“In All of Us Mortals…” (date unknown)
by Charles N (CN) Landon (1878-1937)
10.5 x 12.5 in., ink and wash on textured board
Coppola Collection

Landon was an illustrator for The Cleveland Press(1900-1912) art director for the Newspaper Enterprise Associationand art editor of Cosmopolitan. He is most notable as the founder of the Landon School of Illustration and Cartooning (1909), a mail-order correspondence course that trained a generation of famous cartoonists in drawing for publication.

Examples of Landon’s work are rare. And look at this crazy textured paper. How on earth did he get such good ink lines while going over this moonscape of lumps and bumps?

Among the famous names from the Landon school: Carl Barks, Gene Byrnes, Milton Caniff and Chic Young.