Brother Juniper

 

Fred McCarthy, a professed Secular Franciscan since 1938, started drawing “Brother Juniper” cartoons as a student at St. Bonaventure University, Buffalo, NY. An avid reader of Franciscan history, he learned that St. Francis and little Juniper grew up together as “townies” in Assisi back in the 13th century. Juniper became one of the first twelve disciples in the order Francis founded as well as the Order’s “clown prince”. His joyous lifestyle and perennial good humor so impressed the saint he was more than once heard to exclaim, “Would that I had a whole forest of Junipers!”. Providing that forest for Assisi’s beloved Saint has become a life work for McCarthy who signs his cartoons simply “Mc.”

An author’s agent sold “Brother Juniper” to Doubleday Publishers in 1957. Doubleday customarily published 15,000 copies of any paperback comic book but the agent convinced them to start with 30,000. It was a sellout! Mc recalls his mother bought the first 28,000.

In all, he created 8 “Juniper” paperbacks for Doubleday, all of which were reprinted by Pocketbooks, Inc., bringing the number sold to just over a million. With the books’ success, newspapers came calling. Mc signed in 1958 with Publishers Syndicate of Chicago. This made “Brother Juniper” the first religious comic syndicated in the 108 year history of America’s comics.

An unsinkable underdog, jolly “Juniper” ran for 31 years in secular newspapers on four continents. After the height of his readership, Mc’s sunbeam in burlap reached a peak daily readership of close to 30 million people, a fair-sized parish.

Mc retired him in 1989 but still creates the little guy for his parish bulletin, for TAU’s monthly publication and for his alma mater, St. Bonaventure University, which features a “Brother Juniper” exhibit for its visitors.