University Libraries Launch the George Fisher Digital Collection

Bill Clinton on a tricycle published by the Young Democrats of Arkansas, 1982 George Fisher Calendar

Envelope with artwork for a letter from Fisher to his wife, Rosemary, 1950

George and Rosemary Fisher, photo by T. Harding, Jr., 1950

Hillary Clinton as Wonder Woman, from the George Fisher Papers

Photo Submitted

Bill Clinton on a tricycle, George Fisher cartoon published by the Young Democrats of Arkansas, 1982 George Fisher Calendar, from the George Fisher Papers, MC 1495, University Libraries, Special Collections Department

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. –The University Libraries’ special collections department has launched a digital collection documenting the life and career of famed Arkansas cartoonist, George Fisher. Fisher’s legendary work has become an integral part of the history of Arkansas.

Titled “Drawing Distinctions: The Life and Work of American Cartoonist George Fisher,” the collection includes samples of his professional work, memorabilia, photographs, scrapbooks, and correspondence to friends and family with quirky illustrations. The collection begins with his first cartoon strip “Fisky Limps” created by an eight-year-old Fisher, to his final cartoons for the Arkansas Times. A chronology of Fisher’s life and a bibliography of his published work are also contained in the digital library. The collection is available on the University Libraries’ website.

Fisher had a vast output of work for his more than five decades as an artist, and his cartoons addressed everything from state and national politics and veteran’s affairs, to Arkansas folk music and the environmental policies of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He created numerous caricatures of public figures, including one of Hillary Clinton as Wonder Woman. One of his most famous political cartoons portrays Gov. Orval Faubus addressing the state legislature. Everyone present, including the mice, had the distinctive face of the six-term governor. Another well-known Fisher cartoon pokes fun at Arkansas politics with the “Old Guard Rest Home,” a series depicting former politicians living out their days in rocking chairs on the rest home porch.

Fisher was born on April 8, 1923, in Beebe, Ark. After his mother’s early death, Fisher’s father raised him, encouraging his son’s pursuit of art. Fisher attended the Beebe public schools and the local community college before serving in Britain during World War II. He studied art while abroad and later studied at the University of Arkansas.

In Britain, Fisher met his wife, Rosemary Snook of Bournemouth, and they were married shortly after the war. The couple settled in West Memphis, Ark., where Fisher and other returning veterans established a reform newspaper, the West Memphis News. In 1949 Fisher and his wife moved to Little Rock, where he did commercial art for the Southwestern Bell Telephone Co. and convinced the editor of the North Little Rock Times to begin publishing his political cartoons. In 1972 the Arkansas Gazette began reprinting the Fisher cartoons, and three years later he joined the Gazette as the lead cartoonist. When the Arkansas Democrat absorbed the Arkansas Gazette, Fisher went to work for The Arkansas Times and was still drawing cartoons for the publication when he died on Dec. 15, 2003.

Special collections department head Tom W. Dillard said, “George Fisher was a remarkable man, an astute observer of Arkansas, and a cartoonist whose work has had a dramatic impact on the state over a long period of time. His papers are a veritable goldmine of documentation about Arkansas. I expect generations of Arkansans to come to know Fisher and his incredible cartoons through this manuscript collection.” 

Fisher’s papers were donated to the University Libraries shortly before his death, and a generous donation from Kathryn and Tommy May and Simmons First National Bank made the digitization project possible.