Mullin, Willard 1902-

Willard Hanlan Mullin (1902-1978) started his career as a cartoonist for the Los Angeles Herald. After short stays in Fort Worth and San Antonio, Mullin went on to replace Pete Llanuza as the sports cartoonist for the New York World Telegram and Sun. Mullin created the infamous Brooklyn Bum, synonymous with the Brooklyn Dodgers. In 1966, when the Telegram folded, Mullin continued to work as a freelance cartoonist. His usual medium was 16" x 20" coquille board using pen, ink, brush work and conte crayon. His signature consists of 26 vertical slashes.

Willard Harlan Mullin (1902-1978) was an American sports cartoonist and illustrator.

Though born in the mid-west, Willard Mullin spent his formative years in Los Angeles, California, and it was there that he broke into the newspaper business as a staff artist for the Los Angeles Herald in 1923. In 1934, after brief stints with papers in Ft. Worth and San Antonio, Mullin landed with the New York World-Telegram and Sun where he would remain as sports cartoonist for the bulk of his career. Mullin was highly influential and is often cited as a major influence on many of the great sports cartoonists of the following generation, including Karl Hubenthal and Gene Basset. Mullin's career spanned a legendary era in New York sports history, and his images of the great Yankees teams, the Brooklyn Dodgers, the New York Giants and Mets are iconic. Possibly, Mullin's most famous creation was the "Brooklyn Bum"-a colorful Dodger fanatic who later followed the franchise west-but he was also noted for his "Mets kid" and "St. Louis Swifty" characters, as well as and his skillful renderings of animals and other team mascots. When the World-Telegram and Sun folded in 1966, Mullin continued doing freelance work, publishing sports illustrations and cartoons in The Sporting News, the Saturday Evening Post and Life, among many others. Willard Mullin received the National Cartoonist Society's prestigious Reuben Award in 1954 and the NCS award for Sports Cartoons eight times (1957-1962, 1964, 1965). In 1971, the NCS named him "Sports Cartoonist of the Century".