Walter Ball (cartoonist), Date of Birth, Place of Birth, Date of Death
TweetWalter Ball (cartoonist)
Canadian cartoonist
Date of Birth: 07-Apr-1911
Place of Birth: Essa, Ontario, Canada
Date of Death: 18-Feb-1995
Profession: cartoonist
Zodiac Sign: Aries 
About Walter Ball (cartoonist)
- Walter George Ball (7 April 1911 – 18 February 1995) was cartoonist for the Canadian comic strip feature Rural Route, which became a familiar fixture in the Star Weekly between 1956 until the publication's demise in 1968.
- He was born in Essa, Ontario. Ball, who grew up on a farm near Cookstown, Ontario, originally looked at electrical engineering as a career, but it was his application to the Toronto Daily Star, with only a few sample correspondence school art lessons, that got him hired as a graphic artist in 1932. Early in his tenure at the Star, Ball (not yet a cartoonist) befriended legendary Canadian artist Jimmy Frise, who accepted a more lucrative offer from the Montreal Standard in the late 1940s.
- When the Star Weekly made a format change from broadsheet to tabloid in 1956, an editor asked Ball if he knew a cartoonist interested in creating a comic feature for the new publication.
- Ball suggested some names, but having always had a desire to enter the field, worked concurrently on his own strip.
- It was quickly accepted and one month into the new format, a reader survey indicated Rural Route had become the most read feature in the publication.
- It was syndicated by Miller Services to other local Canadian newspapers, and it also appeared in several newspapers in the Midwestern United States.Featuring the woodsy adventures of a small town youth named Willie and his farm-dwelling Uncle Elmer and Aunt Myrtle, Ball drew largely on his own childhood farm experiences in creating and developing Rural Route.
- Ball, Frise and cartoonist Doug Wright are considered to be co-creators of a distinct Canadian comic strip style of that time, with ornately detailed drawings and a simple, folksy humour style.When Rural Route and the Star Weekly folded in 1968, Ball continued in the Star's art department, being promoted to art director in 1970, and retired in 1976.
- He resided with his wife in the Toronto suburb of Richmond Hill until his death.
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