Merrylen Townsend
About
Born:	September 23, 1916
Died:	July 22, 1999
Country:	United States
Area(s):	Cartoonist
Notable Work:	Gag cartoons
Signature

Merrylen Townsend, later Lerman, (September 23, 1916 - July 22, 1999)^[1] was a cartoonist in the 1940s and '50s.

Townsend was born in Chicago, moving to Florida during her youth, before studying art at the Cincinnati Art Institute. There she took an interest in cartooning and caricature, moving to New York City after school to sell her cartoons to magazines.

Throughout her career, she worked for all venues of gag cartoons, from comic books, humor magazines, newspaper strips, and even wartime men's magazines. In 1944, her cartoons from This Week magazine were included in Lawrence Lariar's Best Cartoons of the Year.^[2] In 1946, she introduced her naive character "Cissie" to the magazine Pack o' Fun (vol.3 no.5, April 1946)^[3]

She passed away at the age of 83 in Pima, Arizona. ^[1]

GalleryEdit

From Cinderella Love #27

From The Best Cartoons of the Year 1944

Soda Fountain cartoon

From Famous Stars #6

From Teen-Age Romances #41

Cissie's Intro

Add a photo to this galleryAdd a photo to this gallery

BibliographyEdit

• Cinderella Love (1950) #4, 25, 27
  • "Cindy"
  • "The Big Date"; "Man Hunt"; "Cindy and the Boss"
  • "Man Hunt"
• Famous Stars (1950) #6
  • "Fan Club"
• Teen-Age Romances (1949) #41
  • "Women and Wit"

SourcesEdit

• Bails Who's Who profile
• Grand Comics Database - 'Merrylen Townsend'

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} "United States Social Security Death Index," index, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/pal:/MM9.1.1/JKVG-ZTB : accessed 19 April 2012), Merrylen Lerman (1999).
2. ↑ BEST CARTOONS OF THE YEAR 1944, Mike Lynch Cartoons, 6 Jan 2010
3. ↑ "The Wolves of Broadway I: The Sheep (and the Shepherd)", Troubleshooting Comics, 4 Feb 2012