Ted McCall

Last updated
Ted McCall
BornEdwin Reid McCall
1901
Chatham, Ontario, Canada
Died1975
Toronto?
NationalityCanadian
Area(s)Writer
Notable works
Robin Hood and Company
Awards2008 Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame

Edwin Reid McCall (born 1901 in Chatham, Ontario, died 1975) was a Canadian journalist, and a comic strip and comic book writer. [1] He was best known for creating the first comic strip based on the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Men of the Mounted for the Toronto Evening Telegram and the war hero Freelance for Anglo-American Publishing.

Contents

McCall was one of four children of Alexander McCall. He was married to Elise Donaldson (1899–1976) and had one son, Ted Jr. [2] [3]

Career in comics

Comic strips

On February 13, 1933, The Toronto Evening Telegram began publishing McCall's comic strip Men of the Mounted, drawn by Harry Hall. [4] The strip starred Corporal Keene. [5] It was the first strip based on the RCMP as well as being Canada's first regular adventure strip. [6] Syndicated across Canada, it ran for two years until King of the Royal Mounted , an American strip, began to be published. [7] McCall had approached King Features about syndicating his strip in the United States but was rejected. When King of the Royal Mounted was started, McCall felt they had plagiarized his idea. [5] The last strip was published on February 16, 1935, [1] the day before King of the Royal Mounted started. [4] The strips were also adapted into a Big Little Book published by Whitman Publishing [8] and were featured in trading cards from Willard's Chocolates. [6]

A little over 7 months later, on September 23, 1935, McCall began another strip, this time based on the Robin Hood legends. Robin Hood and Company was illustrated by Charles Snelgrove and was also originally only published in the Telegram. Overall it was more successful and eventually was published internationally in more than 80 papers, [1] including some in the US and Europe. [6] Snelgrove died in late 1939 and, after a brief hiatus, the strip was continued by Syd Stein. [9] The last strip was published on February 16, 1939, after Stein joined the army. [6] The strip was popular and lasted a while because of "McCall's deft writing, inventive plots and earthy humor". [10] It did not follow the traditional plots of the Robin Hood mythos but did include secondary characters such as Little John, Friar Tuck and Will Scarlett. [10]

Anglo-American Publishing

On December 6, 1940, the War Exchange Conservation Act was passed by the Canadian government. Amongst the things it did was banning the importation of American comic books. McCall saw this as an opportunity and approached Harold Sinnott of Sinnott News. McCall owned both the copyright and the plates for publishing Robin Hood and Company and Sinnot had a press capable of printing comics. [5] In March 1941, the first issue of Robin Hood and Company was published by Anglo-American Publishing, consisting of strip reprints in a tabloid sized format. [6] The comic existed with just reprints for about a year when it became necessary to start producing new material. McCall became the main writer at Anglo-American and brought with him Ed Furness as the main artist. [6] While at Anglo-American Publishing, McCall created the war hero Freelance, "a daring guerrilla battling the Axis powers". [11] McCall's "well rounded scripts...were relatively sophisticated for the time and generally took a realistic approach to war". [11] McCall was also involved in creating the adventures of Red Rover and Commander Steel. [12] Freelance ran from 1941 to January 1947. [13] Robin Hood ran, under various titles, for the same time period. [14] After Anglo-American closed its doors in 1947, McCall never produced anything for comics again.

Career after comics

After the collapse of Anglo-American, McCall went on to become the Managing Editor of the Toronto Evening Telegram. [1] He died in 1975 of a heart attack. [1] In 2008 he was inducted into the Canadian Comic Book Creator Hall of Fame. [15]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Shuster</span> Comic book artist, co-creator of Superman (1914–1992)

Joseph Shuster, was a Canadian-American comic book artist best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with Jerry Siegel, in Action Comics #1.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jerry Siegel</span> American comic book writer (1914–1996)

