When the National Cartoonists Society met at the Lambs Club years ago, George Wolfe was instrumental in passing a resolution that upon the death of a member “if you couldn’t come up with a funny story, you weren’t allowed to speak.” Some of the memorials almost turned into roasts. You could hear George bellow “louder and funnier!”

Having been interested in cartooning since I was five, I was aware of George long before I ever met him. The year I was born he was already selling to Captain Willie’s Whiz Bang (a popular, notorious humor magazine published from 1919-1939). As I was growing up I’d see his work whenever I found neighbors’ discarded magazines: Liberty, Colliers, The Saturday Evening Post, Esquire, McCall’s, True, and on and on. Since he was a stylist, you could spot his work without reading his signature.

Bob Dunn once said, “that next to songwriting, cartooning is the toughest racket to break into.” The cartooning business is made up of a number of facets: comic books, newspaper strips, political cartoons, animated cartoons, and magazine gag cartoons. That last one is the toughest way to make a living in a tough industry.

George not only did it; he did it for almost fifty years. Every week roughing out a batch of ten or twelve gags. Then on Wednesdays making the rounds of various magazines. The cartoon editor would flip through the batch and pull out one or two he thought were funny. These were called ‘holds.’ If the other editors at the magazine agreed, you would get the rough back to turn into a finish and it became a ‘buy.’ It was tantamount to auditioning every single week of your life. Except for The New Yorker, there were no contracts or guarantees; you lived entirely by your wits. The ability to come up with fresh material week after week is a brain-wracking challenge and George did it for most of his life.

George’s work is collected in numerous anthologies. Some include a short profile of the contributors. In a 1954 collection titled What’s Funny About That? compiled by the editors of This Week magazine, the profile accompanied by a photo reads “George Wolfe is possibly the only cartoonist in New York who really acts like a cartoonist. He breezes from office to office with a hearty bellow…Deep down he’s completely domesticated, being wed to a demure blond who is still suspicious of the burlesque stripper he dated twenty years ago…Mr. Wolfe has been cartooning for more than twenty-five years and testifies ‘I have one good gag, and it will still be good twenty-five years from now — as long as they keep changing editors.’ “

That “one” gag must have been a pretty good one because the National Cartoonists Society gave him the Gag Cartoonist of the Year Award four times.

A typical George Wolfe gag that is a favorite of mine…the husband is sitting at the kitchen table, spoon in hand, and has obviously just tasted the soup. He has a scowl on his face. The wife stands at the stove, pot in hand, wearing a pleasant smile. The caption reads, “Don’t be silly dear if I were trying to poison you I would have made it taste good!”

The National Cartoonists Society is made up of about four hundred and fifty members. George was the treasurer of the organization for seventeen years. Every five years or so they would issue an album in which each member wrote an updated bio and show an example of his latest work. Since George never wrote the book he always threatened to write, I went through the albums and collected aphorisms he would sprinkle around his entries.

In one volume he wrote:
“As a kid, I was so small I had to stand on tiptoe to reach puberty.”
“The quickest way to become an old dog is to stop learning new tricks!”
“Litter is our grossest national product.”
“Remember — 1. Blondes have more - 2. There is no fury like a woman - 3. And familiarity breeds -“

In 1980 he wrote:
“Learn from others' mistakes, you haven’t time to learn them yourself.”
“Drink softly and carry a big credit card.”
“A gourmet is a glutton who owns a tuxedo.”
“Middle age is later than you think and earlier than you expect.”
“ A man who doesn't have a hernia isn’t carrying his share of the load.”
“We have nothing to fear but atmosphere itself.”

In 1988 he wrote:
“Turn left and I live in back of the pile of blue garbage bags in Glen Rock, N.J., have a lovely wife, two sons, four fine grandchildren, and two great daughters in law — who needs money? - “
“Age does not wither, nor custom stale my infinite charm!”

And lastly, he wrote: “A day without a George Wolfe cartoon is like a day without sunshine.”
I would amend that to be “The world without George Wolfe is like a day without sunshine.”

1993