Left to right: “Hello, Katherine Gibbs Secretarial School?—Help! Help!” Esquire, July 1937, “Why don’t you move over here,
Mr. Lowery, where you’ll be closer to everything.” Esquire, March 1939.
Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund
From time to time you may experience a book that changes you. Not a monumental, life-altering change, but more of a quiet transformation of thought that subtly shifts your perception. Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins: The Life and Art of Barbara Shermund by Caitlin McGurk is one of those books, and it's a book to be experienced in its design, content, and care that weaves together to tell the story of cartoonist Barbara Shermund (1899 - 1978).
If Shermund is remembered at all, it is most likely for the astonishing amount of work she produced as an early contributor to The New Yorker. She was much more than that, and her story is masterfully presented by McGurk, an associate professor at Ohio State University and the Curator of Comics and Cartoon Art at the school's Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. In her introduction, McGurk quickly summarizes Barbara Shermund's accomplishments as an artist:
Over her lifetime, Barbara Shermund contributed nearly six hundred cartoons to The New Yorker, nine color covers, countless spot illustrations, section headers, and advertising illustrations that, in total, make for a staggering 1,200 appearances in the magazine during its formative years—essentially setting the artistic tone for the nascent publication. She was a beloved mainstay at Esquire magazine for more than twenty- five years—and drew a newspaper cartoon, Shermund’s Sallies, nationally syndicated by King Features for nearly fifteen years. Professionally, she made history as one of the first women granted membership in the National Cartoonists Society. Collier’s, Journal American, Life, and Judge magazines were among her clientele, and she illustrated advertisements for the likes of Pepsi-Cola, Frigidaire, and Pond’s, among other large corporations...
Somehow, despite those credentials, Shermund seemed to fade away, unremembered or misremembered, even by those in the industry. McGurk's book rectifies this by piecing together the life of one of the most prolific cartoonists of the 20th century.
What It Means to Care about Cartoonists
Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins offers a sensory exploration thanks to the creative director at Fantagraphics, Kayla E, who deftly plots out artwork, cartoons, and photos throughout the book, from its texturally gratifying embossed cover to its surprising arrangement of images that showcase the artist's range in spite of her signature style.
Each chapter is titled after a specific cartoon, highlighting the parallel between Shermund's life and her work, which created the sensation of a presence, what McGurk evokes with insights like: "The voice and the spirit behind [Shermund's cartoons] are so strong that it’s difficult not to instinctually formulate an immediate idea of who she was—and more than that, to want to hang out with her."—A soul that manifests in the pages, piquing curiosity and a sense of timelessness.
Curiosity is abundant in Tell Me a Story, and McGurk sets up the reader at the book's onset, with two emotionally stirring dedications, doubly-charged sentiments that grip your chest:
This book is dedicated to motherless daughters.
In memory of Tom Spurgeon,*
who exemplified what it means
to care about cartoonists.
*Tom Spurgeon (1968 - 2019) - Writer and Executive Director for Cartoon Crossroads Columbus
Caring about cartoonists is at the core of the dedication, and care is the approach McGurk takes in the colossal effort she puts into the exhaustive research and outreach necessary to accomplish the task of piecing together a life that seemingly faded into oblivion. (Just visiting the Notes section of the book gives the some insight into how very thorough McGurk is in her exploration. It's par for an in-depth academic book suitable for art history curriculum.) Tell Me a Story is, in part, a textbook that informs with a great sense of mystery and curiosity that leaves the reader wanting to learn more. Pair this with gorgeous reproductions of Shermund's visually compelling artwork meticulously paced throughout the text, and you have a comprehensive piece that can be enjoyed in various ways on various levels.
On first passing, I stopped reading after the dedication and memorial and explored the artwork without delving into the text. This in itself is rewarding, and I thought it best to come into the text with a strong foundation of Shermund's artwork. After all, this is the impetus for McGurk's curiosity, and the springboard for writing the book in the first place: curiosity, and restoring something—or someone—lost.
Curiosity strikes repeatedly all before Chapter 1:
“Wonder why I can’t forget you. I tried so hard to do so.
Other people come and go, and pass out of my memory,
but you remain, so different from other people. W”
—Letter written to Barbara Shermund c. 1930, author unknown.
This stirring quote precedes a beautiful forward by comics historian Emily Flake that fascinates as it creates a solid image of a soul portrayed in a self-portrait, "I've been staring at Barbara Shermund’s self-portrait all morning. Rendered in loose, confident strokes, she stares back—" There is a sense of presence through a sense of loss. "Alas, our lives only overlapped for a year—between my birth in 1977 and her death in 1978—" a longing to know, to have known, Barbara Shermund.
