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On
the morning of July 2, 1941, I received, at Westhampton Beach, a
telephone
call from Watkins Glen. It was Sam Cobean, whom I hadn't talked
to for nearly a
month. We never saw much of each other in the summer: he went to
his farm, and I to
my house on the beach. It seems he was anxious to arrange, for
the following week
end, a marriage of his poodle and mine. He was especially fond of
animals and owned
two dogs, a cat, a cow, and a bad-tempered goose, full of coarse
noises. He had even
recently bought an automobile named after an animal: a Jaguar, very
sleek and terribly
fast.
Sam was a countryman, really. He
was born and raised in and around
Gettysburg. His cousin Charlie Cobean is still in charge of the
Cyclorama there. Since
the War, he spent considerable time in New York, and in a sense was
fond of it--Third
Avenue, Wall Street on Sunday, any time at Madison Square Garden--but
the life the
city offered was not for him, nor did he want but a small part of
it. He had bought a
home in Connecticut with a greenhouse, had a lovely wife, and things
were headed in
the right direction. The New Yorker, recognizing his fine talent
from the start, was
printing all the Cobeans it could get. Television was opening up
as an additional outlet
for him, and he was doing numerous advertising drawings, which will
stand for a long
time as examples of taste and understatement in a field not generally
noted for either.
His drawings were beautiful--he drew
more easily than anyone I ever knew.
Oddly erect before the drawing board, he worked quickly, the pictures
moving from his
head to his hand to the paper--and they came out finished--the helpless
but
noncommital men, the predatory chippies, and the world's funniest dogs,
bums, and
peacocks. I own about a hundred Cobeans, many of them done when
we were in the
Army together. There was something about me, namely the nose,
that amused, even
amazed, Cobean, and he drew it endlessly. He was carried to great
heights by my
nose. I wish you could see these drawings, besides the remarkable
collection in these
pages.
On the evening of July 2, 1951, I
received at Westhampton Beach a telephone
call from Watkins Glen. It was Anne Cobean and she said: "Did you
hear about Sam?
He was killed this afternoon in the Jaguar." As fast as
that. I didn't believe it, not will I
ever, quite. I hope he knew or at least suspected that he will be
long remembered as
one of the great comic artists of all time.
CHARLES ADDAMS
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