Wayback Whensday: “Paul Arthur”
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In 1935 Noel Sickles and Milton Caniff were riding high having transformed the daily comics pages with their comic strips. Sickles influenced the black and white comic art with his work on Scorchy Smith, while Caniff had brought a new phase of adventure with his writing on Terry and The Pirates. And since they shared a studio they heavily influenced each other while frequently helping out on the other’s strip.
By mid-1935 they had expanded their activities to advertising. To hide the moonlighting from their syndicates they went under the pen name Paul Arthur. The team, Sickles remembers drawing it on alternating strips while Caniff remembers inking Sickles pencils, famously took over the Postum comic strip ads featuring Mr. Coffee Nerves. The first “Paul Arthur” Postum ad appeared during the week that split the end of 1935 and the beginning of 1936 (shown above). That strip went through a couple of revisions through early 1936.
But this is not about the Postum run, instead it is about an earlier series that Paul Arthur did for Baker’s Coconut. The only mention The Daily Cartoonist finds of this short threesome of ads that appeared in late 1935 is in the Lambiek Comiclopedia entry for Caniff, and then only in passing (not mentioned in the Sickles entry).
As noted above we found three pre-Postum Sunday half-page style ads signed “Paul Arthur.”
Apparently impressed with the Sickles/Caniff ability General Foods moved the pair to their Postum account. While either the company or the ad agency got someone to do their best, but inadequate, imitation of the Paul Arthur art style to continue the Baker’s Coconut ads.
Some 40 years later Sickles and Caniff would once again collaborate under the Paul Arthur sobriquet to propose a Bruce Lee comic strip.
note: those Baker’s Coconut ads have been posted in much larger sizes on The Daily Cartoonist Facebook page.
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