Lately, thanks to the Special Collections & University Archives of Wichita State University, I’ve learned that “Reginald Manning was born in Kansas City, Missouri, on April 5, 1905. He moved to Phoenix, Arizona, in 1919 and studied art in high school. Shortly after graduation, Reginald began working for the Arizona Republic, starting work on May 1, 1926. He worked there for the next 50 years.

“Manning’s job at the newspaper originally was a photographer and spot artist. Before too long, he was drawing daily editorial cartoons and a weekly full-page review of the news called ‘The Big Parade.’ He quit drawing the ‘Parade” in 1948 in order to devote more time to his editorial cartoons. In 1951, Manning won a Pulitzer for ‘Hats.’

“In addition to his lectures, Manning has published many books. Some of the books that he produced are A Cartoon Guide to Arizona (1938), What Kinda Cactus Issat? (1941), From Tee to Cup (1954), and What Is Arizona Really Like? (1968).

“Reg Manning was one of the most prominent conservative voices in cartooning and has won numerous awards for his work. Besides winning a Pulitzer Prize, he has also won the Freedom Foundation’s Abraham Lincoln award two years in succession.”

He died in 1986. Somehow I missed knowing a thing about him until recently, when I was looking through some cards I’d bought at a resale shop. Seems that he did gag postcards, too. At least 15 of them.

His style seems familiar. Probably I’ve seen his work without attaching a name to it. The card I have, copyrighted 1942, was mailed from Flagstaff in March 1946, addressed to a Master Georgie, so I’ll assume it was from a relative or family friend to a child — no one signed the card.

He or she did check off some of the lines on the card, which is amusing. Guess that was the intention. Wonder whether Georgie — later George — kept the card his whole life from the age of around 10 (say) to much more recent times, when it wound up in a box of cards at a resale shop. Maybe George, lately around 80, passed on not long ago, and his heirs had no use for gag cards from the 1940s. All speculation, but sometimes that’s just the thing for a found object in your possession.