'Mac'.
Bob Moyer was an American newspaper comic artist, commercial artist and watercolor painter. During the 1940s, he worked for the Newspaper Enterprise Association on features like 'Ticklers' (1941-1942) and 'Mac' (1941-1943).
Early life
Robert Morgan Moyer was born in 1924 in Franklin, Pennsylvania. His mother suffered from mental illness and passed away in 1930. His father, Harry Riddle Moyer, remarried, and in the 1930s the family settled in Cleveland, Ohio. Harry Moyer worked as an artist with the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA). Bob followed in his father's footsteps, and began working for the syndicate in the early 1940s. Later in life, he received his education from the Cleveland School of Arts, the John Huntington Institute and Milwaukee's Latham School of Art.
Newspaper Enterprise Association
Still a teenager, Moyer was assigned to the NEA's budget comic features, which were offered to smaller newspapers. He succeeded John Sunley on the rather corny humor panel 'Ticklers' between 1 September 1941 and 16 March 1942. After him came Bill Arnold, Hayes and George Scarbo. Moyer was also the final artist to draw 'Mac', a weekly gag strip about a young street kid, drawn by Irving Knickerbocker, Andrew A. Munch and Howard Boughner before him. Boughner had retitled the strip to 'The McCoys', but by the time Moyer began, the feature returned to its original title, 'Mac'. Moyer worked on the strip from 29 September 1941 to 3 May 1943. Between 12 and 19 January 1942, Moyer also drew the final installments of 'The Great American Home', a cartoon panel created in 1913 by Walter R. Allman.
Commercial art career
In February 1943, Bob Moyer enlisted in the US Army during World War II. Back in civilian life, he began his career in commercial art, starting as an apprentice illustrator at the Ad Art Studio in Cleveland between 1945 and 1947, Ohio. In the following decades, he was affiliated with other Cleveland studios, including the Wenger Studio (1948-1950), Fawn Art Studio (1950-1960) and the Artists Studios (1960-1990). After 1990, he continued to do freelance illustrations jobs, while giving watercolor workshops on the side.
Final years and death
Bob Moyer spent his later years in the village of Shreve, Ohio, where he ran a bed & breakfast, antiques shop and his own art studio. He taught classes in watercolor painting at the Wayne Center for the Arts in Wooster, and was a member of the Ohio Watercolor Society. His paintings were exhibited locally in the May Show, Lakewood Art League Shows, Wayne Center for the Arts Shows, North Olmsted Art League Shows, Baycrafters Watercolor Shows and the Wooster Art and Jazz Fest, and as a painter he received awards in the Cleveland Art Director's Club, C.S.C.A. Shows, O.W.S. Shows, Emerald Necklace Show and St. John's Westshore Hospital's Annual Festival of the Arts.
Bob Moyer passed away on 12 September 2017. He was 93 years old.
'Ticklers'.