Pete Hoffman

Pete Hoffman is an American cartoonist known for his work on the adventure strips "Steve Roper" (later "Steve Roper and Mike Nomad") and "Jeff Cobb". For a picture, see his biography card at [http://www.reuben.org/ncs/members/biogs/hoffman.asp National Cartoonists Society] .

Early years

He was born on February 22, 1919 in Toledo, Ohio, the youngest of four children, and showed artistic talent even in his boyhood (Karlen). He attended the University of Toledo, where he majored in advertising and marketing but also did editorial and commercial cartooning. Graduating in 1941, he served in the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. Afterwards, he returned to Toledo and stopped by to see "Steve Roper" authors Allen Saunders and Elmer Woggon; he had met them as a student cartoonist and had been sending them additional sketches during the war (Labuzinski). Liking his work, Saunders then hired him as a new ghost for Woggon because Publisher's Syndicate had complained that the artwork still looked too cartoonish for an adventure strip (Black). To judge by the change in drawing style, Hoffman began in December 1945, and yet the strip continued to appear as "Steve Roper" by Saunders and Woggon." His name was seen in it just once (June 9-14, 1947) — when Roper's friend Sonny Brawnski wrestled "Poison Pete Hoffman" after threatening to throw him into Toledo's Maumee River.

From ghost to credited cartoonist

Hoffman gave the postwar "Steve Roper" the more serious, consistent look it needed as it settled into a modern urban setting. He portrayed the main characters engagingly, and realistically showed them maturing in their lives and careers. (His villains, on the other hand, were grotesque or deformed, as in "Dick Tracy".) In a later interview (Karlen), he modestly understated his contribution: "The strip was in a transition stage and a more illustrative style of drawing was desired. My style fit their needs. I enjoyed ghost-drawing the characters for nearly nine years." The ghost was no secret, however: a 1953 article on "Steve Roper" in the "Toledo Blade" described Hoffman's role in the strip and pictured him working with Saunders and Woggon in their studio. At that time, ghosting was regarded as a new artist's apprenticeship until he could start his own strip. And following the two previous "Steve Roper" ghosts — Elmer Woggon's younger brother Bill Woggon ("Katy Keene") and Don Dean ("Cranberry Boggs") — Hoffman did just that in mid-1954, leaving "Steve Roper" to produce his own strip, "Jeff Cobb". The parting was amicable, and Saunders and Woggon sponsored him when he joined the National Cartoonists Society in 1955. Starting with the strip for July 12, 1954, his replacement in "Steve Roper" was William Overgard, who put an end to the ghosting and boldly signed his artwork.

"Jeff Cobb" debuted on June 28, 1954, both written and drawn by Hoffman and distributed by General Features Syndicate. As he said in a later interview (Karlen), "Hopefully, some of Allen Saunders' expertise rubbed off on me when I worked on "Steve Roper"." Indeed, Cobb could have been a blond clone of Roper circa 1952, except that he didn't smoke a pipe and wore a black eye-patch after losing his right eye in a roof cave-in the 1960s. (It actually made him more popular.) Also like Roper, Cobb was an attractive, clean-cut, two-fisted investigative reporter (working for the "Daily Guardian") who defended his standards, fought crime, and endured near-fatal threats to his life; he had to, "to keep his creator eating regularly" (Hoffman in Labuzinski). On the other hand, Hoffman's "Jeff Cobb" developed a greater range of expression and a more mature level of fine-line photorealism than his Roper. Like Saunders, he also emphasized characterization in plot development (ibid), and said he never ran out of ideas: the well-written stories were inspired by newspaper articles he read, and characters were often based on real people (Karlen). At the same time, Hoffman was illustrating the single-panel feature "Why We Say" (1950-1978), which was written by Robert Morgan and explained word and phrase origins in laypersons' terms.

Recent years

Hoffman never married, regarding himself as "married to the drawing board" (Shirk). His "Jeff Cobb" developed a loyal following of readers in the U.S. and abroad, especially in Sweden. When it ended in 1975, "a victim of the phase-out" of newspaper story strips in general (Labuzinski), Hoffman turned to freelance work and University of Toledo alumni projects (Black). He has continued living in his native Toledo, and in 2004, on the 50th anniversary of "Jeff Cobb", he was honored there by appreciative fans — and by a collection of fellow cartoonists' caricatures each sporting a "Jeff Cobb" eye-patch (ibid).

References

*Black, Ed. 2004. [http://ncs-glc.com/GLC/Hoffman/pete_hoffman01.html Jeff Cobb Hits 50!] The Glyph — Great Lakes NCS Newsletter.
*Karlen, Dave. 2004. [http://www.comicartville.com/hoffmaninterview.htm An Interview with Pete Hoffman] .
*Shirk, Barbara. 1992. [http://www.utoledo.edu/library/canaday/findingaids/MSS-050.DOC Pete Hoffman — Biographical Sketch] . University of Toledo, Ward M. Canaday Center.
*Toledo Blade. 1953. "Evolution of a Comic Strip," by Seymour Rothman, Pictorial, Aug. 9 1953, p. 5-6, reprinted in "Steve Roper and Wahoo", Blackthorne Publishing (Book 2).
*Toledo Blade. 1986. "Cartoonist Draws upon Experience," by Randy Labuzinski. Aug. 19, 1986, p. 6.