Joe Lane (cartoonist)


Joseph Eichberger was an American cartoonist best known for his work under the pen name Joe Lane; he also used the name Joseph Berger. Eichberger began his cartooning work before serving in the US Navy during World War II, using a pseudonym due to conflicts with his work as a firefighter. Eichberger was a fire engineer for the Chicago Fire Department.

Career

Eichberger did cartooning for the Chicago Herald and Examiner.
Eichberger's career included work for DC Comics that predates Action Comics issue 1, which meant that before his death he was one of the last remaining Platinum age creators.
Eichberger is best known for his cartoons for Extension Magazine, a publication of the Catholic Church Extension Society. Starting in the 1940s, he provided a Sunday-sized comic strip called Davey, using the Joseph Berger pen name. His primary work in the magazine under the Joe Lane name was during the 1950s and into the 1960s. He sold his first cartoon about nuns to Extension in 1942, before beginning his wartime service. He returned to doing nun cartoons for the magazine regularly after Bill O'Malley, who had gained attention on the magazine doing cartoons about "Two Little Nuns", left the magazine in a tiff over payment. In O'Malley's copyright lawsuit that followed, Eichberger provided a deposition. The first collection of the Joe Lane nun cartoons had preorders of over 50,000 copies. Lane also provided cartoons about clergymen. In 2009, columnist Dan Savage noted that some were finding new relevance in his clergy cartoons, reinterpreting them in the light of the Church's sex scandals.

Publications

As Joe Eichberger

More Fun Comics volume 1 issue 12, volume 2 issues 1 and 2, volume 3 issue 2 New Comics volume 1 issues 9 and 10

As Joe Lane

''Extension'' cartoon collections

More Little Nuns, published 1951 The Fathers, published 1952 Our Little Nuns, published 1954Priests Are Like People, published 1954

Michael Book Co. cartoon collections

Michael Book Co. was Eichberger's self-publishing imprint.Heirs of Heaven, published 1955 Yes, Sister! No, Sister!, published 1956Nuns So Lovable, published 1957Vale of Dears, published 1958 Kids' Sisters, published 1959All For Nuns, published 1960Nice Habits, published 1961Veiled Humor, published 1962

Illustrations

  • Tremblay, Edward A., When You Go To Tonga, Apostolate of the Daughters of St. Paul Press, 1954

Personal life

Eichberger and his wife, Catherine Quinn Eichberger, had two children.