The Printing Art, December 1915
(Next post on Monday: A Few Details About Jerry Robinson, Letterer, Inker and Artist (Plus Ernie Kovacs, Teenage “Pirate”)
LETTERING • LOGOS • LETTERFORMS • ALPHABETS • TYPOGRAPHY • CALLIGRAPHY • ETC
Most of the women in the comic book shops of the 1940s worked in outfits run by Jack Binder, Lloyd and Grace Jacquet, Eisner-Iger (later Iger-Roche), or Harry “A” Chesler. It was Chesler who had acted as an agent for the work of Corinne Dillon, Jean Hotchkiss and Claire Moe in the late thirties. Female artists who worked in his shop include Ann Brewster and Georgette Sauterel, but neither stayed long. Sauterel did the bulk of her work for the Binder shop and Brewster, who under Chesler’s direction did “Yankee Girl” for Dynamic, soon left to join her there. Jack Binder’s comic book art factory was located in Englewood, New Jersey. There he and his staff produced an abundance of material for Fawcett and Street & Smith comic books between 1940 and 1943. The women he employed—Ann Brewster, June Hill, Gloria Kamen, Betty Kathe, Pauline Loth, Georgette Sauterel and Marcia Snyder ...
Georgette Sauterel Egan, Physics—Rolling Hills Estate
Egan, Georgette S., BA/BS16390 Buchet Dr., Granada Hills, Calif. 91344
Georgette S. Egan, 72, Manatee County, died June 10, 1995.She was born Sept. 15, 1922, in New York City, and came to this area 23 years ago from Los Angeles. She was an engineer and physicist for Hughes Aircraft and was one of three women managers. She was a senior project engineer for Levi Strauss. She was a Catholic. She received a bachelor’s degree in physics from UCLA in 1966. She served in the Women’s Army Corps during World War II.Survivors include two daughters, Dania Greer of Blackburn, Victoria, Australia, and Patricia of Bradenton.There will be no visitation or services. Manasota Memorial Funeral Home is in charge.
There are 11 cartoonists in the 22-man organization. Three men do nothing but lettering for the artists, and special features writers prepare the continuity.
Mr. Meltzer was a free-lance art director, advertising consultant and graphic layout artist, contracting with several major corporations.He was an accomplished artist in both writing and painting and a prolific photographer.He moved to Stockbridge in May 1989 from Huntington, L.I., where he had been a founder of the Huntington Art League. [He probably knew Creig Flessel.]
Chesler & Company, moving here from Orange, have leased the Otto S., Martin property, 230 East Front Street, for occupancy about October 15. They are distributors for a nationally known bacon and butter products organization. The Front Street Street building is to be used for the main office, storage and garage of the concern. …Harry Chesler, president of the concern, has moved his residence here, having leased the former Israel Cohn property on Whittier Avenue.Trenton was chosen as the main distributing centre because of its fine geographical position. Trucks will be operated out of here to Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland.
“Years ago, when I worked for The Philadelphia Public Ledger, everyone else had a middle name, so they gave me the ‘A.’ It stands for ‘anything,’ ...“I moved into the comics business in New York in 1935, first at Fifth Avenue and 32d Street [sic] and then at Seventh Avenue and 23d Street. I commuted from Dover for $6.45 a week. We put out a 64‐page, four‐color comic book that sold for 10 cents. ...
“Besides about 75 of my own titles, we produced comics for some 50 different publishers. At one time, there were 40 artists working for me and I had 300 comic titles on the newstands.”
... Chesler Syndicate also publishes “Star Comics” and “Star Ranger,” both comic magazines in four color, distributed by Macfadden. Plans are afoot for a daily comic page in black and white, and a 24-page weekly tabloid of color comics. ...There are 11 cartoonists in the 22-man organization. Three men do nothing but lettering for the artists, and special features writers prepare the continuity.Enthusiastic about his shop, Mr. Chesler was reluctant to talk about himself. He said that he had been working on the idea for several years and that he has once been a salesman for the Dougherty Printing Company of Chicago for a short time.
“One name, Harry ‘A’ Chesler, began to turn up with almost predictable frequency back in 1969, when I began a series of personal interviews with artists and writers. Chesler employed a staff that ranged from young kids who loved comics to older, syndicated newspaper strip men who couldn’t find a job anywhere else.“Collectively, they helped launch ‘The Golden Age of Comics.’ They created a legion of super heroes and continued turning out a mountain of comic pages to satisfy the voracious hunger of demanding public.”
Star comics. © Chesler publications, inc. 80931937, no. 1, Feb. © Jan. 1; B 326036.Star ranger. inc. © Chesler publications, inc. 80941937, no. 1, Feb. © Jan. 1; B 326037.
... Much of this material was created by the first comic art “shop,” which had been set up in the summer of 1936 by a farsighted entrepreneur named Harry “A” Chesler.Chesler had been in advertising in Chicago, and when he saw comic books on the horizon, he realized that he could package material for an assortment of comic book publishers in the same manner that brochures were manufactured for different clients by advertising agencies. He recruited several writers and artists and set up his “shop,” a comic book factory that could produce stories … quickly and cheaply by using assembly-line methods. The Chesler Shop was a large room on the third or fourth floor of an old tenement building at 276 Fifth Avenue. ...
He set up his studio in a long, open workspace, last used by a wholesaler of buttons and zippers for the garment trade, on the fourth floor of 276 Fifth Avenue, a ten-story, half-block-long building north of Twenty-ninth Street. Chesler filled the room with rows of used desks, which were cheaper than drawing tables, and he lorded over the shop as if it were a gangland fiefdom ...
Chesler (Harry A.), trading as King Kole beverage co., New York. 2371 King Kola. For non-alcoholic beverage. © Oct. 1, 1940; KK 3473.
Harry A. Chesler, Jr., Features Syndicate—163 West 23rd St., New York, N. Y. Harry A. Chesler, Jr., Editor. Roughs for gags (finished drawings are done by own staff). Cartoons appealing to hunters and fishermen. Payment on acceptance.