The Light That Failed: The History of an Unknown Magazine that Published the Work of a Galaxy of Emerging Stars

During the last quarter of the nineteenth century, the success of lithographic cartoon weeklies led to a revolution in the aesthetics of America's serial reading matter. By the turn of the century, all of the leading magazines were garlanded in colors, from their covers to their advertisements. Newspapers were close behind, festooned with colorful Sunday supplements. The lithographic cartoon weeklies had made such brilliance in print de rigueur.

The most famous of these were published in New York: Puck, the first of the genre, and its most prominent imitators, Judge and Truth. But no city of any size during this period was without a lithographic cartoon weekly. Boston had Jingo, Philadelphia had Freaks, New Orleans had Figaro, St. Louis had the Hornet, the Lantern, and the Whip, San Francisco had the Wasp, and Chicago had Light.

Aside from the Wasp, which was the most widely read weekly on the West Coast, Light was by far the most important of these forgotten regional magazines because, unlike its brethren, Light provided the first or early employment to a host of talented artists who would later go on to successful careers in design, magazine illustration, cartooning, and animation. Those who contributed to Light included Will H. Bradley, W. W. Denslow, Ferand Lungren, Henry "Hy" Mayer, Peter Newell, T. E. Powers, and Horace Taylor. It also published the works of prominent New York cartoonists, such as Eugene Zimmerman, Emil Flohri, and F. M. Howarth.¹

The Year 1889

During its bumpy two-and-a-half year existence, Light's only constant was change: it changed its name, its place of publication, its size and appearance, and its owners, editors, and chief cartoonists. The magazine began its existence on March 30, 1889, in Columbus, Ohio, as the Owl (Figure 1). Twenty-one year old Opha Moore, a West Virginia native, was serving as Governor Foraker's official stenographer when he conceived of the idea for the magazine, possibly to boost Foraker's chances for a third term. We do not know whether he held both jobs at once, performing his duties as editor of the Owl in secret (no staff names appeared in the magazine until the August 10^th issue). Nor do we know who put up the money to finance the magazine, though Moore surely had access to deep Republican pockets across the state. He took as his inspiration the black and white comic weekly Life, then in its prosperous seventh year.

The Owl's first issue, priced at a nickel, was unprepossessing: eight pages, with an illustrated cover, an interior made up of poems, jokes, a few cartoons, a comic essay, and a back page of small advertisements. The only star contributor to the issue was A. W. Bellaw, a newspaper editor from nearby Sidney who had a national reputation due to his contributions to the story paper, The Banner Weekly, published by Beadle of New York. He would contribute to the magazine throughout its entire run.²

In the Owl's opening salutation, Moore announced that the weekly would carry the Republican banner. This proved to be true as far as state and city politics were concerned, but in the contrary tradition of the American Midwest the Owl was often at odds with the Republican administration in Washington. Following his declaration of party allegiance, Moore offered a comic list of the Owl's staff, all of whom were Ohio personalities not in the least connected to the magazine. For example, Deacon Richard Smith, owner of the Toledo Commercial, who had gained notoriety that year by threatening to cut Governor Foraker's throat from ear to ear should he be renominated, was designated the Owl's religious editor: "The spiritual condition of our readers will be assiduously cared for by Deacon Richard Smith, of Toledo. His writings are characterized by a bacchanalian gayety, which our readers will soon learn to recognize and love."³

The art department was said to be under the control of the architect responsible for the recently constructed and widely...