In 1920, the New York Herald-Tribune began a Sunday full-page color cartoon feature, Peter Rabbit based loosely on the Burgess' character, Peter with Cady in charge. Cady's Peter soon migrated out of the crooked lane from the Smiling Pool in the Green Meadows to become a surburbanite wabbit in Carrotville, complete with house, car, clothes, wife and kids. He voted Republican as a political rabbit and took on regular surburbanite social habits such as baseball, golf and hockey and faced surburban problems whereas the Burgess' Peter remained behind in the bushes, learning the facts of life about the birds, bees and beavers. The two characters used the same name, but were rather different, possibly leading young readers to think that Peter was extremely schizophrenic. Not only that, but the surburbanite's kiddies, were also named after their father... possibly establishing the model for the Michael Jackson series. Cady's Peter became nationally syndicated through the Tribune and was imitated by later cartoonists, including the Berenstein bears and probably influencing Richard Scarry's illustrations of children's books. The first page appeared on 15 August 1914, and the last page Cady contributed to the Sunday feature was on 15 July 1948 when he was 78. He continued to collaborate with Burgess until 1960. The New York Herald-Tribune proofs number in the thousands and are among the Cady Archives. Collections of his work are exhibited with the Library of Congress, Smithsonian and the Archives of American Art.
A successful artist and illustrator, Cady's works were published in Life, Ladies Home Journal. Good Housekeeping, St Nicholas, Country Gentleman and the Saturday Evening Post.
Because children's books, particularly Burgess' stories, were written with the illustrator an intrinsic factor, links are provided below for illustrations, biography and books.
As you well know, rabbits propagate : clones of Burgess, Cady and Potter are further down the page.
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