After serving briefly in the U.S. Army near the end of World War I, Turner began profiting from his art talent while a freshman at Southern Methodist University.

He then married Bethel Burson of Silverton, Texas, and the newlyweds headed for New York where he became a freelance illustrator with work published in a variety of magazines, including Redbook, Pictorial Review, Ladies' Home Journal and Boys' Life.

It took him two years to crack the major market, The Saturday Evening Post, work that included illustrating the popular "Plupy" stories of Henry Shute.

"[2][3] After six years in New York, the couple and their two daughters moved in 1929 to Colorado where they ran a small sheep ranch while living in a two-story stone house constructed by Turner.

[5] In the late 1940s, Turner changed the title to Captain Easy, taking on Walt Scott (1894–1970) as a Sunday page assistant during the 1940s and 1950s.

In 1949, Turner did extensive research into alcoholism in order to write a strip sequence on the rehabilitation of drunkard Gig Wilty.