Just before the dawn of the American Comics there were numerous newspaper artists. One of those rose to quite prominence in the newspapers was Dan Smith. Dan Smith, born Daniel Frederik Schmidt on March 29th, 1865, of Danish parents, in Ivigtut, near Cape Desolation, Greenland. He immigrated at an early age to Nebraska with his family. At the age of fourteen, Dan travelled to Copenhagen, Denmark to study at the Public Art Institute. Later when he returned to America, he completed his studies at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. He started off in Leslie’s Weeklys and drew mainly western/cowboy themes. His work was so good he was considered to be the heir apparent to Frederic Remmington. He worked for both Pulitzer and Hearst with his final years working at Hearst (King Features). He would illustrate many weekly stories that would appear on the front covers of the newspaper weekly Sunday magazines. Titles such as Honeymoon Island, The Circus Baby, Pancho Rancho, Rocky Ranch, Out of the Sky and many more. He worked large, many of the originals measuring 23” x 29” his bible stories measuring 28.5” x 8.25”. His style reminds many people of Hal Foster. His final masterpiece was his bible stories he did starting in 1933 to the end of his life in 1934. He drew 108 episodes. Dan died on December 10, 1934, in New York City. The last few years of his artwork was fortunately saved and made its way to a bookstore in Philadelphia where Charlie Roberts purchased it. Charlie sold it to collectors and it was quickly snapped up, especially by a famous comic book artist, Al Williamson. Al was a big fan of his work, after seeing his work for the first time this year I can understand why!
If you have any strips from Dan Smith’s Bible stories, please contact me, even if you do not wish to sell or trade, just to see what survived is good enough! Thanks!