Fred Waring - Comic Strip Collection

Comic Strip Collection

Waring was a cartoon and comic strip collector, and a Penn State meeting room by the West Wing restaurant has dozens of cartoons drawn by artists such as Al Hirschfeld in Waring's honor.

From 1943 to 1974, Waring owned the Shawnee Inn and Country Club, a golf resort located at Shawnee on Delaware, Pennsylvania near Stroudsburg. In 1948, two years after the National Cartoonists Society was formed, Waring invited members of that organization to spend a day at the Shawnee Inn. It became an annual event, held each June for the next 25 years, resulting in a huge collection of artwork created for Waring by the cartoonists, including many drawn on Shawnee Inn stationery. The Lone Ranger artist Tom Gill recalled:

Fred Waring would hire these buses, and we would get onboard in Times Square. They would take us through the Holland Tunnel, along Route 80, to his house in Pennsylvania. We spent the whole weekend there. Ping pong, golf, tennis, swimming—he had it all.

Ed Cunard's grandmother managed the Shawnee Inn, and he quoted from a self-published book she had written:

You see, my grandmother was always a career woman. She started out working with Fred Waring at the height of his popularity (so, yes, this is going back quite a way). When she decided to settle down and marry, she left his music enterprise and went to manage the resort he owned in the Poconos. This much, I knew. I knew that she had met all sorts of celebrities and quasi-celebrities through these jobs, but there was one section that stood out to me: "It's the only autograph I have of all the celebrities I have met, except for autographed sketches by a couple of cartoonists. They came to Shawnee for an annual outing which Mr. Waring hosted every June to celebrate his birthday. When the National Cartoonists came to Shawnee, it was a time they all came together for a busman's holiday—golf and tennis during the day. After the evening entertainment provided by Mr. Waring, they charmed all of us with their inimitable style of humor and talent demonstrations. All the greats in that art field were there—Mort Walker, Stan Drake, Milt Caniff, Charles Schulz and many others. I can still visualize Hal Foster, on one of their trips, standing before a large easel in the lobby of the Inn drawing his famous Prince Valiant. In fact, I treasure a copy of that drawing which is truly more art than cartoon. We were so fortunate to witness such talent." It goes on for a while longer, detailing how the cartoonists would draw on the tables as part of their time at the resort, and that these sketches are available for viewing at Penn State's Fred Waring America Collection.

The Cartoon Room was Waring's name for the lounge room of Shawnee Inn, where the Pennsylvanians and the cartoonists assembled for food, drink and entertainment. Special tables in the Cartoon Room featured original art because Waring had the cartoonists create drawings on parchment paper, which was permanently laminated on the 30” X 30” tabletops. The walls of the Cartoon Room and the long hallway leading to it displayed numerous cartoons. Today, the Fred Waring Collection at Penn State has more than 600 cartoon originals, including over 50 of the laminated table tops.

Artists who contributed to the Waring Collection included Jay Alan, Alfred Andriola (Kerry Drake), Jim Berry (Berry's World), Charles Biro (Squeeks, Crimebuster, Daredevil), Martin Branner (Denny Dimwit), Ernie Bushmiller (Nancy), Milton Caniff (Steve Canyon), Mel Casson (Jeff Crockett), Chon Day, Steve Douglas, Bill Dyer (Patsy), Gus Edson (The Gumps), Eric Ericson, Gill Fox (Foodini). Frank Godwin (Rusty Riley, Patty Miles), Irwin Hasen (Dondi), Jeff Hayes (Silent Sam), Art Helfant (Patty Pinhead), Bill Holman (Smokey Stover), Stan Kaye, Bil Keane (Family Circus), Jeff Keate, Reamer Keller, Ted Key (Hazel), Lank Leonard (Mickey Finn), Jack Markow, Jay McArdle, Bill McLean (Double Trouble), Paul Norris (Jungle Jim), Bob Oksner (Leave It to Binky), Russell Patterson (Mamie), Clarence D. Russell (Pete the Tramp), Don Trachte (Henry) and George Wunder (Hotshot Charlie).