John Hager

John Ross "Dok" Hager (June 29, 1858 – June 14, 1932) was an American cartoonist for the Seattle Daily Times, creator of a daily comic accompanying the weather report, and the comic strip Dok's Dippy Duck. Hager's nickname stems from his time as a dentist in Terre Haute, Indiana before he moved to Seattle, Washington in 1889 and began working for the Seattle Times.

Cartoons Doc Hager's first Umbrella Man cartoon, to illustrate the weather November 1, 1909 in the Seattle Daily Times.

Umbrella Man and the Kid

Umbrella Man Beginning November 1, 1909, Dok created a daily cartoon to accompany The Weather, which featured a character who came to be known as the Umbrella Man, or "Sport". In the newspaper on May 3, 1913, the weather comic was called The Umbrella Man, in a front–page box naming the paper's features. Later on, as Dok began to do more cartooning, he gave Sport a sidekick, named the Kid.

The Kid The Kid was a talking duck. He was not part of the Dippy Duck or The Waddles cartoon strips, but was the sidekick to the Umbrella Man. He became a regular feature on the front page of The Seattle Times. Like the Umbrella Man, the Kid sometimes sported an umbrella hat. The two wandered the streets of Seattle in the comic, dispensing wit and wisdom along with weather forecasts. In the early strip, the unnamed duck stood around on the street corner picking fights with whomever passed by. The duck in this cartoon is also known as The Kid.

On May 3, 1913, in a front-page box called "Features of Today's Paper", Dok's cartoon was called "The Duck. By Dok."

On February 10, 1915, the strip was named Dok's Dippy Duck with no change in what was happening in the plot; the February 10 strip addressed what had happened in the previous day's strip.

The Kid becomes Waddles By the time that the artists of the Seattle Cartoonists' Club put together their book The Cartoon; A Reference Book of Seattle's Successful Men, the Kid was well enough known to be included in the book without the Umbrella Man. Other area cartoonists had a regular commentary animal, and the public recognized the talking duck as being Dok's.

Waddles was a duck drawn by George Hager for the Christian Science Monitor in the cartoon strip The Adventures of the Waddles. According to the Seattle Daily Times, Waddles was a continuation of his father's duck, associated with the weather man. Dok had to discontinue his illustrating when his eyes went, and his children ran the Waddles comic strip.

Books The Umbrella Man by Dok. Lowman and Hanford Company, Seattle, Washington, 1911. Sport and the Kid by Hager, J.R. "Doc". Lowman and Hanford Company, Seattle, Washington, 1913. The Cartoon; A Reference Book of Seattle's Successful Men, Frank Calvert (ed.), Metropolitan Press, Seattle, 1911. Online text