September 19, 2024

2025 calendar sales to support ad-free journalism

Squinting through the peephole of history at those lovable Dingbats

Posted by WARREN PERLEY – Editor, BestStory.ca
Writing from Montreal

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? That rhetorical question is often used as a metaphor to indicate the inconclusive nature of two connected events – meaning which event was the “cause” and which event was the “effect”.

Similarly, a BestStory.ca reader might now ask what came first, the main Dingbat article which appears on this website or the 2025 Dingbat calendar displayed on the Dingbatland.ca website.

The genesis of both projects began in February 2003 when I was hired to write a business profile on Merck Frosst that was published in Southam newspapers across Canada, owned by Canwest Media at that time. Read Article. The 3,000-word article mentioned the Dingbat calendars and reproduced a couple of Dingbat illustrations.

My graphic design colleagues, Rodney Hall and Karen Boor, who worked with me at Ponctuation Grafix Inc., were intrigued by the colourful Dingbat illustrations. They were also curious about the origins of the Dingbat, but there was not much information about that other than the fact that every new annual calendar – first introduced in 1915 – usually depicted Dingbats in different scientific and medical scenes tending to patients.

A few years after the article appeared with my byline on February 26, 2003, I started receiving occasional emails from Dingbat aficionados across Canada asking me where they might be able to find back issues of the calendars.

One gentleman from Saskatoon named Glenn Konkin wrote me an email dated July 3, 2012 expressing his attachment to the Dingbat calendars which his father, Kenneth Konkin, used to hang on the wall of their Vancouver pharmacy every year starting in the early 1960s. Glenn wrote that he was always “magically transfixed” by the calendar scenes, adding that the “multitude of events within the picture would keep me entertained for great lengths of time.”

Glenn, whose dad passed away in 2011, said that writing to me about the Dingbat calendars allowed him “to relive” his youth and to revive “fond memories” of working at his dad’s pharmacy located at W. 17th Avenue and Dunbar Street in Vancouver. After school and on weekends, he would stock shelves, make deliveries on his bike, and work as a cashier in the store taking care of customers. And, oh yes, he always helped his father wash the floors after the store closed for the day.

Needless to say, I was touched by Glenn’s note. Karen, Rodney, and I discussed what a great project it would be to create a new Dingbat calendar. Coincidentally, in April 2012 – just three months before Glenn wrote me his email – Karen, Rodney, and I launched BestStory.ca, Canada’s only ad-free, long-form digital journalism site.

We had incorporated BestStory.ca Inc. three years earlier in 2009 with the three of us as partners and with the objective of providing freelance journalists with professional graphic design and experienced editing for stories that could be sold to the public for 40 cents each. The freelance journalists maintained copyright over their original content and could earn 25% of the 40 cents every time a reader purchased one of their articles.

The fact that we had launched the BestStory.ca website in 2012 three months before I received the email from Glenn Konkin got me thinking at that time that I should try to research the history of the Dingbats with the idea of writing an article for our new journalism site. After all, there was not much background information online about the origin of the Dingbat calendars – other than the fact that the scenes were created by artist Dudley Ward at the behest of visionary pharmaceutical executive Charles E. Frosst, with publication beginning in 1915.

But a busy schedule writing and editing other articles for BestStory.ca, as well as helping to run our graphics/marketing company Ponctuation Grafix Inc. did not allow me the free time in 2012 to look further into the Dingbat history. In fact, two years later, in 2014, we became even busier, expanding our Ponctuation Grafix family by hiring a delightfully artistic graphic designer named Nathalie Lagden, who specializes in designing and laying out scientific documents.

As the years passed, I never found time to research the history of the Dingbats, but I also never gave up on the idea. For their parts, Karen and Rodney, being supremely talented graphic designers – and in Rodney’s case an excellent illustrator, as well – kept reminding me what a great project it would be to create from scratch a humorous Dingbat calendar.

Although the last Dingbat calendar under the ownership of Merck Frosst was published in 1993, there is still an active online community that considers them to be collectibles, buying and selling in auction houses, as well as on sites such as eBay and Etsy. Merck Canada Inc. is not involved in any way with producing the 2025 Dingbat calendar.

As fate would have it, everything came together for BestStory.ca Inc.’s Dingbat project in 2023 when Karen volunteered to do double duty, working well beyond her usual 40 hours per week doing graphics in order to research ancestry and newspaper archives about the five Dingbat illustrators who worked on the calendars between 1915 and 1993. She also did extensive research into the career of Charles E. Frosst: the evidence overwhelmingly leads to the conclusion that he was the greatest entrepreneur in the history of the Canadian pharmaceutical industry.

