Fred Ellis’ Oil Cartoons
With yet another major oil spill (the oil pipeline rupture spilling tar sands-derived oil, in Mayflower, Arkansas), and oil industry representatives using spin to try to deivert attention from facts, this year’s Earth Day posting returns to the theme of Big Oil.
Above, “Bubble, Bubble, Oil and Trouble” by Fred Ellis, from the February 14th, 1924 issue of The Daily Worker, scanned from its reprinting in the 1926 book, Red Cartoons.
Click on the above & below pictures, to view the cartoons in detail, and read their captions.
Beneath, Ellis’ “I Didn’t Do It…”. From the book Red Cartoons 1928, which reprinted this cartoon from the February 24th, 1928 issue of The Daily Worker.
Beneath, I’ve shown this image before (two years ago), but it’s just so appropriate! We have a portrait of Chicago coal energy man, W.T. Delihant, from the 1904 cartoon vanity project, Illinoisans As We See ‘Em. Delihant apparently was proud of his sideline as a magician, promoting (in 1904) that not only was he a “washed coal” man, he also was a “Sleight of Hand Performer”…
Two more from Fred Ellis. Above, “The Forty Thieves”, from the February 25th, 1925 Daily Worker, and the 1926 Red Cartoons.
Below, “The Leaning Tower”, from the February 17th, 1928 Daily Worker, and the book “Red Cartoons 1928″.
(Note that these are only some of artist Fred Ellis‘ oil cartoons. These just happen to be ones I had available to scan.)
— Doug
