Doc Winner


Charles H. Winner, better known as Doc Winner, was an American cartoonist, notable for his comic strips Tubby and Elmer, plus his contributions to Thimble Theatre, Barney Google and other King Features strips.
Born in Perryville, Pennsylvania, Winner had seven brothers and two sisters, the children of Barbara and John Winner, a roofing contractor. His drawing skills soon led him to nearby Pittsburgh, as he recalled:

Editorial cartoons

He drew sports cartoons for two years at the Pittsburgh Post, succeeding Billy DeBeck, and became that newspaper's political cartoonist in 1910, relocating to the Harrisburg Patriot in 1914 and the Newark Star-Eagle in 1917. In 1923, he began his kid strip Tubby for United Feature Syndicate, as chronicled by comic strip historian Allan Holtz:
Following the strip size of the period, Tubby was drawn five inches high and 19 inches wide. Winner's strip Elmer, which ran from 1926 to 1956, was based on the friends of his youth, as he recalled, "A great many of the stunts they do are ones we either did or tried to do when we were kids." In the late 1930s, Winner had his own Sunday page with Elmer positioned beneath Winner's Alexander Smart, Esq. and his Daffy Doodles topper.

King Features

Starting in the King Features bullpen in 1918, Winner worked with King Features for the next 38 years. At the time of E. C. Segar's illness and death, he was a ghost artist on Thimble Theatre during 1938 and 1939, continuing on some of the strip's Sunday pages in 1940. His Daffy Doodles and Elmer were reprinted in Ace Comics during the 1940s, and Elmer was seen again in Harvey's Family Funnies #6. Dell's Large Feature Comic reprinted his Thimble Theatre in 1941 and 1943. Elmer and His Dog was a 1935 Big Little Book.
In the very last years of his life, Winner drew The Katzenjammer Kids. Winner lived with his wife, the former Agnes Reid, and two daughters in Upper Montclair, New Jersey.

Death

He died of cancer in 1956, he was 71.