Russell Channing Westover (March 8, 1886 – May 3, 1966) was a cartoonist best known for his long-run comic strip ''

Tillie the Toiler ''Tillie the Toiler'' is a newspaper comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often Serial (literature), serialized, with text in Speech ballo ...

''.

Early life

Westover was born in

Los Angeles, California Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

. He recalled, "When the time came... to make a living, father put me in one of the stores he owned. I used to wrap parcels, and I'd draw pictures on them. The customers liked it, but my father didn't. We talked it over and came to an agreement. I went into the railroad business." After a job as a clerk with the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

, Westover headed for San Francisco, where he studied at the Mark Hopkins Institute of Art (now the

San Francisco Art Institute San Francisco Art Institute (SFAI) was a Private college, private art school, college of contemporary art in San Francisco, California. Founded in 1871, SFAI was one of the oldest art schools in the United States and the oldest west of the Mis ...

). After four months, he dropped out after an instructor said, "Young man, the drawing of Caesar is good, but that caricature you made of me on the border is terrible".Danger Trail
/ref>

Career

Westover was 18 years old when he landed a job as a sports cartoonist with the ''

San Francisco Bulletin The ''San Francisco Evening Bulletin'' was a newspaper in San Francisco, founded as the ''Daily Evening Bulletin'' in 1855 by James King of William. King used the newspaper to crusade against political corruption, and built it into having the hig ...

''. He also contributed to the ''

San Francisco Chronicle The ''San Francisco Chronicle'' is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of Northern California. It was founded in 1865 as ''The Daily Dramatic Chronicle'' by teenage brothers Charles de Young and M. H. de Young, Michael H. ...

'', the ''San Francisco Post'' and the ''Oakland Herald''. His first

comic strip A comic strip is a Comics, sequence of 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 terminology#Captio ...

, ''Daffy Dan'', about a baseball player, was published in the ''Post''.Wheeler, Christopher. "Russ Westover".
/ref> Relocating to New York, he was at the ''

New York Herald The ''New York Herald'' was a large-distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between 1835 and 1924. At that point it was acquired by its smaller rival the '' New-York Tribune'' to form the '' New York Herald Tribune''. Hi ...

'' when he drew his first nationally syndicated strip, ''Snapshot Bill'' (1914), followed by ''Ginger Pop'', ''Fat Chance'', ''Looie and His Tin Lizzie'' and ''The Demon Demonstrator''. He also worked as an illustrator for ''

Life Life, also known as biota, refers to matter that has biological processes, such as Cell signaling, signaling and self-sustaining processes. It is defined descriptively by the capacity for homeostasis, Structure#Biological, organisation, met ...

'' and ''

Judge A judge is a person who wiktionary:preside, presides over court proceedings, either alone or as a part of a judicial panel. In an adversarial system, the judge hears all the witnesses and any other Evidence (law), evidence presented by the barris ...

'' (1918–21).

''Tillie the Toiler''

Westover worked on his concept of a

flapper Flappers were a subculture of young Western women prominent after the First World War and through the 1920s who wore short skirts (knee length was considered short during that period), bobbed their hair, listened to jazz, and flaunted their ...

character in a strip he titled ''Rose of the Office''. With a title change to ''Tillie the Toiler'', it sold to

King Features Syndicate King Features Syndicate, Inc. is an American content distribution and animation studio, consumer product License, licensing and print syndication company owned by Hearst Communications that distributes about 150 comic strips, columnist, newspape ...

. Leaving the ''Herald'', he began ''Tillie the Toiler'' for King Features in 1921, and the working-girl strip quickly established a wide readership, leading to a 1927 film adaptation by Hearst's Cosmopolitan Pictures with

Marion Davies Marion Davies (born Marion Cecilia Douras; January 3, 1897 – September 22, 1961) was an American actress, producer, screenwriter, and philanthropist. Educated in a religious convent, Davies left the school to pursue a career as a chorus girl ...

as Tillie. During the late 1920s, more than 600 papers were carrying ''Tillie The Toiler''. In 1926, he added another strip, ''The Van Swaggers'', to his

Sunday page Sunday (Latin: ''dies solis'' meaning "day of the sun") is the day of the week between Saturday and Monday. Sunday is a day of rest in most Western countries and a part of the weekend. In some Middle Eastern countries, Sunday is a weekday. F ...

as a topper.

Cupples & Leon Cupples & Leon was an American publishing company founded in 1902 by Victor I. Cupples (1864–1941) and Arthur T. Leon (1867–1943). They published juvenile fiction and children's books but are mainly remembered today as the major publi ...

published a series of at least eight ''Tillie the Toiler'' reprint collections beginning in the 1920s and continuing into the 1930s. Westover profited from another movie when Kay Harris appeared in the title role of

Columbia Pictures Columbia Pictures Industries, Inc., Trade name, doing business as Columbia Pictures, is an American film Production company, production and Film distributor, distribution company that is the flagship unit of the Sony Pictures Motion Picture Group ...

' ''Tillie the Toiler'' in 1941. When Westover retired in the early 1950s, Bob Gustafson continued ''Tillie the Toiler'' until 1959.

Death

Westover was 80 when he died in 1966 in

San Rafael, California San Rafael ( ; Spanish language, Spanish for "Raphael (archangel), St. Raphael", ) is a city in and the county seat of Marin County, California, United States. The city is located in the North Bay (San Francisco Bay Area), North Bay region of th ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Westover, Russ 1886 births 1966 deaths American comic strip cartoonists American comics writers American comics artists American humorists Artists from Los Angeles San Francisco Art Institute alumni