George Kennan Storm was born in Jonesboro, Arkansas on July 7, 1893, according to his World War I and II draft cards at Ancestry.com. In the 1900 U.S. Federal Census, he was the only child of Oliver and Flora, who lived in Thayer, Missouri. His father was a trainmaster.
In 1910, they lived in Enid, Oklahoma at “401 West OK St”. His father was a train dispatcher. Information about his education and art training has not been found. The Cook County, Illinois, Marriages Index, 1871-1920, at Ancestry.com, said he married Rose Mary Vennink on May 15, 1916. He signed his World War I draft card on June 12, 1917. He lived with his wife and child at 1807 Warren Avenue in Chicago, Illinois. He was a designer at the “Savine World Pub Co 608 S. Dearborn St”. He was described as tall and slender with dark brown eyes and black hair. According to a profile at the Action Figure Museum, Storm “…worked for an Oklahoma weekly, migrating to Chicago, working for the Herald. In 1919, he moved on to the San Francisco Examiner and Chronicle and later to the San Francisco Daily News….”
Storm has not been found in the 1920 census. He was listed in the Index to Great Register, Volume 2, Districts 25, 26, 27, 1920 for San Francisco County; he was a reporter and Democrat who lived at 1086 Fulton. In the Supplemental Index 1923, he was a cartoonist and Socialist at the same address. His cartoons were widely distributed.
The Action Figure Museum said, “…After five years of drawing local cartoons in San Francisco, he won a job on the New York Mirror, drawing a panel cartoon series, ‘Little Old New York in Pictures.’ In 1925, he met newspaperman-author Jay Jerome Williams and this resulted in the creation of a newspaper strip for the Bell Syndicate, ‘Phil Hardy’…” The strip was titled Bound to Win in the Richmond Times-Dispatch (Virginia), which published the entire run from November 23, 1925 to October 25, 1926.
Storm passed away in June 1976, according to the Social Security Death Index, which said his last residence was Enid, Oklahoma.
—Alex Jay