The Pride of Portis

Mike Maltese doesn’t have a marker celebrating his life. Neither do Warren Foster or Tedd Pierce. But one Warner Bros. cartoon writer does.

At the corner of Market and East 5th streets in Portis, Kansas, you’ll find a long wooden marker in a little park in memory of Mel Millar, known as Tubby in his time at the cartoon studio.

Millar worked on animated shorts for various directors into the 1940s when he left the studio and began a career as a freelance print cartoonist. He’s even caricatured in Tex Avery’s 1936 cartoon Page Miss Glory. Millar lived in Burbank much of his life and was deemed enough of a celebrity to be profiled in area newspapers.

First is this piece from the Van Nuys News of May 5, 1949. The above self-portrait is from part of an ad announcing Tubby's hiring in 1949.

‘Little Slocum’, Other Cartoons By Mel Millar Slated for ‘News’
There’s a new little youngster coming to Van Nuys—a perky, happy little fellow in a big sombrero, and you're going to see a lot of this happy chappy in the weeks to come, because he is going to be here and there and ‘round-about in the Valley to greet all present residents and newcomers.
His name? “Little Slocum”!
He is a pen-child created by Mel Millar, nationally known cartoonist and illustrator, and has been devised by Millar to tell the thousands of Valley residents about Slocum Furniture Co. at 6187 Van Nuys Blvd., and of the wide selection of home furnishings to be found there at attractive prices.
Pictures Each Issue
Little Slocum’s pen-master is a Valley man himself, and everyone has seen his clever, laugh-provoking cartoons in such leading newspapers and magazines as The New York Times, Collier’s, and many others.
Now readers of The News will see Millar’s famous drawings in each issue of this newspaper, and will enjoy them thoroughly, as they will enjoy Little Slocum’s periodic appearances in these pages to act as an alter ego to the cartoons, and to carry the Slocum Furniture message to the public.
As for Mel Millar, he has led an interesting and varied life. Born in the Sunflower State at the turn of the century, he began his artistic attempts on the side of a barn with a piece of rock.
Finishing high school, he served a short hitch in the Navy, then came out determined to pursue art as a career and specialized in cartooning at the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts.
Draws For The Best
From here Millar went into an agency, was with a film advertising firm, then came to Hollywood in 1931 and worked in animated cartoons at Warner Brothers.
In 1944 he returned to free lancing and since that time has drawn illustrations for Talking Komics, and has sold to Collier’s, This Week, Argosy, New York Times, King Features, Fortnight and others. Also had his own cartoon business in Pasadena for a couple of years, and taught at the Hollywood Art Center School.
“I have a theory that cartoons are the best attention getters, and I sincerely hope everyone will enjoy meeting up with Little Slocum as he greets you in these columns, and also will enjoy the creations I shall draw for publication in The News,” was Millar’s statement today in discussing this new series.

We jump ahead to December 28, 1967, when this was published in the Valley News.

Mel Millar’s Cartoons Span 3 Decades of Good Humor
By BETTY RADSTONE
Clever cartoonists make most of us feel merry the year around. One of the best-liked American cartoonists has lived and worked in Burbank for the past 32 years. He is Mel Millar who resides at 120 S. Beachwood Drive with his wife Helen and their two cats.
In some ways Mel looks and acts like some of the cartoon characters he draws. Five-foot-six in height and almost that dimension in girth, he lives his humor. When Mel explains a gag, he laughs and shakes — much as Santa Claus — like a bowlful of jelly. His favorite hobby is eating.
The 67-year-old cartoonist, who has created some 10,000 cartoons during his career, wanted to be a cartoonist since he was a boy. In particular, he wanted to be a political cartoonist.
Millar has worked at one of the largest animation studios in Hollywood, has written books on cartooning, and has had many of his cartoons published not only nationally but reproduced in publications throughout the world. One popular book he has written is a pocketbook, “How to Draw Cartoons.”
Millar is known not only as a magazine, trade journal, and advertising cartoonist, but as the cartoonist’s cartoonist. He receives mail regularly from aspiring young artists as well as from world-famous cartoonists.
Often, Millar receives letters asking, “would you please send me all you know about cartooning in the enclosed stamped envelope?” he said.
In 1920 Millar graduated from the Chicago Academy of Fine Arts. This was just a few years after Walt Disney’s graduation from the school. In fact, for about a decade Millar seemed to follow Disney’s footsteps from school, to work in Kansas City, to California.
Millar worked for the United Film Ad Service in Kansas City, Mo., from 1927 until he came to California in 1931.
His first job in California was at Warner Bros., where he stayed until 1945. His duties at the studio included being a cartoonist, a gagwriter, and storyman.
During his employment at Warner Bros., he drew well-known cartoon characters such as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig.
Syndicate Work
Since 1945, Millar has set up shop in a studio in his Burbank home and has become a free lance cartoonist.
His work has appeared consistently in leading publications across the United States. You can find his work in the Saturday Evening Post and his drawings also have been used by King Features and other syndications.
During the past several years his works have been published nationally in a quarterly advertising booklet called “Happy Days.”
Several years ago, Parade, a national Sunday supplement magazine, asked opinions of America’s leading comedians as to what cartoonist they thought the funniest.
Interpret Differently
The late Ed Wynn, dean of all comedians, picked Mel Millar. As a result, a page of Millar’s cartoons, selected by Wynn, was featured in Parade.
“No art school can make a cartoonist. They only teach one to draw,” Millar stated. He said cartoonists interpret differently than other artists and views cartooning as an art within an art.
“A cartoonist is an artist, but an artist is not necessarily a cartoonist,” Millar said.
“Artists reflect themselves, whereas cartoonists reflect the situation in a gentle satire,” he added.
Need Experience
As far as “what” makes the cartoonist, Millar said:
“It is the humor or satire of the idea that makes the cartoonist. And the originating of the ideas comes from observation and accumulated experiences of the various things one has seen or done.”
He said that cartoonists have an art of visualizing the humor in situations which many people miss until they actually see it in the cartoon.
The professional cartoonist must be versatile, refreshing understanding, and have a wide range of interests, according to Millar.

The 'Parade' cartoons appeared in papers April 27, 1958. One is to the right. You should be able to find them in a search of newspapers of the era.

If you see a reference to Portis in the background of 1930s Warners cartoons, you will now know the man who is the subject.

Melvin Eugene Millar was 80 when he passed away on December 30, 1980.