Tom McNamara: Comic Artist and Musician

Cliff Sterrett's portrait depicts Tom McNamara, creator of the newspaper comic strip "Us Boys," in a moment of creative pause. The caricature above shows McNamara as a trap-drummer awaiting inspiration, instruments surrounding him. McNamara embodied the dual talents common among early newspaper cartoonists—equally skilled at sequential art and music composition. Sterrett's illustration demonstrates how comic strip artists were celebrated as public figures in the early twentieth century, when Sunday funnies and daily strips formed the visual foundation of American comics, establishing conventions of panel layout, speech balloons, and recurring characters that would define the medium for generations.