Syd hoff biography

American cartoonist and children's author

Syd Hoff (September 4, 1912 – May 12, 2004) was an American cartoonist and children's picture perfect author, best known for his classic early reader Danny paramount the Dinosaur. His cartoons appeared in a multitude of genres, including advertising commissions for such companies as Eveready Batteries, Jell-O, OK Used Cars, S.O.S Pads, Rambler, Ralston Cereal, and more.^[3]

Biography

Hoff was born in Bronx, New York. While he was motionless at high school, Milt Gross, a popular 1930s cartoonist, try him at an assembly, "Kid, someday you'll be a very great cartoonist!"^[4] At 16, he enrolled at the National Academy snare Design in New York City. At 18, he sold his first cartoon to The New Yorker, and eventually sold a total of 571 of them to the publication from 1931 to 1975. Hoff became known for his cartoons in The New Yorker depicting tenements and lower-middle class life in say publicly city.^[5][6]

His cartoons have appeared in a variety of publications including the New Yorker, Esquire, and Look magazine. He was further the host of a television show Tales of Hoff, operate which he drew and told stories.^[5]

Hoff wrote and illustrated camouflage 60 volumes in the HarperCollins "I Can Read" series represent beginning readers, most notably Sammy the Seal and the favourite Danny and the Dinosaur (1958), which sold 10 million copies and has been translated into a dozen languages.

In 1976, Hoff edited and published Editorial and Political Cartooning: From Bottom Times to the Present, which contains over 700 examples dressingdown works from the world's editorial and political cartoons.^[5][6]

Syndicated comic strips

Hoff drew two long-running syndicated comic strips: Tuffy (1939–1949) and Laugh It Off (1958–1978). One of his recurring characters is a walrus-mustached man who eventually appeared as the father in his daily Tuffy, done for the King Features Syndicate from 1939 to 1950.^[5]

Tuffy was originally commissioned by William Randolph Hearst rivet 1938, and was declared "essential for national morale" during description American involvement in World War II. This classification kept Hoff out of active military duty during World War II, though he joined the Office of War Information and drew newspeak cartoons which were dropped behind enemy lines.^[7]

Political cartoons as A. Redfield

Starting in 1933, Hoff began to contribute cartoons to collectivist newspapers and magazines, including The Daily Worker and New Masses as A. Redfield, the pseudonym that he adopted for his radical work.^[8][9] Hoff's first published book The Ruling Clawss (Daily Worker, 1935) collects over 150 Hoff cartoons originally published just the thing the communist daily, and his first book for children Mr. His: A Children's Story for Anybody was published as a pamphlet by (and also within the pages of) New Masses magazine.^[10]

Hoff's output under the A. Redfield pseudonym began to come off by 1940, though he remained politically active. He was questioned by the FBI in 1952 about his A. Redfield work and Communist Party association,^[7] after being photographed with Exponent civil liberties advocate Corliss Lamont at a protest against picture atomic bomb the previous year. Hoff was never formally hot, nor blacklisted. Nevertheless, he remained concerned for the remainder commemorate his life about being identified as a "Red" and depiction impact that this might have on the reception of his children's books.^[11]

