Here’s a bit of trivia that goes back to Neil Abercrombie’s first campaign for public office in 1970, when he ran in the Democratic Party primary against broadcast executive Cec Heftel for the right to take on Senator Hiram Fong in the General Election.
Neil’s unconventional campaign featured Super Senator, a cartoon character in Abercrombie’s image.
Several years ago, I found a copy of the original and scanned it. Click here to see the whole publication.
The artist behind the drawings was a on-again, off-again UH art student by the name of George Bennett.
Abercrombie recalls that Bennett had mastered different styles, and could churn out these cartoon characters, then shift gears to produce a portrait that remains one of the former governor’s favorites.
Bennett went on to become a well-known and all-around colorful character in the Pacific region.
He died in Fiji in March 2009.
According to the Nature Fiji-Mareqeti Viti newsletter:
George was born in California, USA but after periods in the Philippines, Micronesia and Tonga, George spent the last 15 years of his life in Fiji, mainly on Taveuni but recently at Wainadoi. During this period of his life George developed a deep interest in Fijian wildlife and palms and produced many wonderful watercolour paintings of Fiji’s diverse fauna and flora. George leaves a lasting legacy in Fiji – his artwork is the basis of the recent issue of Fijian currency notes, and for the last decade George provided the art work for many stamps issued by the Philatelic Bureau of FijiPost.
Here’s just one example of Bennett’s Fiji art:
Other of his Fiji designs can be found here (www.stampsoftheworld.com).
Earlier, Bennett had produced the art work for stamps in Tonga. Here’s a description from one stamp website:
Alan Benjamin travelled to Tonga a number of times, and tried hard to keep the designs islander related. In fact on one trip to Tonga early in 1989, Alan noticed a large advertisement at the airport showing a plane which had been drawn by a local artist, George Bennett. Alan was impressed with his work, and inquired who the artist was, and during that trip, went to see George Bennet and asked him to design the 1989 Christmas set, Flying Home for Christmas, based on the advertisement seen at the airport.
From then on, George Bennett, who lived in Tonga for some years before moving to Fiji, designed and was the artist for many Tongan sets, and then later for many Fijian sets. George became a prolific stamp designer, and only passed away a few years ago.
Click here for four Tonga game fishing stamps designed by Bennett in 1994.
In one of those cosmic coincidences that happen now and again, one of the first people we met while walking on the beach in Kahala was Bennett’s sister, Hawaii ceramic artist Vicky Chock. One morning I happened to mention the Super Senator campaign cartoons, and we learned she was related to the artist. Small world, indeed.
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The first thing that popped into my mind when I saw that Abercrombie caricature was,…. The Adventures of Primero Dinero. It was an educational comic book put out by the UH Economics Dept. and widely used by public school teachers in the early 1970s. I don’t know if Bennett was the artist behind Primero Dinero, but the artistic style and the hippie imagery look startlingly similar.
This cartoon is reminiscent of Zap Comics in style.
In 1988 I was in the Peace Corps stationed in Tonga. I bought 2 pictures from George Bennet that are pen and ink and exquisite. I am glad today to be able to read his bio.
I have a wonderful collection of George Bennett items. Including letters back and forth from Karl kenyon. Includes sketch books, prototype stamps from Fiji and tonga and more.
His sister, who lives here in Honolulu, is a friend of ours. Your collection does sound wonderful. Any chance of of scanning and sharing some of what you have?
I have a signed limited edition print of George Bennett’s dated 1983 and titled “Sailor Boy” “Ratu Sailosi”
At the bottom of the print is hand written ”
96/150 To Berua .15 and signed George Bennett
Have tried to find information about this to no avail. If you can shed any light on this, that would be great.
Kind Regards
Christine
I have 4 portraits penciled by my friend George and was wondering there value as I wish to leave them to my son
I bought some pencil sketches from a George Bennet when I lived in the Philippines. They were mostly of indigenous people.
The sketches are dated 1979, Is this the same George Bennett?
So sorry to hear he is no longer with us as the man I knew was very talented.
I now am back in the UK and live in Norfolk.
My Dad and the Gov were friends till my Dad passed in 1981. NA sent him a set of 4 Super Senator prints with a hand written campaign donation letter on the back of one of them. I’ve always loved their symbology reflecting the 60’s. My kids are now fighting over them.
What a wonderful gift those Super Senator prints have turned out to be after all these years!
Truly, especially considering my kids, wife and I had lunch with NA back in 2000. They still remember him and everyone stopping at our table to share Aloha with Neil. I was born there when my Dad was teaching at UHM.