Gustave Verbeek
Encyclopedia
Gustave Verbeek (1867, Nagasaki, Japan
- 1937, New York City
, New York
) was an illustrator, best known for his newspaper cartoons in the early 1900s featuring an inventive use of word play
and visual storytelling tricks.
Verbeek was of Dutch ancestry, but was born in Nagasaki, the son of Reformed Church in America
missionary
Guido Verbeck
. He grew up in Japan, but went to Paris to study art, and worked for several European newspapers, creating illustrations and cartoons. In 1900 he moved to the United States, where he did illustrations for magazines such as Harper's, and produced a series of weekly comic strips for newspapers. In the 1920s he started concentrating on engraving and painting. He died in 1937.
Verbeek is most noted for The Upside Downs of Little Lady Lovekins and Old Man Muffaroo, a weekly 6-panel comic strip
in which the first half of the story was illustrated and captioned right-side-up, then the reader would turn the page up-side-down, and the inverted illustrations with additional captions describing the scenes told the second half of the story, for a total of 12 panels. His signature usually appeared at the top of the first/last panel, upside down. The two main characters were designed such that each would be perceived as the other character when inverted. For example, in one often-reproduced panel, Muffaroo appears in a canoe next to a tree-covered island, and is being attacked by a large fish. When inverted, the image shows a later scene of Lovekins in the beak of a giant roc: Muffaroo's canoe has become the bird's beak, the fish has turned into the bird's head, the island has become its body and the trees its legs, and Muffaroo has turned into Lovekins. Verbeek created a total of 64 of these strips for The New York Herald, from October 11, 1903 to January 15, 1905.
Verbeek's longest-running strip was The Terrors of the Tiny Tads, published by the Herald from May 28, 1905 to October 28, 1914. This strip features a group of four unnamed and interchangeable boys, who encounter a variety of strange creatures based on inventive word combinations. For example, they find a "hippopautomobile" (a hippopotamus
with a steering wheel and seating in its back as in an automobile
), a "pelicanoe" (a pelican
in which a rider could sit and paddle like a canoe
), and a "samovarmint" (a samovar
for serving tea with the head and claws of a wild animal).
He created a short-lived strip in 1910 called The Loony Lyrics of Lulu. These strips are about a girl who encounters imaginary creatures and writes (inoffensive) limerick
s about them.
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
- 1937, New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
, New York
New York
New York is a state in the Northeastern region of the United States. It is the nation's third most populous state. New York is bordered by New Jersey and Pennsylvania to the south, and by Connecticut, Massachusetts and Vermont to the east...
) was an illustrator, best known for his newspaper cartoons in the early 1900s featuring an inventive use of word play
Word play
Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...
and visual storytelling tricks.
Verbeek was of Dutch ancestry, but was born in Nagasaki, the son of Reformed Church in America
Reformed Church in America
The Reformed Church in America is a mainline Reformed Protestant denomination in Canada and the United States. It has about 170,000 members, with the total declining in recent decades. From its beginning in 1628 until 1819, it was the North American branch of the Dutch Reformed Church. In 1819, it...
missionary
Missionary
A missionary is a member of a religious group sent into an area to do evangelism or ministries of service, such as education, literacy, social justice, health care and economic development. The word "mission" originates from 1598 when the Jesuits sent members abroad, derived from the Latin...
Guido Verbeck
Guido Verbeck
Guido Herman Fridolin Verbeck was a Dutch political advisor, educator, and missionary active in Bakumatsu and Meiji period Japan...
. He grew up in Japan, but went to Paris to study art, and worked for several European newspapers, creating illustrations and cartoons. In 1900 he moved to the United States, where he did illustrations for magazines such as Harper's, and produced a series of weekly comic strips for newspapers. In the 1920s he started concentrating on engraving and painting. He died in 1937.
Comics
Verbeek's first strip was Easy Papa, a fairly conventional strip about two mischievous kids and their father, similar to the highly popular contemporary strip The Katzenjammer Kids, which ran in a competing newspaper. Easy Papa appeared in The New York Herald from May 25, 1902 through February 1, 1903.Comic strip
A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....
in which the first half of the story was illustrated and captioned right-side-up, then the reader would turn the page up-side-down, and the inverted illustrations with additional captions describing the scenes told the second half of the story, for a total of 12 panels. His signature usually appeared at the top of the first/last panel, upside down. The two main characters were designed such that each would be perceived as the other character when inverted. For example, in one often-reproduced panel, Muffaroo appears in a canoe next to a tree-covered island, and is being attacked by a large fish. When inverted, the image shows a later scene of Lovekins in the beak of a giant roc: Muffaroo's canoe has become the bird's beak, the fish has turned into the bird's head, the island has become its body and the trees its legs, and Muffaroo has turned into Lovekins. Verbeek created a total of 64 of these strips for The New York Herald, from October 11, 1903 to January 15, 1905.
Verbeek's longest-running strip was The Terrors of the Tiny Tads, published by the Herald from May 28, 1905 to October 28, 1914. This strip features a group of four unnamed and interchangeable boys, who encounter a variety of strange creatures based on inventive word combinations. For example, they find a "hippopautomobile" (a hippopotamus
Hippopotamus
The hippopotamus , or hippo, from the ancient Greek for "river horse" , is a large, mostly herbivorous mammal in sub-Saharan Africa, and one of only two extant species in the family Hippopotamidae After the elephant and rhinoceros, the hippopotamus is the third largest land mammal and the heaviest...
with a steering wheel and seating in its back as in an automobile
Automobile
An automobile, autocar, motor car or car is a wheeled motor vehicle used for transporting passengers, which also carries its own engine or motor...
), a "pelicanoe" (a pelican
Pelican
A pelican, derived from the Greek word πελεκυς pelekys is a large water bird with a large throat pouch, belonging to the bird family Pelecanidae....
in which a rider could sit and paddle like a canoe
Canoe
A canoe or Canadian canoe is a small narrow boat, typically human-powered, though it may also be powered by sails or small electric or gas motors. Canoes are usually pointed at both bow and stern and are normally open on top, but can be decked over A canoe (North American English) or Canadian...
), and a "samovarmint" (a samovar
Samovar
A samovar is a heated metal container traditionally used to heat and boil water in and around Russia, as well as in other Central, South-Eastern, Eastern European countries,Kashmir and in the Middle-East...
for serving tea with the head and claws of a wild animal).
He created a short-lived strip in 1910 called The Loony Lyrics of Lulu. These strips are about a girl who encounters imaginary creatures and writes (inoffensive) limerick
Limerick (poetry)
A limerick is a kind of a witty, humorous, or nonsense poem, especially one in five-line or meter with a strict rhyme scheme , which is sometimes obscene with humorous intent. The form can be found in England as of the early years of the 18th century...
s about them.