The Smith Family Comic is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. Growing Up in Brooklyn, Studying At Pratt & Working For The WPA George Smith was born in Brooklyn on February 5th, 1920. "It was under the Brooklyn Bridge where I was born. We lived in a tenement house with no bath room or toilet or heat. It had a wood burning stove in the kitchen and that was the only place that was warm." (The Columbian, 1981) Although the depression was upon us he knew what he wanted to do with his life. George took classes through Franklins Roosevelt Work Progress Administration(WPA) provided art schools and started attending Pratt Institute in Brooklyn three nights a week in the late 1930s. Allowing him to be connected to the American Social Realism movement. Smith sold his first one panel cartoons as a teen "I was selling my work to the Harvard Lampoon for $2 a picture." His first major publication was in Colliers followed by The Saturday Evening Post. Signed as "Pvt. George Smith".(The Columbian, 1981) The Army and George Smith were "not made for each other"(I dont know if I believe in omens but...rules and regulations). But he drew during his time serving "Mostly in New Guinea"(The Columbian, 1981) as lead artist for the 55th Signal battalion. This gave him the background to conquer the harsh world of free lance magazine work. He would come to dominate the industry by working extremely hard and keeping an educated mind. One article described him as "Thinking about jumping off the Brooklyn bridge at Midnight" and being "One of the boy wonders of the cartoon world". And allowed him to write "his tragic tale in his own words." > "Born in Brooklyn in 1920 in a little log house that I built for myself. Have done work for Colliers, American, Elks,...Hooey, King Features and will be starting a batch of work in Snap shortly. ... Single, Skinny and 6 foot tall. ....I can do about 40 roughs a week but would like a steady job with a syndicate one per day Friday thru Monday off and pension after first year." - George Smith "Self Portrait" The Artists Advisor 1941. Reprinted from [The Boy Wonder of Brooklyn](https://a.co/d/05pzHZeK) by his grandson Charley George Crerar Below is a breakdown of the 1950 Cartoon Sales survey. This survey went over 242 issues in most of the countrys top selling markets. George Smith placed 14th with 42 sales in his own name. Which puts him in the upper tier of cartoonists that year. Sharing the national list with the likes of Mort Walker and Hank Ketcham. The professional success of his magazine work transitioned into a deep creative partnership with his wife, Virginia Smith. Born Virginia Mary Quinlan on July 20, 1919, she was working as a secretary for New York brokerage and accounting firms when they met. "The first time I saw him he was doodling with his drawings," she said (*The Columbian*, 1981). They married in New York City on April 11, 1942. While George held the pen, Virginia was editor and co-writer. *The Smith Family* started in 1950, "when the real family numbered two adults and five kids (there would later be six more, all daughters but one)" (*The Columbian*, 1981). That made eleven children in all: ten daughters and one son. "It was a good idea to have an actual family with two really real parents doing scenes from the family," Smith said. "You have a bunch of kids and there's a lot of funny things going on. We had tons of mail from people identifying with us." (*The Columbian*, 1981) A small syndicate carried the strip at first, and it moved into national syndication in 1952. *The Boston Globe* was the first paper to pick it up. At its peak the strip was carried by "some 70 papers" (*The Columbian*, 1981), including *The Boston Globe* and *The Philadelphia Inquirer*. The "boy wonder" eventually secured his syndicate role, but the promised ease never arrived. Instead, his initial output of 40 roughs per week established the work ethic required for a career of four decades and more. Over the life of the feature, George and Virginia produced more than 12,000 daily and Sunday strips. That prolific volume served as the foundation for a trajectory that moved beyond simple gags into a sophisticated, provocative exploration of the human condition within the syndicated medium. ## Philosophical foundations and social commentary The lasting value of the Smith Family archive lies in the founders' use of the "family strip" as a Trojan horse for sophisticated intellectual inquiry. Unlike contemporaries who prioritized safe domestic tropes, the Smiths used their platform to address the "spiritual aridity" of mid-century life. As George put it: "Whatever the art form, even the lowliest comic strip — this is really the function of art. It's got to come out." (*The Columbian*, 1981) ### Fromm and Tillich on the funny pages The archive preserves a narrative deeply informed by prominent 20th-century intellectuals: - **Erich Fromm.** Smith integrated Fromm's psychoanalytic theories to critique the "schizoid" and paranoid nature of American life, highlighting the anxiety of the modern "rat race." "He (Fromm) concludes that the whole of America is schizoid, paranoid," Smith said. "With each passing day the gap grows between the adult and the 'dreaming innocence' of the child. If a child is lucky enough to have a dreaming innocence, and fewer and fewer are . . . there's no hope for kids but to grow up and join the rat race." (*The Columbian*, 1981) - **Paul Tillich.** The theologian's concept of the "New Being" (the state where separation is overcome) informed the strip's ruminative explorations of seeking "heavenly grace and comfort" within the "meaningless routine" of adulthood. ### Ahead of the mainstream This intellectual depth allowed the Smiths to document progressive social themes decades before they entered the mainstream: - **Technocratic critique.** A fierce rebellion against the idea that humans are "programmed by technocracy like chimpanzees in captivity," kept in check by the "voice of the television." - **Environmental advocacy.** Persistent commentary on the "destructive streak" represented by the automobile and its role in environmental poisoning. One argument against the automobile "earned cancellation from a Detroit newspaper" (*The Columbian*, 1981). - **Social justice.** Unflinching dialogue about gun control, military spending, and the imperative of women's equality. Off the page, Smith was a sponsor of EVAN-G ("End Violence Against the Next Generation, Inc."), a Berkeley, California, group working to end corporal punishment in public schools (*The Columbian*, 1981). The courage had a cost. "A big wave of cancellations came in the late '70s, and the strip itself nearly ended," *The Columbian* reported. By 1981, Universal Press Syndicate was distributing it to 22 papers daily and 11 on Sundays. ### "Dirty Is Beautiful" Central to this intellectual legacy is the "Dirty Is Beautiful" philosophy. This worldview rejected sanitized versions of American life in favor of an honest appreciation for the authentic. In the strip, young Georgie espoused the "Dirty Is Beautiful Society," and he still made "an occasional plea for Dirty Is Beautiful, right before he gets sent to the bathtub" (*The Columbian*, 1981). George Smith eventually manifested this philosophy by leaving New York behind: first a Staten Island suburb, then "the country north of town," then California and the Portland area. In the early 1970s the family settled in remote isolation on Snowden Road, north of White Salmon, Washington, "amid high wooded foothills of the eastern Cascades," three miles from the nearest paved road (*The Columbian*, 1981). "Just getting away from the whole thing," he said. "The rat race didn't agree with me." Smith escaped the "meaningless routine" of civilization to focus on a creative vision that was as uncompromising as his environment. Even in this isolation, his commitment to his message remained total. Describing the strip's harried father, who "still gets up in the morning mean and ugly," he said: "It's moving from the mouse race to the rat race, from educational sedation to the dry martini, until the martini won't keep him quiet anymore . . . the underlying thing is that it's really not funny." (*The Columbian*, 1981) ## From an ambulance in Brooklyn to a public charity The physical scope of the archive represents a comprehensive record of a life that began with a "fittingly dramatic" entrance: George Smith was born in the back of an ambulance on the way to a Brooklyn hospital. From that chaotic beginning to the strip's peak national influence, the collection offers an unparalleled window into the mid-century psyche. Now established as a public charity, the Smith Family Comic Archive Project is prepared for institutional partnerships, standing ready to preserve a narrative that finds the "spirit's lift" in the unvarnished truth of the human experience.