Description
This collection contains comic strips from three cartoonists: Glen R. Bernhart, Larry Wright and Bob Barnes, including the
comic strips "The Better Half" and “Kit’n’Carlyle”, as well as issues of the quarterly journal “Cartoonist Profiles”.
Background
Robert L. “Bob” Barnes was born on March 8, 1913 in Portland, Oregon. He sold his first cartoon at the age of twelve. Barnes
worked a variety of jobs over the years, including selling sewing machines and doing public relations work for California
Shipbuilding during World War II. In 1947, he got his big break with his first cartoon sale to the Saturday Evening Post.
He was contracted with the magazine for fifteen years. Barnes went on to create “The Better Half” in 1956, which he drew for
the Register and the Tribune Syndicate. “The Better Half” is a comic strip featuring the characters Harriet and Stanley Parker.
Bob Barnes created this comic strip in 1956 and it was syndicated and appeared daily in the Monterey Bay Herald, as well as
over 200 other newspapers. In 1958, it was awarded the Best Cartoon Panel from the National Cartoonists Society. In 1960 he
and his wife, Ruth, moved to Carmel Valley. Barnes died on November 12, 1970 at his home in Laguna Seca Ranch Estates. His
wife continued drawing “The Better Half.”
Glenn R. Bernhardt was born in St. Paul Minnesota. He studied art at the Minneapolis Art Institute and later at the San Francisco
Institute of Advertising Art. On his first try, the Saturday Evening Post bought two of his cartoons and his career as a comic
artist was born. He also published in such works as “Better Homes,” “Monterey Life,” and the Wall Street Journal. He has two
books: Cartoons/Bernhardt and How to Put Fun in Your Sex Life. Bernhardt lives with his wife Mary Lou in Carmel.
Larry Wright has been drawing cartoons since the age of ten, when he drew comic books for his friends in Detroit, Michigan.
Wright studied Chinese and in the army was sent to Okinawa as an interpreter. In Japan, he drew the comic strip “Uncle Milton”
for the Okinawa Morning Star. After returning to the Detroit area, Wright worked for eleven years for the Detroit Press and
then moved to the Detroit News. Wright began his first syndicated comic, “Wright Angels,” in 1977. “Kit’n’Carlyle” has been
in worldwide syndication since 1980. Carlyle, the cat in “Kit’n’Carlyle,” was originally modeled after Motley Wright’s daughters
cat who was a character in “Wright’s Angels.” Wright is past president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists.
“Cartoonist Profiles,” included in this collection, is a quarterly journal of the comic arts professional. As of 2010 it has
been in publication for 38 years. The journal chronicles the success stories of currently syndicated cartoonists in their
own words. The publication is edited and published by Jud Hurd, a syndicated comic artist.