Irwin Caplan, 1919-2007



Irwin Caplan, the creator of the Saturday Evening Post's Famous Last Words strip and a longtime award-winning cartoonist and illustrator, died Thursday from complications related to Parkinson's Disease. He was 87 years old.

A native of Seattle, Caplan showed an early proclivity for comics work and graduated from the city's University of Washington in 1941 with a fine arts degree. He was veteran that served on various World War II military publications as an illustrator.

In addition to Famous Last Words and another syndicated strip called 48 States of Mind, Caplan was a prolific contributor to magazine cartooning outlets such as Life and Esquire, and a worked in the advertising field. He won a National Cartoonists Society divisional award in 1972 for his advertising work, and repeated that honor in 1981.

In the late 1940s, having established his trade in New York, Caplan returned to his hometown where he founded Graphic Studios with other local artists, the platform for his commercial work and the fulcrum of Seattle's first cartooning scene. He later taught at his alma mater and Seattle University. He became an accomplished painter, and his murals in particular are part of local Washington state history.

He his survived by a wife, two sons, a daughter, and five grandchildren. Services are being held today in Seattle. Appropriate destinations for memorial donations can be found in the initial link.
 
posted 2:24 am PST | Permalink
 

---

 
Daily Blog Archives
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
 
Full Archives