I had agreed beforehand that if Karen’s research uncovered new compelling facts about the Dingbats and pharmaceutical R&D in Canada, then I would write an in-depth article on the subject for BestStory.ca while at the same time Karen and Rodney would create the artwork for a 2025 Dingbat calendar.

I have to say that I was overwhelmed at the amount of relevant material Karen uncovered in her research that lasted for the better part of one year. She came up with hundreds of pages of archival documents with previously little-known facts about the Dingbat illustrators, as well as about Charles E. Frosst.

By October 2023, I had committed to writing an extensive article on the history of the Dingbat illustrators intertwined with the amazing success story of Charles E. Frosst, who immigrated to Canada from the U.S. in 1890 and established his pharmaceutical business in Montreal in 1899.

Of course, as per my agreement with Karen and Rodney, it was only logical that publication of this fascinating story about an important era in Canadian history should go hand-in-hand with our creating a Dingbat calendar for 2025. Given that the impetus for the 2025 Dingbat calendar started with the story about the five illustrators and entrepreneur Charles E. Frosst, the entire project was undertaken under the legal aegis of BestStory.ca Inc.

As for BestStory.ca, I should mention that many former journalism colleagues from my long career at media companies in the 1970s and 1980s have never been too enthused about writing for our ad-free site because its micropayment system of cents per story does not provide adequate compensation for most of them. I understood their perspective, but I did not think that their suggestions that we should price articles at $1, $2, or even $5 each would find favour with the public.

However, now I am happy to announce that we shall use revenue from sales of the 2025 Dingbat calendar to support the ad-free, long-form journalism of BestStory.ca. That means we shall pay freelance journalists a fee upfront when they write original articles that we post behind our paywall and sell to the public for pennies each. In other words, freelancers will no longer have to rely on micropayments based on their individual story sales.

Of course, we shall continue to offer free stories which journalists may wish to write for exposure and for which no writing fee will be paid. Over the years, I have been gratified that BestStory.ca has been able to shed light on some important issues without requiring readers to pay for those stories. Although we don’t publish stories on a fixed schedule, those we do post adhere to high editing and graphics standards.

Every article – whether free or paid – requires significant effort on the part of the journalists who research and write them, as well as the many hours that Karen, Rodney, and I work to edit them and to provide interesting graphics with clean layouts.

BestStory.ca has never accepted advertising, and we have never sought government grants, tax credits, or public donations. Our ad-free, independent journalism has always been supported entirely on our own nickel! And we intend to stay that way – independent of big business and government. Now, sales revenue from our Dingbat calendars will allow us to continue to offer independent, high-quality journalism.

I should also mention that for the first time, BestStory.ca is offering on its site a short podcast (13 minutes running time) about our Dingbat project with radio personality Al Randall interviewing me. We are doing this to disseminate relevant information in a simple Q&A format. Listen to Podcast.

In order to make our long main story (17,300 words) easier to “digest”, we have included 53 photos and illustrations in the layout with informative captions explaining the context of each visual. If readers begin by perusing the photos and captions, they will get a good idea what the story is about.

We don’t expect that anyone – even those who are crazy about Dingbats – will read our 17,300-word story in one sitting. Please consider sampling it as you would a gourmet meal – multiple courses to be savoured in leisurely fashion over several episodes.

Speaking of people who are crazy about Dingbats, I was lucky enough to snag interviews with a few of them. I got the lowdown from retired pharmacist Mike Bain about the genesis of the world’s largest Dingbat Wall of Fame at the Castor Pharmacy Museum in Alberta.

Then there was Dr. Anne-Marie Beaudet, a radiologist in Windsor, Ontario, who is quoted in the main story about how the Dingbat calendars influenced her decision to become a physician. (‘Remembering the Dingbats’) Dr. Sal Mottillo, a Montreal-area ER specialist, told me during one of our interviews that in addition to the wonderful Dingbat calendars produced by Merck Frosst, he was also grateful for the opportunity to participate in the school science fairs sponsored by that company when he was in public school – without which he might not have become a physician. (Science Fairs)

Dingbat memorabilia collector Yvan Beaudry eagerly shared anecdotes with me about growing up in the 1960s in the house next door to Dingbat artist No. 4, Alex McLaren in Lac des Deux Montagnes, 24 miles (38 km) northwest of Montreal. (Dingbat kick)

Our 17,300-word main article chronicles the in-depth, personal histories of the five Dingbat artists amid the Golden Age of pharmaceutical R&D in Canada. It likely has more information than the average person might deem necessary. But we decided to include most of the little-known facts that Karen’s research uncovered because they shed light on an important era in Canadian history.

