Posted By Dan Greenfield on Sep 13, 2025 | 2 comments

SCOTT SHAW! SATURDAYS…

By SCOTT SHAW!

In 1960, I bought – or more likely, one of my parents bought – a copy of Four Color #1091, dubbed Jacky’s Diary, right off the spinner rack. I liked seeing a comic that seemed to have been written and drawn by a boy younger than me. That’s what I planned to do someday too. But when I saw the kid cartoonist’s signature — “Jacky Mendelsohn, age 32½” — I assumed that he told the publisher that he was a lot older, and that was how he got Dell to print his “funnybook,” a loathsome name for comics back then. But I’ve got to admit, it was inspiring as well as envying.

Decades later, when I was hired as the producer/director of DIC/Saban’s Camp Candy Saturday morning cartoon show starring my friend, John Candy, I was introduced to my former “rival,” Jack Mendelsohn, who was hired to be the head writer for the show. After I told him about my boyhood jealousy, we laughed and became great friends. I soon realized that he was close with hundreds of people in comics and entertainment, due to his jaw-dropping career in both.

Four Color #1091, April-June 1960

Jack Mendelsohn (born on November 8, 1926) grew up in Brooklyn and his goal from a very young age was to become a cartoonist. Of course, that could have been partially due to the fact that his dad was Winsor McCay’s agent. Jack told me that his family’s apartment was full of stacks of McCay’s original artwork.

Jack’s first paying work began after World War II, selling gag cartoons, from cheap pulp humor/pinup magazine sto “slicks” like The Saturday Evening Post. Jack also began writing scripts for a wide assortment of humorous comic books, such as Felix the Cat, his friend Mell Lazarus’ Miss Peach adaptations, Archie’s Super Duck, and EC’s Mad and Panic. Jack also wrote for the animated versions of Beetle Bailey and Krazy Kat.

Since he worked through the mail, Jack was able to move to Mexico in 1951. While living there, he became good friends with Sergio Aragonés, long before “El Maestro” moved to America. This was the period in which Jack conceived Jacky’s Diary. Eventually, he made Los Angeles his home. He moved into television and film as a writer of cartoons, for Jay Ward’s studio, Hanna-Barbera Productions, and the Beatles’ Yellow Submarine.

Inside front cover

By the end of the ’60s, Jack was writing for prime-time shows such as Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In, Three’s Company, and The Carol Burnett Show. Eventually, he found himself back in animation, writing for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Richie Rich, Spider-Man and His Amazing Friends, and Camp Candy, among many others.

According to Jack, his Jacky’s Diary Sundays-only comic strip, which first appeared in January 1959, held “the all-time record for the quickest sale to a major syndicate… ever!” — accepted by King Features two hours after his pitch. It’s not surprising since it was one of the most unique strips ever published. It was adapted in 1960 for Dell’s Four Color #1091.

Back cover

“I thought if I could do a comic strip as seen through the eyes of a child and drawn in that crude style, I could use my writing to do an ‘end-around,’ bypassing the skills I lacked as an artist,” Jack told XXXXXXXXXX. “I made the most use of every panel. I always saw every inch as precious — every inch had to be justified.”

Jacky’s Diary was clearly meant for adults. He noted that he “never at any time considered Jacky a children’s strip. On the contrary, I considered it very adult with the use of wordplay, puns, and satirical observations… I don’t think the average child would have fully appreciated what I was doing.” Jack described his drawing process as “like a zen state, I would follow the pencil wherever it moved. I made very few changes from the pencils.”

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Although Jacky’s Diary had a following, it was cancelled in December 1961. Nevertheless, two Jacky’s Diary  animated shorts — Paramount Studio’s “A Leak in the Dike” and “The Story of George Washington” (both 1965) — were seen on theater screens across America.

Over his long career, Jack  was nominated for three Emmy awards. In 2005, the Writers Guild of America presented him with its Lifetime Achievement Award for his work in animation. And in 2014, Jack received the Eisners’ Bill Finger Award, designed to recognize writers whose body of work didn’t get the credit it deserved. My friend and “rival” Jack Mendelsohn died January 25, 2017, from lung cancer.

The entire run of Jacky’s Diary was eventually compiled in a thick hardcover from IDW’s Yoe Books in 2013. If you’ve liked what you’ve seen here, it’s definitely worth seeking out.

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For over half a century, SCOTT SHAW! has been a pro cartoonist/writer/designer of comic books, animation, advertising and toys. He is also a historian of all forms of cartooning. Scott has worked on many underground comix and mainstream comic books, including Simpsons Comics (Bongo); Weird Tales of the Ramones (Rhino); and his co-creation with Roy Thomas, Captain Carrot and his Amazing Zoo Crew! (DC). Scott also worked on numerous animated series, including producing/directing John Candy’s Camp Candy (NBC/DIC/Saban) and Martin Short’s The Completely Mental Misadventures of Ed Grimley. As senior art director for the Ogilvy & Mather advertising agency, Scott worked on dozens of commercials for Post Pebbles cereals with the Flintstones. He also designed a line of Hanna-Barbera action figures for McFarlane Toys. Scott was one of the comics fans who organized the first San Diego Comic-Con.

Need funny cartoons for any and all media? Scott does commissions! Email him at shawcartoons@gmail.com.