Jimmy Hatlo
Encyclopedia
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
n cartoonist
Cartoonist
A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...
who created in 1929 the long-running comic strip
Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
and gag panel They'll Do It Every Time
They'll Do It Every Time
They'll Do It Every Time was a single-panel newspaper comic strip, created by Jimmy Hatlo, which had a long run over eight decades. It first appeared on February 5, 1929 and continued until February 2, 2008. The title of the strip became a popular catchphrase, still used today by many people who...
, which he wrote and drew until his death in 1963. Hatlo's other strip, Little Iodine
Little Iodine
Little Iodine was a popular Sunday comic strip, created by Jimmy Hatlo, which was syndicated by King Features and had a long run from 1943 until 1985...
, was adapted into a feature-length movie in 1946.
Hatlo was born in East Providence, Rhode Island
East Providence, Rhode Island
East Providence is a city in Providence County, Rhode Island, United States. The population was 47,037 at the 2010 census, making it the fifth largest city in the state.-Geography:East Providence is located at ....
on September 1, 1897. His father, James M. Hatlow, a printer, was an immigrant from the Orkney Islands of Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
. The original spelling of the family name became an inconvenience when, as a budding sports cartoonist, Hatlo fashioned a trademark signature with the "H" drawn as stylized goal posts and the "o" as a descending football. He shrank the "w" into a small apostrophe in the signature but otherwise dropped it entirely.
When he was a small child, the family moved to Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
. As a young man, Hatlo began doing incidental artwork and engravings for local newspapers during an era when halftone
Halftone
Halftone is the reprographic technique that simulates continuous tone imagery through the use of dots, varying either in size, in shape or in spacing...
reproduction of photographs was still limited.
World War I
When the United States entered World War IWorld War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
, Hatlo went to Kelly Field, hoping to become an aviator despite his poor eyesight. Instead he became a Spanish flu casualty and missed the war entirely.
He relocated to San Francisco following the war and worked for both the San Francisco Call & Post
San Francisco Call
The San Francisco Call was a newspaper that served San Francisco, California. Because of a succession of mergers with other newspapers, the paper variously came to be called The San Francisco Call & Post, the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, San Francisco News-Call Bulletin, and the News-Call Bulletin...
and the San Francisco Evening Bulletin. The two papers later merged as the San Francisco Call-Bulletin, part of William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst
William Randolph Hearst was an American business magnate and leading newspaper publisher. Hearst entered the publishing business in 1887, after taking control of The San Francisco Examiner from his father...
's publishing empire. Hatlo at first drew "travelogues" for automobile advertising. These illustrated maps promoted auto travel (and thus, auto sales). On the strength of his talent, he soon managed to work his way into editorial cartooning and then sports cartooning.
Tip of the Hatlo hat
His break came when a shipment of panels from syndicated cartoonist Tad Dorgan failed to arrive in the mail. Hatlo was pressed into service to create something to fill the space. What resulted was They'll Do It Every Time, an instant hit with San Francisco readers. After several days, he began to run short on ideas. Various people—including Pat Frayne, Hatlo's managing editor at the time, and Scoop Gleason, his sports editor—later claimed credit for what happened next, but it may have been Hatlo himself who hit on the tactic of asking readers to submit their own ideas for the cartoons. Whatever the source, the gambit was a huge success. Hatlo picked the best submissions and credited each contributor by name, closing each cartoon with a box that read, "Thanx and a tip of the Hatlo Hat to..."The Hatlo Inferno
King Features Syndicate
King Features Syndicate, a print syndication company owned by The Hearst Corporation, distributes about 150 comic strips, newspaper columns, editorial cartoons, puzzles and games to nearly 5000 newspapers worldwide...
. His supplemental panel, The Hatlo Inferno, which depicted life in Hell
Hell
In many religious traditions, a hell is a place of suffering and punishment in the afterlife. Religions with a linear divine history often depict hells as endless. Religions with a cyclic history often depict a hell as an intermediary period between incarnations...
, ran in tandem with They'll Do It Every Time for five years (1953-58).
Books
Hatlo's first They'll Do It Every Time collection, a 100-page softbound book, was published in 1939 by David McKay Company of Philadelphia. It was followed in the 1940s by two McKay hardcover collections. AvonAvon (publishers)
Avon Publications was an American paperback book and comic book publisher. As of 2010, it is an imprint of HarperCollins, publishing primarily romance novels.-History:...
paperback collections of They'll Do It Every Time followed throughout the 1950s. In his foreword to the 1943 McKay collection, Damon Runyon
Damon Runyon
Alfred Damon Runyon was an American newspaperman and writer.He was best known for his short stories celebrating the world of Broadway in New York City that grew out of the Prohibition era. To New Yorkers of his generation, a "Damon Runyon character" evoked a distinctive social type from the...
wrote that years earlier he had unsuccessfully tried to persuade the New York American
New York Journal American
The New York Journal American was a newspaper published from 1937 to 1966. The Journal American was the product of a merger between two New York newspapers owned by William Randolph Hearst: The New York American , a morning paper, and the New York Evening Journal, an afternoon paper...
to lure Hatlo away from San Francisco, adding:
- It is my opinion, that Hatlo is today one of the greatest cartoonists the newspaper business has ever produced. Certainly he is one of the most human, and humanness is the element that makes a great cartoonist... Hatlo's forte is mirroring every day people. He has marvelous insight into the minds and souls of folks we all know. He has a great ear for the common speech of the day. He knows our men and women as they are in their homes, in the street and under all conditions, the result of mingling with them and rubbing elbows with them. Hatlo pictures people as they are, not as they ought to be, or as he imagines them... I have known the work of all the great cartoonists of the past 30 odd years in the newspaper business - I have known many of them personally, though that is not germane to an appraisal of their work, and I believe that Jimmy Hatlo rightly belongs in the first rank with them. I believe, too, that his cartoons represent a contribution to the entertainment of the American people at this time that is unsurpassed in any field.