And the colourful stories bring to life significant events and eras that transcend Canada, including the American War of Independence, the American Civil War, two world wars, the Great Depression, and the Digital Age.

We hope the facts contained herein may prove to be of interest to a younger generation that might appreciate a narrative which brings Dingbat history alive by describing experiences of the people who lived it.

Needless to say, our Dingbat stories required many hundreds of hours for research, writing, design, and layout – time willingly invested by Karen, Rodney and me. We are grateful to have the opportunity to shine a spotlight on Canada’s rich cultural heritage and its links with the U.S. and Europe. (Read Article.)

Along the way, we received encouragement, family anecdotes, and photos from relatives of four of the five Dingbat illustrators. Some Dingbat fans were buoyed to learn that we were paying homage to the five talented illustrators who worked on the calendars between 1915 and 1993, starting with Dudley Ward, “father” of those magical Dingbat creatures.

Some Government of Canada archivists had no idea what a Dingbat was, but they nevertheless extended themselves to provide us with historical documents because they thought it was a “cool” story.

A special thank-you to the folks at the Canadian War Museum who shared both information and photos, including a studio portrait of Alice Common – a friend of Dingbat artist No. 2 Ross Wiggs. The striking photo, taken in Montreal sometime between 1914 and 1918, comes from the George Metcalf Archival Collection. You can see it in our main Dingbat story.

Here is a shout-out by name to all those individuals who helped us with our Dingbat story:

• Betty (Ward Wade) Edelmann, granddaughter of original Dingbat artist Dudley Ward;
• Heidi Sukenick, great-granddaughter of Dudley Ward and daughter of Betty Edelmann;
• Dudley G. Ward, grandson of original Dingbat artist Dudley Ward and first cousin of Betty Edelmann;
• Michael A. Barton, a retired fine arts faculty lecturer in England, whose great-grandmother was the sister of Dudley Ward’s first wife, Ethel Mary Emerson;
• Cynthia Grant, granddaughter of second Dingbat artist Ross Wiggs;
• Musician Peter Kellock, grandson of fourth Dingbat artist Alex McLaren and son of renowned artist Joyce Kellock Boyer; Peter’s brother, Robert, and his sister, Linda; as well as their cousins Duncan McLaren; Lou McLaren; Marlie Kelsey; Sheila McLaren; Dana McLaren; Jeannie McLaren;
• Inge Scherrer, wife of fifth Dingbat artist Gunter Scherrer;
• Tina Rota, caregiver for Inge and Gunter Scherrer;
• Bill Schnutgen, friend and student of Gunter Scherrer;
• Christine Lovelace, Head Archivist at the Harriet Irving Library of the University of New Brunswick;
• Aleksandra Parille, Curator of the Warsaw Uprising Museum, one of the most modern museums in Poland;
• Dr. Sal Mottillo, head of trauma at Le Gardeur Hospital’s ER in Repentigny, Quebec;
• Dr. Anne-Marie Beaudet, radiologist at Windsor Regional Hospital;
• Avra Gibbs-Lamey, Paul Durand, Maggie Arbour, Alain Simard, Vincent Lafond, Meredith Maclean, Erin Monette and Shannyn Johnson at the Canadian War Museum;
• Richard Provencher at Library and Archives Canada;
• Myriam Cloutier, Callum MacDonald, Scott Pringle, Nathaniel McMaster, and Gary Mergeson of Mount Royal Cemetery;
• Prof. Claudio Cuello, Charles E. Frosst-Merck Chair in Pharmacology at McGill University;
• Shaelyn Ryan, former Collections Technician at The Museum of Health Care in Kingston and current Curator of Medical Artifact Collection at Western University;
• Glenn Konkin, Dingbat aficionado and pharmacy nostalgia buff;
• Dingbat humourist and collector Yvan Beaudry, his girlfriend, Francine, and his sister, Brigitte; Read Airplane Dingbat Sidebar
• Sandra Hogan, long-time Dingbat calendar collector who referred us to Cynthia Grant (Ross Wiggs’ granddaughter);
• Mike and Wendy Bain, founders of the Castor Pharmacy Museum in Alberta;
• Translator Charly Bouchara who ‘adapted’ the text for our French-language Dingbatland.ca website to match our English-language version – replete with idiomatic expressions – to convey the fun-loving nature of Dingbats;
• Radio personality Al Randall who hosted the Dingbat podcast posted on BestStory.ca; and
• The Music Technology Group from freesound.org that provided the ‘fairy chime’ that marks the end of our 13-minute podcast in subtle tribute to Dudley Ward’s lifelong love for painting comical Dingbats and buxom fairies. Listen to Podcast