Toni Mendez Collection Guide

Biography of Toni Mendez, 1908?-2003

Toni Mendez worked as an agent representing creative people in the fields of cartooning, illustration and writing from 1946 to 2003. As president of Toni Mendez, Inc., her roles included syndicate feature representative, literary agent, licensor and merchandiser. As such, she was responsible for the placement and management of all secondary rights of syndicated properties in various commercial fields such as comic books, soft and hard bound books, toys, novelties, clothing, home accessories, records, radio, television and hundreds of other secondary items, including endorsements and advertising. She also represented literary authors in submitting manuscripts to publishers, negotiating royalty agreements, and securing secondary rights for paperbacks, reprints, performances, and film and television productions. These operations brought her into contact with numerous cartoonists, writers, entertainers, newspaper and television executives, manufacturers, attorneys, publishers, and advertising agencies.

Mendez's first licensed merchandise deal was for Frank Willard, creator of Moon Mullins. She went on to represent more than fifty other cartoonists, most significantly Milton Caniff, Ray Bailey, and B. Kliban. Mendez became responsible for all secondary rights of syndicated properties for Field Enterprises; the Newspaper Enterprise Association; and Publishers Syndicate. She was instrumental in the formation of the National Cartoonists Society in 1946, and became an honorary member in 1967. From 1955 until 2002, she served on the Board of Directors of the Newspaper Comics Council (NCC), later the Newspaper Features Council (NFC), a nonprofit organization to promote newspaper cartoon features and to assist various public service organizations.

As a native New Yorker and proud Manhattanite, Mendez was educated in New York City public schools and spent a short time at Columbia University. She married Harry S. Dale, vice-president of the Book-of-the-Month Club, on September 17, 1958. Dale died on October 24, 1962. Mendez then married Samuel "Shap" O. Shapiro, vice-president and circulation director of Cowles Communications, Inc., on April 14, 1965. Shapiro died on September 4, 1990.

Her first job was as a Rockette at the New York City Music Hall. As a result of her background in dancing, she became involved in the production of choreographed shows to entertain the armed forces during World War II. In July 1942, she helped organize the American Theatre Wing Hospital Committee whose purpose was to provide entertainment for hospitalized servicemen. Her charge was to seek out unusual talent for these hospital shows.

At that time, Mendez conceived of the idea of building a hospital show around famous cartoonists performing Chalk Talks in which the audience would interact with the cartoonists as they drew and told jokes. Directing and producing the shows herself, she gathered together such famous names as Milton Caniff (Terry and the Pirates), Al Capp (Li'l Abner), Otto Soglow (The Little King), Gus Edson (The Gumps), Russell Patterson (magazine illustrator), C. D. Russell (Pete the Tramp), Rube Goldberg (Rube's Ramblings), Bill Holman (Smokey Stover), Al Posen (Sweeney and Son), Ernie Bushmiller (Nancy), George Clark (The Neighbors), Frank Willard (Moon Mullins), E. Simms Campbell (Cuties), and John Pierotti (magazine, editorial and sports cartoonist).

Shortly after the war, several of the Chalk Talk cartoonists decided to form an organization dedicated to their professional interests. They established the National Cartoonists Society in 1946, and elected Goldberg president. Mendez accepted the position of trouble-shooter for the organization. She often found herself performing non-business related assignments ranging from the rescue of cartoonists from the Internal Revenue Service to the procurement of models for comic strip characters. She also initiated and negotiated syndication and secondary rights deals for several of the cartoonists. Her first licensing deal was made for Frank Willard's Moon Mullins character Kayo, for the manufacture of boys' suspenders. This venture resulted in other cartoonists turning over their business to her as well.

In the late 1940s, she acquired a partner, Irving Moss, an ex-Army public relations Major, and established the firm of Moss and Mendez. The business functioned as a public relations firm handling commercial interests for the cartoonists. She later split with Moss and formed a new company, Toni Mendez, Inc., of which she was president and principal shareholder. Due to the nature of this business, Mendez developed associations with newspaper syndicates and eventually became responsible for the placement and management of all secondary rights of syndicated properties for Field Enterprises, Inc.; Newspaper Enterprise Association, Inc.; and Publishers Syndicate.

She has handled the syndication and/or secondary rights negotiations for the works of hundreds of artists, including the following cartoonists: Alfred Andriola, Ray Bailey, Jim Berry, Ernie Bushmiller, Milton Caniff, Mel Casson, Ed Dodd, Bill Frehse, David Gantz, Rube Goldberg, Johnny Hart, B. Kliban, Mel Lazarus, John Lehti, Brant Parker, Irving Phillips, John Pierotti, Howie Schneider, Walt Scott, Nadine Seltzer, Irma Selz, Bonnie Timmons, Paul Webb, Frank Willard, and Don Weldon.

Mendez's first literary book deal was for Bears in My Kitchen by Margaret Merrill and W. Jensen Bowers in 1956. During the following 45 years, she represented hundreds of authors writing fiction and non-fiction on a variety of subjects, including history, political and social issues, cartoon history, biography and autobiography, medicine, psychology, self-help, home improvement, and antiques collecting. She represented both writers and artists of illustrated children's books.

In 1964, Mendez traveled to the Soviet Union under the auspices of the United Nations Women's Committee for International Friendly Visits. She met with Pravda executives and the publisher of the official Soviet comics publication, Krokodil, to discuss potential avenues of exchange in the comics field.

The Newspaper Comics Council awarded Mendez the Jester Award in 1972 for her "dedication and tireless efforts in the promotion of newspaper comics." The Ohio State University presented Toni Mendez a Distinguished Service Award in June 1988. Mendez continued as president of Toni Mendez, Inc. until 2003; she died the same year in New York City. Additional biographical information on Mendez is available in the "Toni Mendez Ego Files": Box TM.P130, Folders 37-38; Box TM.P198, Folders 4-11, 33-39.

