GOSSIP & GARRULITIES

The Hank Ketcham self-portrait below was done for a series that the Collier’s magazine ran about its cartoonists. (...Maybe it was Saturday Evening Post; but I think probably Collier’s.)

In his self-portrait, Ketcham’s left cheek is disfigured by a jagged six-inch scar that runs across his visage. I doubt that this aspect of his appearance shows up anywhere else — certainly not in any other self-portrait. Curiously, Ketcham doesn’t mention either the scar or its cause in his autobiography, The Merchant of Dennis.

Before the book was published, Ketcham removed the part that explained the scar. He got it in a car accident when he was 16 years old. The car, driven by a friend of Ketcham’s, blew a tire and, out of control, ran into a telephone pole. Nobody in the car was hurt — except Ketcham, whose face was slashed.

“Some kind man sped me to the County Hospital where I was quickly stitched and bandaged by a nearsighted intern. Thus the six-inch scar that I have sported ever since.”

How do I know all this? Because Ketcham sent me a sheaf of papers after I’d reviewed the autobiography. He liked the review and thought (rightly) that I’d be interested in the “out-takes,” the portions of his life story that he omitted for one reason or another. (Mostly, I suspect, because the tales weren’t funny enough to take up pages from the ration the publisher allowed him.)

Ketcham tells about the accident with the sure instinct of an accomplished comedic writer. He begins:

“Every time we [Hank and his teenage friends] went out for a drive, Grandmother Ketcham would stubbornly harp on the principle of wearing freshly laundered clothes. ‘In case you’re in an accident, you know,’ she would add. Apparently her concern was less for possible injury than the horror of being found wearing dirty undies.”

Then Ketcham relates the events of that evening in 1936 Seattle — the car crash, the wreckage, discovery of the blood streaming down his face, his visit to the hospital and the nearsighted intern.

Then he ends his story:

“Grandma Ketch would be pleased to know that, right up until the moment of collision, my BVDs were spotless.”