Rodger, Douglas

Douglas Rodger (1894-1962) was born in the "Brae House" of Broughty Ferry, in Scotland. Rodger served in WWI with the Scottish Black Watch, in the Fife and Forefar Yeomenary Regiment. He survived the battle of Gallipoli, in which over 120,000 men were killed, with hundreds of thousands more injured. After the conclusion of WWI, Rodger served in the occupational forces in Germany. While in Germany, Rodger obtained an extensive book of political cartoons, drawn by a wide variety of German cartoonists. It was a volume that he treasured for the rest of his life. Rodger returned to Scotland and worked as an illustrator for the Dundee Courier, located close to where he was born. In 1922 Rodger and his brother James left Scotland and immigrated to the United States, where he eventually settled in the Mill Valley, California. Rodger worked as a political cartoonist for the San Francisco Bulletin, which later became the San Francisco News. Starting in the late 1940s, Rodger worked for the San Francisco Progress, drawing a comic strip titled The Friscos.

Despite being a good-natured and somewhat mischievous character, Douglas Rodger had his own personal demons that remained with him throughout his life. Many of these stemmed from his experiences as a soldier during WWI. Rodger often had nightmares from his recollections of the battlefield horrors. Ultimately he felt compelled to rid himself of these demons by drinking arsenic.