National Cartoonist Society Profile: Raeburn Van Buren

Raeburn Van Buren had a flourishing career in magazine and pulp illustration before Al Capp approached him to draw Abbie an' Slats, a strip about a tough New York kid transplanted to his aunt's small country town...Born January 12, 1891 in Pueblo, Colorado. My first job was a sketch artist for the Kansas City Star. All the pictures produced in the Star were pen and ink. Good training at the time, fires, murders, courtroom scenes, etc., were my chores for the next three and a half years. Then I landed a new gig drawing in old Life magazine! So I headed for New York and finally the big money. Pulp magazines, illustrations and gag drawings  kept me in beans and tobacco: then came the war and two years active service in the 7th Regiment, New York. Considerable luck found my lovely wife and fifteen years  as a regular illustrator (367 stories) for The Saturday Evening Post,  Collier's Magazine, Red Book, etc. Then in 1937 in came my strip "Abbie an Slats" and thirty three years of the most exciting and fruitful years of my exciting life. Retired in 1971. Now I am painting, fishing, playing golf, and "dreaming".