Happy 80th NCS!
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The National Cartoonists Society (NCS) was formed 80 years ago on March 1, 1946.
From the National Cartoonists Society page:
The Society was born at a specially convened dinner in New York in March, 1946, that saw Rube Goldberg elected as president, Russell Patterson as vice president, C.D. Russell as secretary and Milton Caniff as treasurer. A second vice president, Otto Soglow, was subsequently added. Within two weeks, the Society had 32 members…
In May of 1947 the NCS made news across the country by awarding Milton Caniff as “Cartoonist of the Year” and presenting him with “The Barney” soon to be renamed “The Reuben” after Rube Goldberg.
The final paragraph of the event gave a brief history of the young organization:
R. C. Harvey excerpted portions of his 2007 biography of Milton Caniff to give what seems to be the most complete record of the founding of the National Cartoonists Society (or here):
ON FRIDAY NIGHT, March 1, 1946, twenty-six cartoonists assembled at the Barberry Room on East 52nd Street in Manhattan. They met at 7 p.m. for drinks and dinner, and after dinner, they waved their inky-fingered hands and conjured into being the National Cartoonists Society. Then when the voting was over, they started a heated argument about how to define a cartoonist and retired to pour cooling emollients on the conflagration.
The Society may have been formally founded on that Friday night, but it had been gestating for years…
No attendance was taken that first night; no charter signed. So there is no roster of the first members. But if we don’t know exactly who the 26 charter members were, we know they must be among the 32 names Caniff listed as having paid dues by March 13: strip cartoonists Wally Bishop (Muggs and Skeeter), Martin Branner (Winnie Winkle), Ernie Bushmiller (Nancy), Caniff, Gus Edson (The Gumps), Ham Fisher (Joe Palooka), Harry Haenigsen (Penny), Fred Harmon (Red Ryder), Jay Irving (Willie Doodle), Al Posen (Sweeney and Son), C.D. Russell (Pete the Tramp), Otto Soglow (Little King), Jack Sparling (Claire Voyant), Ray Van Buren (Abbie ‘n’ Slats), Dow Walling (Skeets), and Frank Willard (Moon Mullins); syndicated panel cartoonists Dave Breger (Mister Breger), George Clark (The Neighbors), Bob Dunn (Just the Type), Jimmy Hatlo (They’ll Do It Every Time), Bill Holman (Smokey Stover), and Stan MacGovern (Silly Milly); freelance magazine cartoonists Abner Dean and Mischa Richter, editorial cartoonists Rube Goldberg (New York Sun), Burris Jenkins (Journal American), C.D. Batchelor (Daily News), and Richard Q. Yardley (Baltimore Sun); sports cartoonist Lou Hanlon; advertising and illustration, Russell Patterson; and comic book cartoonists Joe Shuster (the artist half of Superman’s creative team, who with partner Jerome Siegel, was now inventing a new costumed hero for comic books, Funnyman) and Joe Musial. Two of this number—Bishop and Yardley—were out-of-towners and may not have been present at the March 1 meeting. But which of the remaining 30 attended the founding festivities is a lost fact…
Congratulations to The National Cartoonists Society!
The NCS will, in August 2026, award its 80th Cartoonist of the Year Reuben Award.
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