Bockewitz: the dramatic cartoonist

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REDPATH
BOCKEWITZ THE DRAMATIC CARTOONIST


Bockewitz One of the Greatest
Young Cartoonist-Entertainer Has Program Combining All the Elements of Humor, Pathos and Drama, Brightened by Marvelous Lighting Effects.

(From the Platform World)

THERE can be no doubt but that this young John Bockewitz is one of the greatest cartoonists and entertainers who has ever stood before an audience.

An artist in the highest sense of that much abused word, Bockewitz has introduced many innovations and novelties in his program.  For one thing he uses two easels—gigantic affairs that tower high above the artist himself—and he's six feet tall.  His lighting effects were another thing to marvel at.  What with suitcases equipped as switchboards, with a full complement of spotlights, dimmers and other electrical appliances for bringing out all the lights and shadows of a picture, Mr. Bockewitz is able to put on his program adequately in any sort of an auditorium that has electric current.  His color effects are beautiful and he obtains a surprising variety of them.  I have never seen more varied and delightful lighting for any platform program than this fine artist provides.  The equipment is also arranged so that these color changes can be made with astonishing rapidity and at times an effect of several colors at once is obtained.

But while these mechanical adjuncts are interesting and important it is, after all is said and done, the artist himself who is the vital factor in such a program.  Bockewitz is an actor as well as a cartoonist.  His reading of various poems accompanying his sketches was so finished, so beautifully done that one was moved to say, this man must have spent years in some school of dramatic art perfecting his diction.  And the funny thing about it all is that Bockewitz says he never took a lesson in voice in his life!  It's a gift.  It really is in his case, for he becomes so interested in the number he is reading that his voice unconsciously carries out the dictates of his thinking as he draws.

There were four pictures in colors, made more beautiful by the changing lights that especially appealed to the writer.  They were of an Indian tepee with its surrounding woodsy background, changed rapidly to show the same spot as it is today, with towering skyscrapers; Kipling's Road to Mandalay, with the story of the poem and the poem itself read by the artist; Alfred Noyes', The Highwayman, with story and poem, and as a finale the story of John Howard Payne's life, including the pathetic tale of his Home, Sweet Home.  These were masterpieces of artistic worth.  Even without special lighting or a single word from the artist they would have been arresting.  But when the poems dealing with each picture were read as beautifully as they were and when a myriad of vari-colored lights added their part the result was immeasurably heightened.

For the seeker after novelty the cartoonist offered two special stunts that brought forth laughter and exclamations of surprise and wonder.  He called for single words and wrote them upside down as rapidly as they were given.  Tearing off the sheet, he turned it about and behold, there were the words just as they should be!  But even more difficult was his feat of writing, upside down, a sentence supplied from the audience, while at the same time he read aloud portions of a story from a newspaper.

The Indianapolis News, the leading paper of the Indiana city, devoted over half a column to this program under a large head.  When one realizes the amount of material that comes into a big daily newspaper's offices each day it can readily be appreciated how much Indianapolis thought of Mr. Bockewitz and his program.

One of the most enthusiastic recent comments on Mr. Bockewitz comes from Joseph Steffek, chairman of the entertainment committee of the Allis Chalmers Manufacturing Company of Milwaukee.  In writing the Redpath Bureau about the artist's appearance there early in February he said, in part:

His performance went over one hundred per cent with our club.  It was not only his artistic work and manner in which he performs, but he has a wonderful asset in his personality.  Our members were simply mystified as to his wonderful color drawings and lighting effects.  I am not exaggerating when I say he is one hundred per cent.

This fine artist has many more similar reports from recent programs, but the above will give an idea, at least, of the acclaim with which the public is receiving his splendid work.

—ROY L. HARVEY.

Printed in U. S. A.