Behind the Byline: Crockett Johnson
Crockett Johnson (1906-1975), born David Johnson Leisk, had a career as a cartoonist and newspaper comic strip artist before he wrote children’s books, most notably “Harold and the Purple Crayon.” See where you can find his work in the journals and newspapers at the Library of Congress.

“Harold and the Purple Crayon” has been a staple in children’s picture book collections ever since it was published in 1955. The author, Crockett Johnson, started his career as a cartoonist in periodicals and newspapers.

Born David Johnson Leisk, he established his pen name “Crockett Johnson” early on in his career. His early work can be found in New Masses, a weekly Marxist periodical from New York. Published from 1926 through 1948, New Masses aimed at revolutionizing the culture as well as politics. It featured essays and commentary on current national events as well as poems, artwork, cartoons, and book and theatre reviews.

Front cover of the journal New Masses, featuring a checker board background with each square listing an article and author.
Front cover of the December 18, 1934 issue of New Masses listing Johnson’s name among those contributing drawings to the issue.
An editorial cartoon featuring a woman complaining to her husband.
Cartoon by Johnson in the August 7, 1934 issue of New Masses, pg. 22.
An editorial cartoon featuring two politicians conferring about a boy who is king.
Cartoon by Johnson in the December 18, 1934 issue of New Masses, pg. 26

Johnson contributed editorial cartoons and illustrations from April 1934 till May 1940. He also joined the editorial board in 1936 and contributed the occasional review as well. At the time, other contributors to the periodical included Ernest Hemingway, Theodore Dreiser, Upton Sinclair, and Archibald MacLeish, who would become the Librarian of Congress in 1939.

Overlapping with his time at New Masses, Johnson also drew a weekly comic strip for Collier’s from March 1940 through January 1943. Collier’s was a weekly popular magazine established in 1888 that carried illustrated essays, nonfiction stories, and many one-panel cartoons. Johnson’s comic strip had no main title, but became known as “The Little Man with the Eyes” due to the appearance of his main character featured in each episode. With no text in the panels, the comic presents a variety of relatable circumstances, some of them particularly referencing World War II.

A collage of four comic strips of the grey and sepia tone panels featuring a man with huge white eyes.
Various cartoons of “The Little Man with the Eyes” by Johnson in Collier’s: (TL) October 3, 1942, (TR) July 4, 1942, (BR) October 17, 1942, (BL) July 22, 1942.

By far the most popular contribution to serial cartoons was Johnson’s “Barnaby” comic strip. With its debut on April 20, 1942, the daily comic strip started in the New York newspaper PM and was syndicated in other U.S. newspapers.

Newspaper comic strip of 4 panels showing Barnaby being read to by his mother and going to bed and wishing for a fairy godmother of his own.
PM (New York, N.Y.), April 20, 1942, p. 24
Newspaper comic strip with four panels of Barnaby meeting his fairy godfather for the first time as he crash lands through his bedroom window.
PM (New York, N.Y.), April 21, 1942, p. 24.

The five-year-old titular protagonist and his fairy godfather, Mr. O’Malley, are accompanied by a variety characters, including a talking dog, a glasses-wearing ghost, and an invisible leprechaun. Johnson did not handletter the text of the comic, but typed it, which allowed more room for the loquacious Mr. O’Malley and Barnaby’s lecturing parents. Even with longer text, the audiences were riveted and charmed by the humorous point of view of a little kid encountering worldly issues.

Johnson was joined by several collaborators over the ten-year run of the comic, and the popularity prompted theatre adaptations, compiled volumes, and a four-issue comic books series, the “Barnaby Quarterly,” which carried the subtitles of “America’s funniest comic for adults” and “the comic with a high IQ.” The strip ceased in 1952, but re-prints occurred in 1960 which were edited to remove the references to World War II.

A drawing of the comic character Mr. O'Malley that has been altered by Johnson to look like actor Bert Lahr, who would portray O'Malley on television.
A drawing of Mr. O’Malley as if he were portrayed by actor Bert Lahr. Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), December 20, 1959.

The later portion of Johnson’s career was dedicated to his mathematical paintings and children’s books alongside his wife, Ruth Krauss, but there is one more comic panel that you can read in Chronicling America* in the Evening Star (Washington, D.C.) from May through October 1955. The comic was a daily single panel titled “Barkis & Family,” though it also appears as “Barkis and Family.” Giving the perspective of the family dog, these charming cartoons will make you chuckle!

Single panel comic featuring Barkis the dog inside, barking to be let outside.
Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), August 5, 1955.
Single panel comic featuring Barkis the dog who has been dressed in a hat and coat by a little girl.
Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), May 17, 1955.
Single panel comic featuring Barkis the dog speaking to another dog.
Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), June 3, 1955.

Johnson’s artistic career extended far beyond his syndicated cartoons. His clean-cut black and white drawing style is a unifying factor in all his art that continues to be enjoyed by adults and children alike.

Explore More:

See Johnson’s paintings housed at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History.

Crockett Johnson Website created and maintained by Philip Nel.

“Cartoon Books are Good Fun” by Philip H. Love. Sunday Star (Washington, D.C.), December 2, 1945.

Read the five volumes of collected “Barnaby”: volume 1

Watch the recording of a conversation with stars Zachary Levi and Zooey Deschanel as they read excerpts from Harold and the Purple Crayon, discuss the new movie, and take questions from the audience.

 

Resources

Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an unlikely couple found love, dodged the FBI, and transformed children’s literature by Philip Nel (2012).

American Newspaper Comics: an encyclopedic reference guide (2012).

*The Chronicling America historic newspapers online collection is a product of the National Digital Newspaper Program and jointly sponsored by the Library and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

Follow Chronicling America on X  @ChronAmLOC

Click here to subscribe to Headlines & Heroes–it’s free!

Source: https://blogs.loc.gov/headlinesandheroes/2024/08/crockett-johnson/

Behind the Byline: Crockett Johnson