'Priscilla's Pop' (The Milwaukee Journal, 28 May 1950).
Al Vermeer was an American sports writer and cartoonist, as well as the creator of the long-running newspaper comic strip 'Priscilla's Pop' (1946-1977). He additionally drew a gag cartoon series, 'Drawing Cards' (1945-1948).
Early life
He was born in 1911 as Albert Herman Vermeer in Alameda, California, near Oakland. His parents were Dutch immigrants from the city of Utrecht. In an interview with The Daily Advocate of 20 July 1976, Vermeer recalled he became aware of the joys of cartooning "when my older sister - she must have been all of seven - left her Crayolas within my reach". A couple of years later, he submitted his drawings to Aunt Elsie's children's page in the local newspaper, only to find out the editors had misspelled his name when they printed his drawings. Another early passion was baseball - at grammar school Vermeer formed his own team.
'Drawing Cards' cartoon of 27 March 1945 (The Ponca City News).
Sports writer/cartoonist
While still a student of Fremont High School, Vermeer joined the Oakland Post-Enquirer as a baseball writer, working under sports editor Al Santoro. He later moved to the San Francisco News, where he made illustrated sports stories, as well as sports cartoons, again mostly about baseball. In 1945, he relocated to New York to do a similar illustrated column for a national audience through the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA). Apart from being a sports writer, Vermeer also expanded his cartooning activities while working for the NEA. Between March 1945 and 1948, he did a non-sports gag cartoon called 'Drawing Cards', which ran twice a week.
'Priscilla's Pop' strip from the Guam Daily News of 20 January 1958, which reveals inspiration from Al Vermeer's Dutch heritage.
Priscilla's Pop
While based in New York, Vermeer sent his family in California weekly letters, which he illustrated with sketches of his family life. This gave him the idea to create a comic strip inspired by the situations he encountered as a father of two. On 7 July 1946, the NEA launched Vermeer's domestic comedy 'Priscilla's Pop' into circulation. Starting as a Sunday comic, a daily strip was added on 28 April 1947. The titular "pop" was Waldo Nutchell, an ordinary man trying to make ends meet while dealing with all kinds of family matters, most notably his school-age daughter Priscilla, who is obsessed with the idea of owning a horse. The family is completed by mother Hazel, Priscilla's sports-minded brother Carlyle and Oliver, the family dog. Joining Priscilla in her antics are the savvy Hollyhock, who has an endless stream of general knowledge through reading, and Stuart, who doubts everything Hollyhock says. A recurring gag throughout the series' run is the daily mashed-potato sandwich that Hazel packs for her husband's lunch break, a symbol of the family's scraping to get by.
'Priscilla's Pop' (Redwood City Tribune, 1 June 1951).
In the early 1970s, Vermeer received graphic assistance from Bill Woggon. In the second half of the 1970s, he gradually retired from the strip. On 19 July 1976, the Cleveland cartoonist Ed Sullivan took over the daily strip, while Vermeer continued to work on the Sunday pages until sometime in 1977. Afterwards, Sullivan continued both daily and Sunday features until the comic's end on 11 September 1983. At the peak of its popularity, 'Priscilla's Pop' was syndicated to about 500 newspapers. Between 1954 and 1956, Dell Comics released four comic books dedicated to the feature in its Four Color Comics line. In Europe, it was published in the Belgian magazine Humoradio under the Dutch-language title ''t Valt Niet Mee' ("It Ain't Easy").
Final years and death
Al Vermeer spent a large part of his professional life living in Castro Valley, California, where he enjoyed sports, music, fishing, camping and exploring the California mountains. Living his final years in the coastal town of Trinidad, Albert Vermeer died from a stroke in 1980 in Mad River Community Hospital in Arcata, California. He was 69 years old.
Sports cartoon by Al Vermeer.