Early years Mel Cummin was born in Brooklyn, New York, on January 29, 1895. Of
Quaker origin, Cummin attended
Friends Seminary (his mother, wife and both daughters were all educated there). On course at a young age for his eventual career, Melville Cummin is listed in
Mary Mapes Dodge's
St. Nicholas Magazine in 1909 as president of a seven-member chapter of the St. Nicholas League called "St. Nick Drawing Club". He attended National Preparatory Academy and the
Art Students League of New York. He held no college degrees. He was a
teetotaler. Cummin married at around age twenty.
Graphic artist Cummin worked as a graphic artist for many decades. At various times he was a staff artist for publications of the
Boy Scouts of America (c. 1912, shortly after the organization's founding) and
West Point. He served as art director for the
American Kennel Club "Gazette". The editors of the "Gazette" paid tribute to Cummin in 2005 by revisiting his work, and called him "the master draftsman whose cartoons were such a distinctive part of the GAZETTE during the 1940s and '50s." In fact, Cummin drew for that publication at least as early as 1937. Cummin drew editorial cartoons for
The Middletown News-Signal, an
Ohio daily. He worked as an illustrator for the
San Francisco Examiner as well as a number of New York newspapers, and also contributed to magazines, including the original
Life. When the renowned
Winsor McCay left the employ of the
New York Sunday American in 1924, the great newspaper journalist
Arthur Brisbane hired Cummin to fill the vacancy, because of a similarity of style. Brisbane told Cummin however that the job would be McCay's again if he desired to reclaim it. McCay did so in 1927. After McCay's death in 1934 Brisbane rehired Cummin (Brisbane died December 25, 1936). Therefore, Cummin originated and drew many of the big, eight-column cartoons for Brisbane's editorials in the
New York Sunday American, the
New York Evening Journal and occasionally
The Mirror from 1924 to 1927, and again in 1934 and 1935. Cummin called Brisbane "a well-informed naturalist," and said the two collaborators discussed the subject of Naturalism frequently. One of the endeavors that brought Cummin popular notice was his recurring
paper dolls/cut-outs section for ''
McCall's Magazine beginning in the early 1920s. Examples of his subjects include Teeny Town
, Martha and George Washington
, Dappelton Farm's Wagon House and Hay Barn
, Strike Out for the Camp-Fire Trail!
(shown), The Madisons and Their Family Carriage
and John Adams and Abigail, His Wife
. Our American Humorists
(1922 ed.) lists Cummin among many others including Winsor McCay as "Our Comic Artists," and (in a probable reference to this work for McCall's'') credits him with "Children's Cartoons."
Early comic strips '' (1927) Later in the decade, Cummin was the first artist for
Good Time Guy, which began in 1927. During the strip's short run at
Metropolitan Newspaper Service, Cummin worked with writer
Bill Conselman, a notable
screenwriter who was writing under the pen name "Frank Smiley". Cummin was succeeded the following year by
Dick Huemer. Around the same time, Cummin began developing a comic strip called
Hap Hazzard (alternatively titled
Hap McSnap), which may not have ever seen publication.
Hap Hazzard featured an
art deco-influenced style (the originals surfaced in the 1990s comic art market), with dialog full of puns and complicated wordplay, suggesting it too may have been written by Conselman. Cummin made another foray into comics in 1929 with
Traveler in the Land of Trundletree, a daily strip that may have been nationally syndicated, or only local. and was a benefactor and Life Member of the
American Museum of Natural History. His deep personal interest in nature is further evidenced by his very active "Life Fellow" membership in New York's
Explorers Club, which he joined in 1937. He was elected the club's third vice president in 1954, and he also served as secretary. Over the years, Cummin joined expeditions to Haiti, Santo Domingo, and the Canadian Arctic (on the latter expedition he carried the Explorers Flag). He collected specimens, took photographs, and painted and drew what he encountered in nature. In 1978 he was awarded the
Edward C. Sweeney Medal for service to the Explorers Club. In the late 1930s, Cummin decided to marry his comic strip experience to his passion for
naturalism in creating
Back to Nature, for which he was granted a copyright on May 10, 1937. This educational syndicated daily newspaper feature spotlighted flora and fauna facts with the subjects rendered in a naturalistic art style. In promoting the feature Cummin wrote, "We pride ourselves on our culture, on our mastery of the principles of modern science; and, like peacocks, we like to display the social graces. Yet, many would trade places gladly with our forefathers who lived so close to nature. Our so-called civilization is merely a thin veneer covering a framework of rough wood that has been thousands of years in the making."
Golden age Mel Cummin drew covers, interiors, and he also served as
art director from 1946 to 1949 for Novelty Press, one of the numerous
comic book publishers of the
Golden Age of the 1940s (his tenure as art director there is alternately listed as 1943–1948 on the ''Who's Who of American Comic Books 1928-1999'' website). survived by his wife of 65 years, Marion (Van Buskirk) Cummin, and two daughters, Eleanor Claire and Miriam Louise. ==Notes==