Billed as Martin and Fabbrini, they spent 15 years performing in stock, musical comedy and vaudeville on the Keith Orpheum and Pantages circuits.

In Manhattan, Martin and Fabbrini played the Palace Theater the second week it opened, and they often made return engagements.

On his return after World War I, he left vaudeville and launched a new career as a cartoonist in 1919, beginning with a short-lived strip, Looie the Lawyer, for the Bell Syndicate.

Branner launched Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner as a daily strip in September 1920, followed by a Sunday page in 1923.

By 1939, Winnie Winkle the Breadwinner was printed in 125 newspapers in America and Europe for a combined circulation of more than eight and a half million.

[5] Branner wrote and drew Winnie Winkle from 1920 to 1962, receiving the National Cartoonists Society Humor Comic Strip Award in 1958.

The daily cartoons display traces of graphite, blue pencil, Zipatone, brush, pen and ink on illustration board measuring approximately 7 ¼ x 22 ½ inches.