An old trade-paper profile put George under the Brooklyn Bridge at midnight and called him one of the boy wonders of cartoondom. He told the story himself: born in Brooklyn in 1920 in a wee log cabin I built myself. Work in Collier's, American, Elks, Squad Riot, Hooey, King Features, and a batch coming out in Snap — their rate is $10, not $15, unless I'm being gypped as usual. Hobbies: piano, making money, music, and making a nuisance of himself near a jukebox playing Bing Crosby's Beautiful Dreamer.

I'm single, skinny, 6 ft tall… Turn out about 40 roughs a week but would like a job with some syndicate doing one a day, with Friday to Monday off and a pension after 1st year.

A later colleague remembered him as a long, thin, sad-faced drink of water who looked as if he had the troubles of the world on his shoulders. Making the Wednesday rounds he would get off the elevator, turn right, change his mind, step kerplunk on the editor's foot, and boot the same editor with his briefcase. Apologies did not help when, ten minutes later, he sat opposite that editor showing cartoons. The syndicate job arrived anyway.