Fred Neher (September 29, 1903 – September 22, 2001) was an American cartoonist best known for his syndicated gag panel, ''
Life's Like That'', which offered a humorous look at human nature, with a focus on American society and family life, for more than five decades.
Biography
Growing up in
Nappanee, Indiana
Nappanee is a city in Elkhart County, Indiana, Elkhart and Kosciusko County, Indiana, Kosciusko counties in the U.S. state of Indiana. The population was 6,648 as of the 2010 United States census, 2010 U.S. Census and had grown to 6,913 by the 2 ...
, Neher was 12 years old when he was paid $2.00 for doing a drawing of a woman hanging clothes with a new type of clothespin. While he was a student at Nappanee High School, he took the
Landon School of Illustration and Cartooning correspondence course.
Neher succeeded in selling a cartoon to the popular humor magazine ''
Judge'' before he graduated from high school in 1922. He furthered his art study at the
Chicago Academy of Fine Arts
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is a private art school associated with the Art Institute of Chicago (AIC) in Chicago, Illinois. Tracing its history to an art students' cooperative founded in 1866, which grew into the museum an ...
, and after graduation, he worked as an assistant to cartoonist
Arch Dale, doing lettering and backgrounds on Dale's comic strip ''Doo-Dads''. Neher recalled:
Several years of work on this strip gave me experience enough to attempt my own strip, ''Otto Wall'', a radio strip. A golf strip, ''Layon McDuff'', came next, followed by ''Goofey Movies'', an animal strip, and ''Just Like Us'', a kid strip, which appeared in the first issue of ''Family Circle
''Family Circle'' was an American magazine that covered such topics as homemaking, recipes, and health. It was published from 1932 until the end of 2019. Originally distributed at supermarkets, it was one of the " Seven Sisters," a group of sev ...
'' magazine and thereafter for four years. From 1930 to 1934, I freelanced to magazines, having some 40 markets, including ''Punch
Punch commonly refers to:
* Punch (combat), a strike made using the hand closed into a fist
* Punch (drink), a wide assortment of drinks, non-alcoholic or alcoholic, generally containing fruit or fruit juice
Punch may also refer to:
Places
* Pun ...
'', the English magazine. I was the first American to sell to ''Punch'' in 20 years.
One example of his freelancing was a
Mickey Mouse-themed cartoon in the September 1932 issue of ''
Photoplay''.
The radio-themed cartoons of ''Otto Watt'' ran adjacent to newspaper radio program listings. Neher drew ''Goofey Movies'' for five years, along with gag cartoons for 42 magazines, including ''
Collier's'' and ''
The New Yorker
''The New Yorker'' is an American weekly magazine featuring journalism, commentary, criticism, essays, fiction, satire, cartoons, and poetry. Founded as a weekly in 1925, the magazine is published 47 times annually, with five of these issues ...
'', when the
Bell Syndicate
The Bell Syndicate, launched in 1916 by editor-publisher John Neville Wheeler, was an American syndicate that distributed columns, fiction, feature articles and comic strips to newspapers for decades. It was located in New York City at 247 West 4 ...
launched ''Life's Like That'' on October 1, 1934. It ran until 1941, disappearing from newspapers during
World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...
, but returning in 1945.
[Morehead, Toni. "The Nappanee Six".]
/ref>
In 1951, Neher and his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, where he taught cartooning at the University of Colorado
The University of Colorado (CU) is a system of public universities in Colorado. It consists of four institutions: University of Colorado Boulder, University of Colorado Colorado Springs, University of Colorado Denver, and the University o ...
for 12 years.
Retirement and death
Neher stopped doing the ''Life's Like That'' Sunday half-page in October 1972,[ and he retired five years later, devoting his energy to playing golf, raising roses and growing tomatoes. When he died at age 98 in Boulder, Colorado in 2001, Owen S. Good wrote in the '']Rocky Mountain News
The ''Rocky Mountain News'' (nicknamed the ''Rocky'') was a daily newspaper published in Denver, Colorado, United States, from April 23, 1859, until February 27, 2009. It was owned by the E. W. Scripps Company from 1926 until its closing. As ...
'':
:He is survived by pot-bellied businessmen, henpecked husbands, worldly-wise goldfish and babies with thin curlicues of hair, all actors in the everyday comedies he staged on the funny pages.
Books
Neher's cartoons were reprinted in various books and publications, such as Thomas Craven's ''Cartoon Cavalcade'' (1943) and the November 1945 issue of ''Cartoon Digest''. His 96-page book ''Will-yum'' (a recurring character from ''Life's Like That'' not related to Dave Gerard's popular ''Will-Yum'' strip for National Newspaper Syndicate
The National Newspaper Syndicate, originally known as the John F. Dille Co., was a syndication service that operated from 1917 to c. 1984. It was founded by Chicago businessman John F. Dille and specialized in comic strips and gag cartoons. It al ...
) was published by Berkley Books in 1958, followed by ''Hi-Teens'' (Berkley, 1959).
Archives
He donated his ''Life's Like That'' cartoon originals, scrapbooks, published books, magazines and correspondence to the University of Colorado Library Archives (where they fill 36 linear feet). As he described it, "Univ. of Colo. ask to have all my original drawings for safe keeping... came in a truck and left me only my shorts."
References
External links
{{DEFAULTSORT:Neher, Fred
American comic strip cartoonists
1903 births
2001 deaths
People from Nappanee, Indiana