In the opening of the preface, Shermund's niece, Amanda Janes Gormley, (granddaughter of Shermund's father from his second marriage) writes, "Her story has finally arrived." An invitation to the reader's curiosity. And it hinges on the curious question: How could someone so innovative, so clever, so successful, so unforgettable, be lost in history?
Barbara Shermund: Lost and Found
Among the most fascinating aspects of the mystery surrounding Shermund's life is what happens after her death. McGurk leaves no stone unturned in her effort to unearth—to piece together—the artist's life, and in the process she gathers resources, including the help of Amanda Janes Gromley, who shares about her own efforts to find her aunt's reseting place. The way this manifests in the book is an example of how thoughtful McGurk is in how she presents the story with great effect:
Gormley sought Shermund’s burial site so that she could pay her respects, but no gravesite could be found. Finally, she contacted local funeral homes around New Jersey where Shermund had passed away, asking whether they had any information about the location of Shermund’s burial place. To her shock, the John F. Pfleger Funeral Home in New Monmouth, New Jersey, responded:
'She’s still here with us.'
Somehow, no one had ever taken Shermund's remains and they sat in storage at the funeral home for more than three decades. While this fact is introduced earlier in the book, the approach McGurk takes in revealing the story behind how this discovery unfolds is so well crafted and wrought with meaning that it left me breathless and stunned. How can this be? And quoting the funeral home's response filled me with a haunting sense of presence. She's still here with us.
The theme of recovering something, or someone, lost is peppered throughout the book, and there are countless gems in the text, the art, and the cartoons. The chilling notion that Shermund's remains were left unclaimed for so many years is parallel to her own mother's (Fredda Cool) death from the flu pandemic of 1918. "Fredda’s cremation was done in haste, adding to the sense of whiplash that sent the surviving family into shock. She was later interred at the Cypress Lawn Cemetery in Colma, California, in a grave that would remain unmarked for years."
McGurk uses the word shock—a kind of echo of the 1906 San Fransisco earthquake that upended Shermund's family when she was just six years old, and an echo of Gromley's discovery of the unclaimed ashes—the same ashes that are now laid to rest beside mother's grave. The images of quakes, shocks, ashes, and earth finally settle, buried, yet Shermund's memory is unearthed in the process.
"This book is dedicated to motherless daughters."
McGurk paints the picture of a woman who had lost her mother at a young age, and through this loss, she learns how to navigate the entire world. She writes, "Barbara was now nineteen and motherless. The exalted only child, who had admired so deeply her mother and lived by her example, now stood at the precipice of the rest of her life without a map." And McGurk recognizes the searing pain, the loss, and the feeling of being lost, with such depth that seems to emerge from profound, empathic insight.
In the process, the writer steps into Shermund's experience of loss with what I believe is a cathartic exercise. What results is a strong image of what propels Shermund forward, what makes her so determined and independent. "Such a loss can imbue a young person with wisdom and maturity but also a wild sense of urgency for living when faced with the brevity of life." I found myself nodding as I read this line. Agreed.
What results is a fully developed—or as fully developed as it can be—image of an artist who is driven to circumvent obstacles with her talent and her ingenuity, a sleight of hand or some such thing. The image is not of a helpless, oppressed woman, but of a determined spirit that reminds me of Ernie Bushmiller's Nancy, a clever being, and a motherless daughter, who out-charms, and outwits whatever stands in her way; ultimately questioning gender roles and begs the question, What constitutes a bad girl?
Where the Bad Girl Wins
Considering the era of Shermund's lifetime, it's easy to expect a story about a woman fighting for her place in a man's world with focus on all the obstacles, the biases, and inequities that women artists faced in the 1900s. This is not one of those books. There are details that point to obvious gender bias, and there are many, but they're balanced with acknowledgement of the men and women who recognized her talent, and were smart enough to bring her into the fold. Perhaps chief among them was New Yorker editor Harold Ross, a notoriously demanding perfectionist. What's so interesting about this is the realization that, through time, progress for women ebbs and flows, and if you consider Shermund's story, the fluctuation between autonomy and artistic expression and suppression is readily apparent in surprising ways.
As McGurk intuits, Shermund seemed to develop a strong sense of urgency; the urge to express her point of view through compelling drawings and astute captions, at times, with a nod to gender nonconformity.
