Grace Drayton

Here's an original piece of art by Grace Drayton, also known as Grace Weider- seim, the creator of the Campbell Soup kids. This particular piece made me wonder, what if Grace had illustrated Oz? After all, this lion wouldn't look too out of place!

Grace Gebbe was born in 1877, and married her first husband in 1900, becoming Grace Weiderseim. In 1911 she divorced and married again, becoming Grace Drayton. She divorced a second time, in 1923, and died in 1936. She created the Campbell Soup kids, and the Dolly Dingle paper doll series, as well as a number of comics and other illustration work.

Grace was a well established artist. Among her early comic pages was The Turr'ble Tales of Kaptin Kiddo, which was a collaboration with her sister Margaret. I have several pages of this comic from 1910. Each week is a first person narrative by a young child detailing some outrageous adventure, including colorful characters and close shaves. It's written in a childish dialect, which is something I can't stand - but it's a style that seems to have been popular in the day (witness Dorothy's sudden difficulty with language in Ozma of Oz!)

In an episode from Feb. 27th, Grace incorporates some characters from Alice in Wonderland into the strip. While her general style is a bit too cute for my taste, it's fun to imagine her take on some of L. Frank Baum's Oz creations!