Harold Webster

Harold Tucker Webster was an American cartoonist. Though Webster's humour sometimes appears gentle, it usually stung. This has made him well known as "The Mark Twain of American Cartoonists". His best known work was a series called "The Timid Soul" starring the wimpy Caspar Milquetoast.

He was born in Parkersburg, West Virginia in 1885. His family moved to Tomahawk, Wisconsin in his youth. He married Ethel Worts on August 2, 1916, two weeks after he met her.

In 1927 he trained himself to draw left-handed in three months after a severe case of arthritis impaired the use of his right hand.

His first cartoons appeared in the "New York Tribune" in 1912, when he was in his mid-twenties. He changed his titles based on what type of humour was within the panel; some were: "Our Boyhood Ambitions", "The Unseen Audience", and "Life's Darkest Moment".

In 1924, he moved his panels to The New York "World". Soon after, he added "The Timid Soul" to his list of cartoons. This would soon become one of his most well-known panels. It features Caspar Milquetoast, a wimpy character whose name is derived from milk toast. Harold Webster himself describes Caspar Milquetoast as "the man who speaks softly and gets hit with a big stick". The modern dictionary definition of "milquetoast" meaning a very shy or retiring person comes from Harold Webster's cartoons.

In 1931, the "World" folded. Also in 1931, Simon & Schuster brought out the only collection of reprints from "The Timid Soul". Harold Webster then went back to the "Tribune", now called The New York "Herald-Tribune". He then began a Sunday page of "The Timid Soul" alone, where readers could more closely peer into Caspar's life.

The "The Timid Soul" strip was so successful that Webster's assistant, Herb Roth, took it over when Webster died in 1952. Unfortunately, Herb died in 1953, and the strip faded into history.

On June 22, 1949, the DuMont Television Network tried to bring "The Timid Soul" to the television. They made it the premiere presentation of their "Program Playhouse" series. Playing Caspar Milquetoast was Ernest Truex. It wasn't a big hit.

His last new drawing appeared in the New York Herald Tribune on April 4, 1953.

Bibliography

* Our Boyhood Thrills and Other Cartoons (1915)
* Boys and Folks (1917)
* Webster's Bridge, "with William Johnston" (1924)
* Webster's Poker Book (1926)
* The Timid Soul (1931)
* The Culberston-Webster Contract System, "with Ely Culbertson" (1932)
* Webster Unabridged (1945)
* To Hell With Fishing (1945)
* Who Dealt This Mess (1948)
* How to Torture Your Husband (1948)
* How to Torture Your Wife (1948)
* Life With Rover (1949)
* The Best of H. T. Webster, a Memorial Collection (1953)

External links

* [http://www.toonopedia.com/milqueto.htm A history of Caspar Milquetoast]
* [http://www.americanheritage.com/articles/magazine/ah/1991/5/1991_5_100.shtml Wesbter's Unalloyed]