Major funding to process these materials was provided by the Hearst Foundations in 1990, and by a bequest from the estate of Toni Mendez in 2004.

Scope and Content

The primary holdings of the collection are business correspondence and licensed character merchandise. Toni Mendez's business files include correspondence with writers, cartoonists, illustrators, publishers, manufacturers, foreign licensors, and film and television executives, dating from the 1940s to 2003. The merchandise spans the years 1949 to 1994, and includes samples of licensed products based on the work of cartoonists represented by Mendez; there are 547 digitized images of selected products, representing approximately one-third of the complete merchandise holdings. The collection has significant holdings of products based on Cat by B. Kliban, Steve Canyon by Milton Caniff, and Tom Corbett Space Cadet by Ray Bailey. The collection also includes syndicate proofs of comic strips, editorial features, and newspaper graphics; syndicate sales kits; memorabilia including greeting cards and photographs; and sound recordings describing Mendez's cultural exchange visit to the Soviet Union in 1964.

The Correspondence series contains letters and legal documents concerning publication of books, production of merchandise based on licensed cartoon characters, and syndication of newspaper features including cartoons and written columns. Manuscript submissions, negotiations, copies of agreements, promotional materials, and brief biographical information on writers and artists are typically included in most files.

There are two correspondence subseries related to B. Kliban, as there are substantial holdings of correspondence and reference files related to Mendez's work as his licensing agent. One contains correspondence; the other contains numbered images of artwork created for products. These numbers are often referred to in correspondence about product development, so researchers using the correspondence may request to see the related image file if desired.

The Merchandise series contains 156 boxes of samples of licensed products. General descriptions of the contents of each box are provided; more detailed inventories in separate files are accessible via clickable links. Images are provided for selected, representative items. There are also proofs of various comic strips, identified by title and artist. Subseries are devoted to B. Kliban, Ray Bailey, and Milton Caniff. The former two are given detailed description. The Caniff subseries is treated with a general descriptive note, and a link to a more detailed inventory, as many of the products may be duplicated in The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum's Milton Caniff collection.

The Syndicate Promotional Materials series contains various types of syndicate products, primarily proofs and promotional materials. The proofs include both editorial and graphic features. The promotional materials include sales kits, posters, brochures, and product packages designed to sell syndicate features to newspapers. Most of the sales materials are in this series, although examples may also be found in the correspondence and merchandise series.

The Memorabilia series consists primarily of greeting cards and photographs. The greeting cards include both commercial greeting cards and hand-drawn cards inscribed to Mendez by various cartoonists. There is one box of photographs, which includes a few images of cartoonists doing Chalk Talks for the American Theater Wing in World War II. This series also contains the audiocassettes of Mendez's trip to the Soviet Union.

Original artwork is found in the correspondence, merchandise, and memorabilia subseries. For additional information, see the Separated Material note, below.

Statement of Arrangement

Restrictions on Use

All copyright laws pertain to any use or reproduction of published materials in the collection.

Restrictions on Access

The following restriction applies to all materials donated by the Mendez estate in 2003: correspondence regarding authors' contract negotiations and royalty agreements with publishers may not be viewed without permission of the living author in question. Also, some of the materials in the 2003 accession are not immediately accessible, because they require further processing before use. Files in this group begin at Box TM.P158, Folder 43 and go through Box TM.P238, Folder 53 in the General Correspondence subseries.

Related collections in the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum include eighteen tear sheets of sports posters drawn by Harry Hershfield for the Chicago Daily News, donated by Toni Mendez. See
the catalog record for additional information. The collections of Milton Caniff, the National Cartoonists Society, the Newspaper Comics Council, and the Newspaper Features Council are also held in the library. For information on these collections, please
contact the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum.

Some pieces of original artwork, particularly large or fragile pieces, were transferred from the boxes in this collection to the library's art cases. Each transfer is noted in the record for the box or folder from which the artwork was removed.

Comic strip proofs and other materials that duplicated existing holdings of the Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum were removed from the collection.

Subject Terms

Researchers may find the following subject terms, which occur frequently in the collection guide, useful.

Persons:

Organizations:

Subjects:

Document Types:

Technical Requirements

The following materials require special equipment for usage. Series 1, Subseries 1: General Correspondence, includes 3.5 x 3.5 inch floppy disks. Series 2, Subseries 1: General Merchandise, includes LP sound recordings (33 1/3 and 45 RPM) and nonmusic sound recordings. Series 2, Subseries 4: Milton Caniff, includes nonmusic sound recordings on cassette tape. Series 4: Memorabilia, includes reel-to-reel tapes, with copies on cassette tape.

Preferred Citation

[Box Number/Folder Number], Toni Mendez Collection, The Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum

Acquisition Information

The collection was donated in a series of accessions from 1984 to 2003. Materials were sent directly from the Toni Mendez Inc. offices in New York to the Ohio State University Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum (formerly The Ohio State Cartoon Research Library).

Processing Information

Boxes TM.P1-1 through TM.P85-39 were processed by Sandy Cody in 1990. The remaining materials were processed by Amy McCrory, Susan Liberator, Shimekia Bexley, Igor Brin, Christine Lonergan, Justin Culver, and Rachel Jones in 2004-2006. Digital imaging of items in Boxes K1-K8, Kliban Subseries, was done by David Byers in 2002; Boxes MAC.M1-M10, Caniff Subseries, was done by Bethany Lesko in 2006; all other images were created by Amy McCrory and Susan Liberator in 2005.

Detailed Description of the Collection/Box and Folder List