Topps Baseball Card Cartoonists – Bottom of the Ninth
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Here we will identify the tenth artist to draw baseball card cartoons for Topps who is now known by name. As was the case for the cartoonists featured in Part II, the artist in question here is known to have worked for Topps in other, non-sports capacities – for what it’s worth, the assertion that ‘he also illustrated comics on packages of Topps Chewing Gum’ (whatever that means) is all over the internet. Yet no one seems to have remembered that he drew cartoons on the backs of Topps baseball cards, as well. This is somewhat ironic, as he was a very well-known comic artist: John Celardo (1918–2012).
In Part Four (and final) of Eric White’s “Who Drew the Classic Topps Baseball Cartoons?” series for Sports Collectors Daily Eric identifies cartoonist John Celardo as another until now anonymous baseball card artist.
Celardo’s employment by Topps Chewing Gum, which began in 1968, or possibly a few months earlier, coincided with the end of his long run as illustrator for the Tarzan strip.
I am not familiar with Celardo’s cartoony style on these baseball card spots but through his comic book and comic strip work I am familiar with the identifying jaws and chins of his realistic comic art.
As Eric White tells us:
Granted, the 1977 cartoons don’t look much like Celardo’s well-known comic book styles – they’re much more ‘cartoony’, with cute little figures cheerfully enacting fun facts from baseball history. But a skilled draftsman wasn’t going to make the ballplayers on bubble gum cards all look like classic Tarzan characters, was he?
Conclusion to Parts I-IV
When longtime Topps executive Sy Berger said in 2003 that he could not remember the early Topps baseball cartoonists, adding ‘those guys are long gone’ (see Part I), he must have been stretching the truth – and more than just a little bit – to preserve the veil of anonymity. Yes, Wesley Morse (1897–1963) had been dead for forty years, Bob Powell (1916–1967), who died at fifty, for nearly as long, and the artists of the 1953 and 1954 sets may well have been long gone, too. But had Berger already forgotten the famous Lou Darvas (1913–1987), the immortal Jack Kirby (1917–1994), and even Tom Sutton (1937–2002), who had just died a few months before the 2003 interview? Think about it – most of the cartoonists who worked on the classic Topps sets were still around: in 2003 Irwin Hasen (1918–2015) was still alive; John Celardo (1918–2012) was still alive; Murray Olderman (1922–2020) was still alive; Bhob Stewart (1937–2014) was still alive; and Jack Davis (1924–2016), a name that will never be ‘lost to history’, was still alive. These ten weren’t just forgettable freelancers – they’re a virtual lineup of Hall of Famers in the comic world – and most of them were by no means ‘long gone’.
Extra Innings
Eric hopes to continue this series after further investigation. In his afterword he lists more than a dozen artists of various Topps baseball sets for years from 1953 to 1975 yet to be identified.
Eric White’s Who Drew the Classic Topps Baseball Cartoons? Parts I-IV has been archived.
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