Hairbreadth Harry Brooklyn Daily Eagle Sun Jul 30 1922

Charles William Kahles (pronounced Kah'-less) (January 12, 1878 – January 21, 1931) was a prolific cartoonist responsible for numerous

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech balloon, balloons and Glossary of comics ter ...

s, notably '' Hairbreadth Harry''. He is credited as the pioneer of daily comic strip continuity with his '' Clarence the Cop'', which he drew for the ''

New York World The ''New York World'' was a newspaper published in New York City from 1860 until 1931. The paper played a major role in the history of American newspapers. It was a leading national voice of the Democratic Party. From 1883 to 1911 under pub ...

'' in the latter 1890s, introducing to newspapers the innovation of continuing a comic strip story in a day-to-day serial format. The cartoonist and comics historian Ernest McGee called Kahles the "hardest working cartoonist in history, having as many as eight Sunday comics running at one time (1905-06) with no assistants to help him." Between 1898 and 1931, Kahles drew a total of 25 comic strips, in addition to paintings, book illustrations and advertisements. At the same time he was contributing single-panel cartoons to ''Life'', ''Judge'', ''Puck'', ''Browning's Magazine'' and the ''Pleiades Club Year Book''.

Comic strips

Born in Lengfurt,

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total l ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, Kahles arrived in America at the age of seven. His family settled in

Brooklyn, New York Brooklyn () is a borough of New York City, coextensive with Kings County, in the U.S. state of New York. Kings County is the most populous county in the State of New York, and the second-most densely populated county in the United States, be ...

, living in the

Windsor Terrace Windsor Terrace is a small residential neighborhood in the central part of the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. It is bounded by Prospect Park, Brooklyn, Prospect Park on the east and northeast, Park Slope at Prospect ...

neighborhood, then a semi-rural area. Young Charles Kahles grew up in Brooklyn, where he lived for many years. With plans to become a painter, he studied art at

Pratt Institute Pratt Institute is a private university with its main campus in Brooklyn, New York. It has a satellite campus in Manhattan and an extension campus in Utica, New York at the Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute. The school was founded in 1887 ...

and also attended the Brooklyn Art School. His first art job was in the stained glass shop of Joseph Hausleiter in Brooklyn, working alongside his brother Fred. At the age of 16, he went to Williamsport, Pennsylvania, where he became the staff artist on the newspaper '' Grit'', followed by a short spell as a staff artist at the ''New York Recorder''. In 1897–98, he drew assignments 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 ...

'', where he also contributed cartoons. In 1898, he was hired as a news illustrator by the ''

'', where he also drew such comics as ''The Little Red Schoolhouse'', ''Butch the Butcher's Boy'', ''The Perils of Submarine Boating'', ''Clumsy Claude'', ''Optimistic Oswald'' and ''The Kelly Kids''. In 1902, ''Clarence the Cop'' was the first police strip, and his ''Sandy Highflyer, the Airship Man'' (1902–04), was the first aviation comic strip. ''Foolish Fred'' ran from September 25 to December 11, 1904.C. W. Kahles
at the

Lambiek Comiclopedia Galerie Lambiek is a Dutch comic book store and art gallery in Amsterdam, founded on November 8, 1968 by Kees Kousemaker (, – Bussum, ), though since 2007, his son Boris Kousemaker is the current owner. From 1968 to 2015, it was located ...

Archived
from the original on November 29, 2014. In 1924, Kahles gave an interview to the ''

Brooklyn Daily Eagle :''This article covers both the historical newspaper (1841–1955, 1960–1963), as well as an unrelated new Brooklyn Daily Eagle starting 1996 published currently'' The ''Brooklyn Eagle'' (originally joint name ''The Brooklyn Eagle'' and ''King ...

'' in which he stated that he had seven weekly strips running simultaneously when he was 27 and 28. The strips he introduced in 1905 were ''Billy Brag'', ''Billy Bounce'', ''Pretending Percy'', ''The Teasers'', ''Mr. Buttin'', ''Terrible Twins'', ''Doubting Thomas'' and ''Fun in the Zoo''. The following year, he added several new strips to the original group: ''Our Hero's Hairbreadth Escapes'', ''The Funny Side Gang'', ''The Merry Nobles Three—They Can Never Agree''.

''Hairbreadth Harry''

His best-known creation was the

''Our Hero's Hairbreadth Escapes'', later retitled ''Hairbreadth Harry, the Boy Hero'' and eventually just ''Hairbreadth Harry''. It depicted Harry's many attempts to rescue Beautiful Belinda from the villainous Relentless Rudolph. In order to concentrate on ''Hairbreadth Harry'', he dropped the other strips by 1923.

Influence

Kahles was an influence on several cartoonists and strips, including

Harry Hershfield Harry Hershfield (October 13, 1885 – December 15, 1974) was an American cartoonist, humor writer and radio personality. He was known as "the Jewish Will Rogers". Hershfield also was a columnist for the ''New York Daily Mirror''. His books ...

’s ''Desperate Desmond'' and ''Dauntless Durham of the U. S. A.'' and Ed Wheelan’s ''Midget Movies''. In 1931, at the age of 53, he died of angina pectoris at his home in Great Neck, Long Island, where he had lived for 13 years. He was survived by his widow Helen and daughter Jessie. After Kahles' death, his strip was continued by

F. O. Alexander Franklin Osborne Alexander (November 3, 1897 – January 17, 1993), known professionally as F. O. Alexander, was a comic strip artist and editorial cartoonist.

for another eight years.

Biography

''Curses! Foiled Again!'' is an unpublished biography of Kahles by his daughter, Jessie Phelps Kahles Straut (September 22, 1911-November 23, 1998), of

Jacksonville, Florida Jacksonville is a city located on the Atlantic coast of northeast Florida, the most populous city proper in the state and is the largest city by area in the contiguous United States as of 2020. It is the seat of Duval County, with which th ...

. Before her 1955 marriage, she was a secretary to the Department of Architecture at the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of t ...

and an associate editor of ''Interiors'' magazine. She also did shorter biographical sketches in 1969 and 1975, followed by "More on C. W. Kahles" for ''Cartoonews'' no. 15 (1977). Harvey, Robert C., in

References

External links

Smithsonian Institution: C. W. Kahles papers. 1895–1966
{{DEFAULTSORT:Kahles, C. W. 1931 deaths American comic strip cartoonists 1878 births Emigrants from the German Empire to the United States