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The signs, as AI reproductions. Tap one for its page, photos of the originals and the record.
Who drew the figures? Still unknown. This page holds every piece of evidence, sorted by how solid it is.
What is documented
- The registrations name Laundesigns as claimant and Joseph Schorr as author of the print. That doesn’t settle who drew the figures. No signature appears on any ad or sign seen so far.
- Volk clip art sheets from 1958 to 1963 (Wackies no. 58, Wackies 1963, the 1958 Clichés cover) share the drawing style: straitjacket figures, droopy men, big noses, stick legs.
- No Volk clip book appears in the copyright catalog before December 1966, and the named author is always Harry Volk Jr.
- A stock image sold today, CSA Images item C829223, is identical to the straitjacket figure on WE’RE NOT RESPONSIBLE.
- Schorr’s 1962 and 1963 ads use extra mascots in the same hand, including an Uncle Sam that was never registered.
What is inferred
- The style may simply have been the fashion of the period, which makes one artist harder to find.
- The ad mascots suggest the artist kept drawing for Schorr after the registered set, rather than the art being bought once from a catalog.
- The CSA figure most likely descends from the same period source, and not the other way round. Unproven.
Candidates
An unnamed Volk staff artist is the closest match on style. There’s no name yet.
Tom Sawyer is the only Volk artist on record, a realistic comic illustrator. Unlikely.
No example of his work on file yet.
Harry D. Sandler, Joseph’s brother in law, was a commercial artist. He had the access. None of his work has been found to compare.
No example of his work on file yet.
Joseph Schorr himself was a show card writer and is named as author of the prints. Possible, with no drawings of his found.
T. Wilfono, probably Wilfong, signed a 1964 Paula print. Any link to the signs is unproven.
Recognize the hand? Say so here or in the comments.
Similar style, probably unrelated: town “-opoly” games
Local Monopoly-style board games for small towns put a big-nosed cartoon figure on every card, and a reverse image search matched them to WE’RE SORRY. The look is close; the hand is not. These games appear to date from the early 2000s, so they are shown for comparison only, not as a lead.
An open file on the Laundesigns of Schorr Sign Service, Glendale, Queens. Sign images are faithful digital recreations made from photos of the originals; each sign page links to the record. The recreations were generated with Grok, chosen after comparing image quality across several AI models.
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