From 9 To 5
| From 9 To 5 | |
|---|---|
| Author(s) | Jo Fischer |
| Current status / schedule | Concluded |
| Launch date | June 17, 1946 |
| End date | 1971 |
| Syndicate(s) | Field Enterprises |
| Genre(s) | comedy, gag-a-day |
From 9 To 5 was an American single-panel comic strip series by Chicago comic strip artist Jo Fischer (1900-1987). Distributed by Field Enterprises, the cartoon series featured shapely secretaries and their lives in and out of the office. It ran for over 30 years from the 1940s to the 1970s. "According to Allan Holtz's Strippers Guide it ran from June 17, 1946 to some time in 1971."
From 9 To 5 was a gag-a-day single panel strip focusing on a shapely office secretary named Hysteria, her equally fit best friend Deleria, and their daily interactions with life, at the office of Wump Widgets, with Mr. Wump, the boss, at lunch, in the market, after work, and so forth. Boyfriends were mentioned but rarely shown.
The characters were drawn in a cartoony style (men's faces was little more than a group of circles and half circles) but great attention was given to the girls' clothes styles with them wearing a wide variety of designer jackets, sweaters and blouses, all, invariably, over tight-fitting calf-length black skirts with legs faintly outlined. The women were drawn with batwing eyelashes and ankle-twisting high-heels.
The long-lived strip was drawn by Jo Fischer, Chicago artist and cartoonist for almost 60 years. "He was the brother of Chicago journalists Leo and Maurice ``Ritz`` Fischer, and in 1963 was awarded along with them "Press Vet of the Year" honors by the Chicago Press Veterans Association." Fischer included the names of fans and correspondents in a "From 9 To 5 Club" in signs on the sides of desks and regularly thanked contributors by name and location for gag ideas in the panel margins.
"I would describe him not so much as an artist but as a craftsman who worked hard to do a good job," said his son, Joel. "He really liked the newspaper business and all the glamor of it. He was a very, very hard worker. He had little formal training but went out and did things. His education was more in the form of apprenticing himself to excellent cartoonists."
His first strip, Duets, consisting of two characters whose conversations appeared in alternating balloons above their heads, flopped. But Fischer scored with From 9 to 5.` "It portrayed workers in office settings. He had a feel for the events that took place in offices. His cartoons were either universal or picked up on common feeling workers had about bosses and other subjects."
He drew the strips months ahead but worked with fashion magazines to make certain his characters were not only up-to-date but also in season with their clothes. "He had the talent," his son said, "to match with his drawings what he wanted to say."
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