'Mom 'n Pop' (The Wausau Daily Herald, 25 February 1924).
Loron A. Taylor was an American cartoonist and commercial artist. During a period of four years, he was affiliated with the Newspaper Enterprise Association, creating the gag-a-day comic 'Mom 'n Pop' (1924-1928) and drawing installments of 'The Romance of America' (1927).
Life
Not much is known about Taylor's early life, except that he came from Cleveland, Ohio. Considering he was 32 at the time of his death, he was either born in 1899 or 1900. He graduated from Washingtonville High School somewhere in 1916, and already saw one of his cartoons published in The Mahoning Dispatch of Canfield, Ohio, on 5 January 1917. His collaboration with the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA) lasted from 1924 to 1928.
Early cartoon, published in the Mahoning Dispatch on 5 January 1917.
Mom 'n Pop
Taylor's main feature for the syndicate was a family gag comic called 'Mom 'n Pop' (a.k.a. 'Chick and Gladys' or 'Newfangles'), which made its debut as a daily on 19 February 1924. A Sunday comic was added on 26 September 1926, and appeared as a topper to Neg Cochran's 'Out Our Way'. The comic starred an middle-aged couple and their kids, who all talk in slang. Pop, with pipe and top hat, had earned his fortune in the oil business, but it is actually Mom who is the boss in the household. The children include son Chick, who is just out of high school, the little kid sister Amy and the soon-to-be-graduated flapper girl sister Dot.
'Mom 'n Pop' (The Bee, 29 February 1924).
The Romance of America
Taylor additionally drew installments for the educational picture story series 'The Romance of America', which presented illustrated biographies of important people from US history. It was written by Bill Braucher. Taylor illustrated the serials about Tecumseh (3-8 January 1927), Kit Carson (10-22 January 1927) and Nathan Forest (24 January - 5 February 1927). Other artists for the feature were Larry Redner, Paul Kroesen and Phil V. Bessey.
Later life and death
Loron Taylor left the NEA in 1928, after which Wood Cowan took over 'Mom 'n Pop' from 9 March 1928 to 8 February 1936. In the following years, Taylor presumably worked as a commercial artist until he took his own life on 2 April 1932. He was 32 years old. The Blackwell Morning Tribune, the Los Angeles Times and other papers affiliated to the NEA Service, reported extensively about the details of his tragic end. The artist shot himself to death in the house of a taxi driver, who had driven him around Cleveland earlier that day. In one of his pockets was a farewell note to his estranged wife Edna, of whom he was separated since August of the previous year. The papers didn't shy away from transcribing the entire content of the letter, which made clear that loneliness and financial problems drove him to his desperate act.
The Berkshire Eagle, 13 April 1926.