John Held Jr. - part 2

John Held, Jr. (1889-1958) was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, was a cartoonist whose work epitomised the “jazz age” of the 1920s in the United States. At the age of 16 he was drawing sports and political cartoons for the Salt Lake Tribune, and at 19 he sold his first cartoon to a national magazine. Shortly afterward he moved to New York City, where he worked in the art department of a newspaper.

After service in the U.S. Navy during World War I, Held returned to New York City, where he gained fame and wealth for his drawings in the popular humour magazines Life, Judge, and College Humor. These drawings conveyed a spirit of the era comparable to that in the writings of F. Scott Fitzgerald. In particular, Held created such immortal characters as the short-skirted, short-haired “flapper,” who rolled her stockings and used a long cigarette holder, and her escort, who wore a raccoon coat, had patent-leather hair parted in the middle, smoked a pipe, and carried a hip flask. Held’s ability to point up the foibles of the time without sentimentality or bitterness made his cartoons notable. Also during the 1920s, he drew two comic strips: “Merely Margie, an Awfully Sweet Girl” and “Rah, Rah, Rosalie,” both of which ended with the Depression.

During the 1930s Held wrote novels and short stories and did sculpture and woodcuts. His woodcuts, often evoking the “Gay Nineties,” appeared in The New Yorker magazine. During World War II he served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps and was stationed in Belmar, N.J., where he made his home after the war. Held’s Angels (1952), illustrated by Held, with text by Frank Bunker Gilbreth Jr., was a word and picture evocation of the 1920s.

For more information on John Held Jr, and for earlier works see part 1 also. 

This is part 2 of a 6-part series on the works of John Held Jr:

1920s "Oh! Margy!" series:

Some 100 years later it might appear as if Oh! Margy! was yet another attempt to duplicate the success of Ethel Hays’ Flapper Fanny. But John Held Jr., famed graphic chronicler of the roaring twenties, actually started his feature a year before Flapper Fanny. Despite the marquee name, though, Oh! Margy! ran in few papers and made little impression.

Perhaps it was because it was syndicated by the then tiny United Feature Syndicate. UFS was only notable in the mid-20s for its bargain basement production work, sending out badly cast stereotypes of minor features to small papers that couldn’t afford better suppliers.

Oh! Margy! ran as both a daily and Sunday feature. The Sunday, however, was not of the color Sunday funnies variety, just a larger version of the black-and-white daily. It started on April 6 1924, followed by the daily on May 5. The daily ran in few papers, but the Sunday version is downright rare. The feature ended on May 22 1927, the daily ending one day earlier. These dates are all based on the San Francisco Chronicle’s run, one of the few major papers that ran and stuck with the feature over its three year term.

Margy meets her film hero, the ideal of ideals -

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Margy does not need a dictionary to do crossword puzzles. She knows that a six letter mouse trap is Tom Cat -

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Margy promised to wear Spike's Frat Pin -

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Margy starts to get ready for her heavy date -

At this time of year Margy spends most of her day cracking nuts. Black walnuts are difficult -

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Margy returns from her trip abroad and finds she must go thru the ordeal of the Customs -

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One of Margy's heavy crushes falls hard for the girl who taught him to use chop sticks

In olden days the girls got up at day break to do the milking

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If Margy strutted her stuff, according to the different magazines -

Margy says would be a strange world if things were and where near the way her set talked -

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Margy is wild about parties. She gets a kick out of dancing -

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Margy's latest crush is just the grandest boy -

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Margy is off boys for life -

If Margy strutted her stuff, according to the different magazines -

It's getting so Margy has to fix her dates in two shifts -

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Margy says its the old army game -

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Margy and her girl friend, are stepping out, so they get a hair trim -

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New dresses must be fitted

In days gone by Grandma was courted with a bunch of Calla Lilies -

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The dancing flea who once did 101 hours without stopping takes Margy to the Country Club Hop

Margy thought her boy friend looked great in his new turtle necked sweater

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Margy says the harder the nut, the sooner they crack

Margy starts for Europe. She bids her "hot number" a tearful farewell -

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Of course you all know Margy is in London, she came over last week -

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Margy flies from London to Paris -

You could not say Margy's tennis costume was a waste of material -

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Even with all Margy's social welfare work, she is visited in the still watches of the night by a bold bad bandit -

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Margy gets all mixed up with a swarm of bees -

Margy's heavy pash gets a new Katsy Bus. So they go out to see what it will do -

Margy is rather puzzled to see what the boys can stand on the ball field -

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Margy got all togged out in fancy dress for the big costume party

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