I lived in Rumson NJ at the time Barbara Shermund died in Sea Bright, the next town. She was alone, and lonely -- a far different situation -- when she died, and was neglected in death too, as McGurk's biography tells. I was hired by the Red Bank attorney handling her estate to appraise her archives. There were scant funds from which to engage me, and I accepted payment in original art.During Barbara Shermund's prime, and it was a substantial run, from the Twenties to the early Forties in my estimation, she was as good as any cartoonist -- and let me specify male or female -- in depicting, capturing, and wisely recording, with humor and irony -- her times. These were indeed her times, but America's too; and it is a shame that, until now, America forgot her.
Shermud depicted her era, but many of the issues she tackles remain relevant today. She demonstrated that a person can be extremely productive working from home, playfully celebrates the LGBTQIA+ community, and distances herself from traditional wife-and-mother role. Her story exposes systemic barriers. McGurk writes, "Women cartoonists may be allowed to apply [for membership in the National Cartoonists Society], but whether they would be allowed to get in was clearly another story."
Shermund's work is timeless and vast, and McGurk, with the help of designer Kayla E., demonstrates not only a great love for the cartoonist, but for the cartoons.
What It Means to Care About Cartoons
Tell Me a Story manages to organize Shermund's collection of work with such thought and planning that it's easy to imagine Barbara in the flesh. There are really two books in one here: a comprehensive biography and a collection of magnificent artwork. McGurk and Kayla E. team up to formulate a book that tells a story in text and images, and somehow manages to group Shermund's range of work into specific topics while still offering them in a chronological sequence.
The cartoons in their thoughtful sequencing deliver a version of Shermund's story in themselves. As they progress through the book, Shermund grows older, and her characters shift perspective.
Tell Me a Story includes Shermund's artwork beyond the scope of cartooning. And there's many more images in this 265-page book. I counted 379 of them in its pages, not including the cover, inside covers, back cover or border art.
The book includes work-in-progress and sketchbook drawing that I find particularly exciting to see. There's something about looking at rough drafts, notes, etchings, and sketches that come together to make the experience of creating amazing cartoons tangible.
Looking at the range of work, it becomes apparent that her cartoons are legitimate pieces of art and should hold an honored space in the art world's cannon. For Shermund, being held in memory alone has been a challenge -- or at least, it had been.
The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker
Shermund was one of the first female artists for The New Yorker magazine, and it's curious that in the section "The First Decade 1925-1934" of the book The Complete Cartoons of The New Yorker (2004), David Remnick lists a handful of artists. "There has never been a younger or livelier assemblage of artists than the group that found its way onto the magazine's pages in the late twenties and came back again in the next week and the week after that: Otto Soglow, Barbara Shermund, Peter Arno, Helen Hokinson, Alan Dunn, Perry Barlow, Carl Rose, Mary Petty, and in 1930, James Thurber." (pg. 13) All big names and she is the second artist on the short list, and there seems to be an assumption that the reader already knows who she is.
Her name appears again in the book's text on page 136: "Even the woman who, in Barbara Sherman's (sic) 1937 cartoon, calls a friend to suggest a day of debauchery does so with a comic sobriety." Later in the paragraph, another of Shermund's cartoons is described with Shermund's name spelled correctly.
Reading this filtered through McGurk's Tell Me a Story, I get a sense that Shermund is known in certain circles, yet the misspelling speaks to something beyond a typo: something lost that McGurk restores.
Be You Ever So Forgotten: A Quiet Transformation of Thought
Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins comes full circle with a final description—an image in words—of Shermund that is devastatingly beautiful, and unforgettable. And quietly transformational. I find myself thinking about things slightly differently, from current events to cartoons in general. I had to revisit the New Yorker book review, "Can Forgetting Help You Remember?" (May 13, 2024). The piece is a review of Why We Remember: Unlocking Memory's Power to Hold on to What Matters, and closes with: "To attribute all that we are to memory bypasses what is forgotten but not lost." Revisiting the article through the lens of Tell Me a Story rippled into "Be you ever so forgotten," words found in a cartoon by George Herriman.
A few years ago, I was compelled to buy a George Herriman Krazy Kat print that I found to be fascinating, almost haunting. The drive to own the print, and to hang it where I would see it every day transcends an appreciation for Herriman's art. It is a combination of the image and the words accompanying it in the piece, "Be you ever so forgotten, there's someone who remembers." The image includes a record player reverberating "Happy Boid Day to You—Happy Boid Day to You"—the idea of a forgotten birthday, Krazy Kat's partial longing face peering up at Ignaz trapped in jail, the lonesome candle flame...There was something about the piece that I just couldn't reconcile, until I read McGurk's book.
Tell Me a Story Where the Bad Girl Wins restores the ever so forgotten cartoonist because of an author who cares to remember.
The post Caitlin McGurk Remembers Barbara Shermund appeared first on The Comics Journal.
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