Louis Franklin van Zelm (December 9, 1895 - March 24, 1961) was an American cartoonist. Born in New Rochelle, New York, Van Zelm graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1918, where he studied architecture. He had been interested in cartooning from a young age and even garnered a reputation as one of the best cartoonists at MIT while he was a student there. During the 1920s, he drew the cartoon series 'Rusty and Bub' and collaborated with J. P. McEvoy on the comic strip 'The Potters'. He also drew the strip 'Such Is Life' during this period. In 1925 an issue of The Technology Review updated fellow MIT alumni and alumnae about Van Zelm's recent career change, 'All the yellow journals through the Middle West in mid-December printed long stories to the effect that L.F. van Zelm, whom we all remember as the best little cartoonist we had during our days at the Institute, has deserted architecture for cartooning, and is now cleaning up hordes of shekels as the perpetrator of a comic strip which makes a daily appearance in the dailies throughout that section. I feel sure all the gang join me in wishing Van the greatest success.' Van Zelm gave up cartooning around the end of the 1920s and went into real estate. However, in 1941, he went back to being a cartoonist and started working for the Christian Science Monitor, where he created the comic strip the 'Van Gnomes' and worked as an editorial cartoonist for 10 years. He left the Christian Science Monitor in 1951 to go freelance, but continued contributing to that magazine off and on for the rest of his career. His last strip, 'Farnsworth', debuted in 1958. Van Zelm married three times, and it appears he never had any children.
