V. T. Hamlin - After World War I

After World War I

After his discharge, Hamlin went back to Perry High School in 1919. He then attended college, first a term at the University of Missouri in 1920, followed by study of journalism at Drake University in 1922.

His college experiences came to an end after a quarrel with an art teacher, as he recalled, "Then the teacher took out my drawing and she stood up with it before the class and announced: 'Now here's a man with a wonderful talent and he wants to waste it on being a cartoonist!'"

He traveled around the U.S, working at various jobs as a sign painter, an animator, window dresser, card writer, movie projectionist and semi-professional boxer. After employment in 1922 as a journalist at the Des Moines News, Hamlin worked for the Texas Grubstakers newspaper and the Fort Worth Record. His income for the year 1922 was $910.

By 1923, he was on staff as a photographer, a cartoonist and a writer at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, where he created his first comic strip, The Hired Hand, and a sports feature, The Panther Kitten. Cartoonist Steve Stiles noted:

The job only lasted a year. It was the Prohibition era and Hamlin and a friend were discovered using the paper's engraving equipment to make counterfeit labels for bootleg whiskey bottles. Hamlin moved on to doing art for an oil industry publication and one day, while wandering through the desolate landscape of the oil fields, began musing about the dinosaurs who had once roamed through the very same territory. Hamlin also acquired a lifelong interest in paleontology through conversations with geologist acquaintances.

On December 24, 1926, he married high-school sweetheart Dorothy Stapleton, who became the model for the character of Ooola in Alley Oop. Their daughter Theodora was born in 1927, followed by their son Jon in 1936. In 1928, he worked as a photographer for the Houston Press.

When the oil industry magazine went under, the Hamlins returned to Perry, Iowa in 1930.