Popularity
Hatlo's success also attracted imitators, and a rival syndicate launched a clone cartoon by Harry Shorten and Al Fagaly titled "There Oughta Be A Law."After World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
, Hatlo settled in Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Carmel-by-the-Sea, California
Carmel-by-the-Sea, often called simply Carmel, is a small city in Monterey County, California, United States, founded in 1902 and incorporated in 1916. Situated on the Monterey Peninsula, the town is known for its natural scenery and rich artistic history...
, where he became part of a cartoonist community that included such artists as Gus Arriola
Gus Arriola
Gustavo "Gus" Arriola was a Mexican-American comic strip cartoonist and animator, primarily known for the comic strip Gordo, which ran from 1941 through 1985....
, Frank O'Neal
Frank O'Neal
Frank O'Neal is an American cartoonist best known for his comic strip Short Ribs which he drew from 1958 to 1973....
, Eldon Dedini
Eldon Dedini
Eldon Dedini was an American cartoonist whose work has appeared in Esquire, The New Yorker, Playboy and elsewhere....
and Hank Ketcham
Hank Ketcham
Henry King "Hank" Ketcham was an American cartoonist who created the Dennis the Menace comic strip, writing and drawing it from 1951 to 1994, when he retired from drawing the daily page and took up painting full time in his studio at his home. He received the Reuben Award for the strip in 1953...
.
At their peak, Hatlo's cartoons appeared in over 400 newspapers worldwide. Little Iodine
Little Iodine
Little Iodine was a popular Sunday comic strip, created by Jimmy Hatlo, which was syndicated by King Features and had a long run from 1943 until 1985...
, a spin-off comic strip featuring a mischievous little girl who had become one of Hatlo's stock characters, even got her own series of comic books and a 1946 movie adaptation. Hatlo's popularity was at its highest in the early 1950s. He was profiled in a 1952 feature article in The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post
The Saturday Evening Post is a bimonthly American magazine. It was published weekly under this title from 1897 until 1969, and quarterly and then bimonthly from 1971.-History:...
titled "He Needles the Human Race."
Hatlo was a lifelong smoker, who once appeared in magazine and newspaper ads for Lucky Strike
Lucky Strike
Lucky Strike is a brand of cigarette owned by the R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company and British American Tobacco groups. Often referred to as "Luckies", Lucky Strike was the top selling cigarette in the United States during the 1930s.- History :...
cigarette
Cigarette
A cigarette is a small roll of finely cut tobacco leaves wrapped in a cylinder of thin paper for smoking. The cigarette is ignited at one end and allowed to smoulder; its smoke is inhaled from the other end, which is held in or to the mouth and in some cases a cigarette holder may be used as well...
s, his favorite brand. Men in his cartoons were routinely shown with cigars. He was troubled in his later years by atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis
Atherosclerosis is a condition in which an artery wall thickens as a result of the accumulation of fatty materials such as cholesterol...
. In late November 1963, Hatlo was hospitalized for a kidney
Kidney
The kidneys, organs with several functions, serve essential regulatory roles in most animals, including vertebrates and some invertebrates. They are essential in the urinary system and also serve homeostatic functions such as the regulation of electrolytes, maintenance of acid–base balance, and...
condition. He died of a stroke early on December 1, 1963, at the age of 66.
Awards and cultural references
Hatlo was recognized for his work with the National Cartoonists SocietyNational Cartoonists Society
The National Cartoonists Society is an organization of professional cartoonists in the United States. It presents the National Cartoonists Society Awards. The Society was born in 1946 when groups of cartoonists got together to entertain the troops...
's Newspaper Panel Cartoon Award for 1957 and 1959. The Banshees gave Hatlo their Siliver Lady Award.
The Canadian
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
cartoonist Seth
Seth (cartoonist)
Seth is the pen name of Gregory Gallant , a Canadian comic book artist and writer. He is best known for comics such as Palookaville.Born in Clinton, Ontario, Seth attended the Ontario College of Art in Toronto...
reminisced about Hatlo's work in his graphic novella It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken
It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken
It's a Good Life, If You Don't Weaken is a graphic novel by Canadian cartoonistSeth, published in collected form by Drawn and Quarterly in 1996. It was originally serialized in issues four through nine of Seth's comic book series Palookaville from December 1993 to June 1996...
.
External links
- Toonopedia: They'll Do It Every Time
- NCS Awards
- Jimmy Hatlo Papers 1939-1986 at Syracuse University (primary source material)