''[[New York World]]''. There, he illustrated [[Roy McCardell]]'s commentaries on local events, beginning June 28 and running to the year's end. Herriman still produced syndicate work, such as ''Major Ozone's Fresh Air Crusade'' for the [[World Color Press|World Color Printing Company]] beginning January 2, 1904. Another of Herriman's obsessive characters, the Major traveled the world in an unsuccessful search for the purest air and spouted poetic dialogue.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=37}} ''Major Ozone'' was so popular that it soon was given the supplement's front page.{{sfn|Blackbeard|1983|p=51}} The same month, Herriman moved from the ''World'' to the ''[[Daily News (New York)|New York Daily News]]'', where he was given a larger quantity and variety of work, including cartoon reporting on sports and politics.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=37}} In February and March, he had a short-lived continuing character comic strip about domestic life called ''Home Sweet Home''. That spring, he began illustrating a series of articles written by Walter Murphy called ''Bubblespikers''.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=41}}

Rudolph Block hired Herriman for the [[William Randolph Hearst|Hearst]] papers with "a salary commensurate with his talents", starting April 22 at the ''[[New York Journal-American|New York American]]'',{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|p=41}} which ran no daily comic strips at the time.{{sfn|Blackbeard|1983|p=51}} Herriman drew sports cartoons in an office alongside [[Frederick Burr Opper]], [[Jimmy Swinnerton|James Swinnerton]],{{sfnm|1a1=Blackbeard|1y=1983|1p=51|2a1=McDonnell|2a2=O'Connell|2a3=Havenon|2y=1986|2p=41}} and [[Tad Dorgan]], who was popularly known as "Tad" and was considered a star at another Hearst paper, the ''[[New York Journal-American|New York Evening Journal]]''. Tad and Herriman were often assigned to cover the same sporting events and became close friends. In 1924, Tad called Herriman "one of the best sporting artists in the world" and regretted that Herriman no longer did that kind of work.{{sfn|McDonnell|O'Connell|Havenon|1986|pp=41, 44–45}} Herriman continued with Hearst until June 1905, when he left the paper,{{sfnm|1a1=McDonnell|1a2=O'Connell|1a3=Havenon|1y=1986|1pp=44–45|2a1=Blackbeard|2y=1983|2p=52}} possibly because of the new sports editor's unsympathetic attitude to cartoonists.{{sfn|Blackbeard|1983|p=52}} He returned to Los Angeles{{sfnm|1a1=McDonnell|1a2=O'Connell|1a3=Havenon|1y=1986|1pp=44–45|2a1=Mostrom|2y=2010|3a1=Blackbeard|3y=1983|3p=53}} in the latter half of 1905.{{sfn|Blackbeard|1983|p=53}}