Two other series of cartoon panels created by H.T. Webster for the New York Tribune were "Thrill of a Lifetime" and "Life's Darkest Moment." The best summary of Webster's life and works I've found is a column by John Steele Gordon at American Heritage:
Webster was a very great cartoonist, for he had the gift of finding the universal in the particular... Because he was such an acute observer, his cartoons are still a window into his world, that of middle-class America in the period framed by the two world wars...More at the link. Panels via Yesterday's Papers, which has links for many other cartoonists.
Webster was born in 1885 in Parkersburg, West Virginia... When Webster was still a boy, his father, a druggist, moved the family to a small town in Wisconsin with the improbable name of Tomahawk. While Webster would live most of his adult life in the great world centered on New York City, there was always much of small-town America in his work...
A boyhood friend taunted him that he was going to spend his life drawing little pictures instead of doing something important. Webster retorted that he was going to draw big pictures, so big a million people could see them at once. Webster recalled the incident with satisfaction many years later when his cartoons were appearing in newspapers that had a combined circulation of nearly twelve million...
Don't I know (and sometimes relive!) those great thrills. It's great getting the opportunity to read those well-loved classics to my children.
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