Jerome Siegel was an American comic book writer. He is the co-creator of Superman, in collaboration with his friend Joe Shuster, published by DC Comics. They also created Doctor Occult, who was later featured in The Books of Magic. Siegel and Shuster were inducted into the comic book industry's Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1992 and the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1993. With Bernard Baily, Siegel also co-created the long-running DC character The Spectre. Siegel created ten of the earliest members of the Legion of Super-Heroes, one of DC's most popular team books, which is set in the 30th Century. Siegel also used pseudonyms including Joe Carter and Jerry Ess.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Joe Sinnott</span> American comic book artist (1926–2020)

Joseph Leonard Sinnott was an American comic book artist. Working primarily as an inker, Sinnott is best known for his long stint on Marvel Comics' Fantastic Four, from 1965 to 1981, initially over the pencils of Jack Kirby. During his 60 years as a Marvel freelance artist and then remote worker salaried artist, Sinnott inked virtually every major title, with notable runs on The Avengers, The Defenders, and Thor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ty Templeton</span> Canadian comic book artist and writer (born 1962)

Tyrone Templeton is a Canadian comic book artist and writer who has drawn a number of mainstream titles, TV-associated titles, and his own series.

Notable events of 1938 in comics.

Notable events of 1937 in comics.

Notable events of 2005 in comics.

Notable events of 1940 in comics.

Notable events of 1968 in comics.

Notable events of 1944 in comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Robin Hood in popular culture</span> Pop culture interpretations of Robin Hood

The folkloric hero Robin Hood has appeared many times, in many different variations, in popular modern works.

Ed Furness (1911–2005) was a Canadian comic book artist associated with the "Canadian Whites", Canadian comic books published during World War II.

Notable events of 1975 in comics.

Notable events of 1976 in comics.

Notable events of 1967 in comics.

Canadian Whites are World War II-era comic books published in Canada that feature colour covers with black-and-white interiors. Notable characters include Nelvana of the Northern Lights, Johnny Canuck, Brok Windsor, and Canada Jack. The period has been called the Golden Age of Canadian comics.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Canadian comics</span> Comic originating in Canada

Canadian comics refers to comics and cartooning by citizens of Canada or permanent residents of Canada regardless of residence. Canada has two official languages, and distinct comics cultures have developed in English and French Canada. The English tends to follow American trends, and the French, Franco-Belgian ones, with little crossover between the two cultures. Canadian comics run the gamut of comics forms, including editorial cartooning, comic strips, comic books, graphic novels, and webcomics, and are published in newspapers, magazines, books, and online. They have received attention in international comics communities and have received support from the federal and provincial governments, including grants from the Canada Council for the Arts. There are comics publishers throughout the country, as well as large small press, self-publishing, and minicomics communities.

Anglo-American Publishing was a Canadian comic book publisher during the World War II era. While they published a number of Canadian creations, they also printed Canadian reworkings of scripts bought from American publisher Fawcett Comics.

Notable events of 2012 in comics. It includes any relevant comics-related events, deaths of notable comics-related people, conventions and first issues by title.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 Biography at the Joe Shuster Awards
  2. ↑ Biographical info by his great nephew
  3. ↑ Search results on Ancestry.ca
  4. 1 2 Punch in Canada on McCall
  5. 1 2 3 MacMillan, Robert (1986). Bell, John (ed.). Canuck Comics. Canada: Matrix Books. ISBN   0-921101-00-7.
  6. 1 2 3 4 5 6 Canadian Archives
  7. ↑ Biography of Harry Hall, illustrator of Men of the Mounted, at Lambiek
  8. ↑ References to the Whitman books
  9. ↑ Biography of Charles Snelgrove at Lambiek
  10. 1 2 Horn, page 585
  11. 1 2 Horn, page 265
  12. ↑ Punch in Canada on Robin Hood
  13. ↑ Freelance at the GCD
  14. ↑ Robin Hood at the GCD
  15. ↑ Joe Shuster Awards Hall of Fame Archived 2009-09-02 at the Wayback Machine

Works cited

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.