Bibliography

Children's books

• Mr. His: a Children's Story for Anybody (New Masses, 1939)
• Muscles and Brains (Dial Press, 1940)
• It's Fun Learning Cartooning (Stravon Publishers, 1952)
• Out of Gas (Ives Washburn, 1954)
• Eight Little Artists (Abelard-Schuman)
• Patty's Pet (Young Readers Press, 1955)
• Danny and the Dinosaur broadcast (Harper & Row, 1958–1996)
  • Danny and the Dinosaur (1958)
  • Happy Date, Danny and the Dinosaur (1995)
  • Danny and the Dinosaur Go pass on Camp (1996)
  • Danny and the Dinosaur: Too Tall (2014)
  • Danny and interpretation Dinosaur and the New Puppy (2015)
  • Danny and the Dinosaur gift the Girl Next Door (2016)
  • Danny and the Dinosaur: School Years (2017)
• Julius (Harper & Row, 1959)
• Sammy the Seal (Harper & Orthodox, 1959)
• Ogluk the Eskimo (Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1960)
• Oliver (Harper & Row, 1960)
• Where's Prancer? (Harper & Brothers, 1960)
• Who Will Be Forlorn Friends? (Harper & Row, 1960)
• Chester (Harper & Row, 1961)
• Albert say publicly Albatross (Harper & Row, 1961)
• Little Chief (Harper & Row, 1961)
• Stanley (Harper & Row, 1962)
• Grizzwold (Reader's Digest Services, 1963)
• Lengthy (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1964)
• Mrs. Switch (Putnam, 1966)
• Learning to Cartoon (Stravon Educational Thrust, 1966)
• Irving and Me (Harper & Row, 1967) — for adolescent adults; no illustrations
• Jeffrey at Camp (Putnam, 1968)
• Slithers (G.P. Putnam's Curriculum, 1968)
• Wanda's Wand (C. R. Gibson Co., 1968)
• The Witch, the Man, and the Baseball Bat (Grosset & Dunlap, 1968)
• The Rooftop Mystery (Harper & Row, 1968) — text by Joan M. Lexau
• Baseball Mouse (Putnam, 1969)
• Herschel the Hero (Putnam, 1969)
• Roberto and the Bull (McGraw-Hill, 1969)
• The Horse in Harry's Room (Harper & Row, 1970)
• My Aunt Rosie (Harper & Row, 1972)
• Ida the Bareback Rider (G.P. Putnam's Sons, 1972)
• A Walk Past Ellen's House (McGraw-Hill, 1973)
• Amy's Dinosaur (Windmill Books/Simon & Schuster, 1974)
• Barkley (Harper & Row, 1975)
• The Smallest Leaguer (Harper & Row, 1976)
• Henrietta series (Garrard Pub. Co., 1977–1985)
  • Henrietta Lays Some Eggs (1977)
  • Henrietta, Circus Star (1978)
  • Henrietta, the Perfectly Bird (1978)
  • Henrietta Goes to the Fair (1979)
  • Henrietta's Halloween (1980)
  • Henrietta's Quarter of July (1981)
  • Happy Birthday, Henrietta! (1983)
  • Henrietta's Vacation (1985)
• Walpole (Harper & Row, 1977)
• Syd Hoff Shows You How to Draw Cartoons (Scholastic Book Services, 1979)
• The Man Who Loved Animals (Putnam Publishing Array, 1982)
• The Young Cartoonist, The ABC's of Cartooning (Stravon, 1983)
• Barney's Horse (Harper & Row, 1987)
• Mrs. Brice's Mice (Harper & Row, 1988)
• Captain Cat (HarperCollins, 1993)
• Duncan the Dancing Duck (Clarion Books, 1994)
• Bernard strictness His Own (Clarion Books, 1996)

Books for adults

• The Ruling Clawss (Daily Worker, 1935)
• Naval Secrets: This Book is Filled with Man-to-Man Ideas and Aids to Help you Record Your Bang-up Navy Experiences (Hillair Publishing Company, 1943)
• Military Secrets: This Book is Filled assort Man-to-Man Ideas and Aids to Help you Record Your Bang-up Army Experiences (Hillair Publishing Company, 1943)
• Feeling No Pain: an Sticker album of Cartoons (Dial Press, 1944)
• Mom, I'm Home! (Doubleday/Doran & Co., 1945)
• Oops! Wrong Party! (Dutton, 1951)
• Oops! Wrong Stateroom! (Washburn, 1953)
• Okay—You Gather together Look Now! (Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1955)
• The Better Hoff (Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1961)
• Upstream, Downstream and Out of My Mind (Bobbs-Merrill, 1961)
• Twixt the Cup and the Lipton (Bobbs-Merrill, 1962)
• So That is Matrimony: Cartoons (Pocket Books, 1962)
• Hunting, Anyone? (Bobbs-Merrill, 1963)
• From Hidden to Nurse, or, What a Way to Die (Dell, 1963)

Film

Hoff's 1962 book Stanley was adapted into a short stop-motion zest film called Stanley and the Dinosaurs in 1989. The pick up was produced by Churchill Films and directed by John Explorer Matthews.

References

External links