Hard time cowboy Jake, his sidekick Zeb, the banker Tuffernell, and horse trader Wilbur are riding off into the sunset.
Few ranchers and farmers have not been longtime smiling followers of Ace Reid’s Cowpokes Cartoons.
As of this month, they will be no more. Other than in calendars, books, collections, and taped around common loafing areas.
Publications received notice from Madge Reid, Ace’s widow, last month that she’s ceasing distribution of the popular cartoons. Cowpokes has been a longtime feature of High Plains Journal.
“After much thought, Cowpokes Cartoons has decided to begin the retirement process,” Madge said. “Cowpokes and publications have had a good long ride together. But for us, it is time to put our cartoon service to bed.”
Moving toward that goal, Cowpokes Cartoons Syndicate Service will not supply Cowpokes Cartoons to publications after Jan. 15, 2023.
“Cowpokes and fans have been good to us for lots of years but at 95 it was time to retire,” Madge said. “We have the Cowpokes calendar and I guess through Ace Reid Enterprises there will always be something to do.
“My husband Ace’s talent and his experiences of early ranch life are a great record of earlier times,” Madge verified.
Ace Reid always said he was raised on 4,000 acres of old pasture. He “sorta studied in the school of hard knocks under very, very droughty conditions.” Cowpokes Cartoons were always drawn from his early ranch experiences.
Remembering the drought, Ace said he was 21 years old before he saw a fat cow. This likely explains the skinny cattle and hungry look on faces of Jake and Zeb, Ace’s favorite Cowpokes characters.
He “drew” on his boyhood on the ranch and going with his father to auction barns and trading pens. His character Jake took on the hard-scrabble cowboy life with the humor that sprang from Reid’s life experiences.
They’re earthly people which everyone who know about farms and ranches recognize as authentic, since Ace Reid knew the life.
Cowpokes followers often comment “seen the same thing happen,” or “gosh, that looks just like the man down the road.”
The cartoons speak a known rancher-farmer language as Ace Reid knew and chronicled the trials and tribulations of everyday living.
Reid became one of the clearest and most honest recorders and interpreters in twentieth-century Texas West that was no more. His captions and sketches plumbed the region’s culture.
“Ace saved savored his memories from boyhood on,” Madge said. “He added his rich story of happenings and stories in Cowpokes Cartoons giving a unique record of the times.”
Asa Elmer “Ace” Reid, Jr. was born March 10, 1925, in Lelia Lake, Donley County, Texas, to Asa E. Reid and Callie Miles Bishop. The family moved to an Electra, Wichita County, Texas, ranch where Ace lived until leaving high school to join the Navy in 1943.
Reid was assigned to the attack transport USS Lanier which participated in the battles of Iwo Jima, Saipan, and Okinawa. It was aboard the USS Lanier that Ace began drawing cartoons for the ship’s newspaper.
His main character was “The Sorry Salt” which evolved into his postwar cowpoke “Jake.” For a few years following his release from the Navy, Reid lived and worked at various jobs in Texas.
In 1949, Reid married Madge Parmley, daughter of Dr. Tim Hennessee Parmley of Electra, Texas, where the family lived many years. Their home had the distinction of being the only residence in town to have an alligator as a backyard pet.
After marriage, Ace and Madge lived in various Texas towns as Ace tried several businesses before becoming a professional cowboy cartoonist. The couple moved to the 250-acre Draggin’ S Ranch, Kerrville, Kerr County, Texas, where they remained for the rest of his life.
Starting out, Ace traveled and sold cartoons from door to door. Cowpokes Cartoons were soon appearing widely in local and national publications.
“We started the syndication is 1955,” Madge said. “At one time we mailed out cartoons to more than 400 newspapers.”
At least 15 books were produced by Ace Reid with most now out of stock. The others are still available online.
Ace appeared in one feature film, a western called Pony Express Rider, for director Robert C. Totten. Produced and filmed in Kerrville, the movie cast also included Ken Curtis, Slim Pickens, Jack Elam, and Dub Taylor.
“All my kinfolks were horse breeders, ranchers, or bank robbers,” Ace often joked. “There was nothing middle class about us.”
Millions of devoted readers and fans identified with such timeless and seemingly simple humor. Reid was described by one critic as a “Texas pen-and-ink Will Rogers.”
Ace died on Nov. 10, 1991, from cancer, which may have been contributed to by his visits to Nagasaki during the war.
But his light-hearted cartoons survived to chronicle Ace’s whimsical view of Texas and the cowboy lifestyle.
“After Ace’s death I started to send out the cartoon reproductions,” Maude said. “The cartoons used now are reproductions of originals and emailed to the newspapers and magazines.”
All the original cartoons have been donated to Texas State University. “They just recently had an exhibit of some of them,” Madge noted.
“Cowpokes calendars have been selling s
ince 1959 and they are still on the market,” Madge said. The calendars are presently produced by Tru Art Calendars in Iowa City, Iowa.
Ace Reid has a son James Stanley Reid born in 1954. He is a retired attorney in Austin, Texas.
“No one can draw or copy a Cowpokes cartoon,” Madge emphasized. “There have been imitators but there is still only one Cowpokes.”
In her ending-syndication announcement to publications, Madge said, “Cowpokes and Cowpokes fans have been very good to me. I am grateful for all.”
Additional information about Ace Reid is available from the Handbook of Texas, www.cowpokes.com, and a Facebook page.
