Another Humor Digest and some Art Appreciation!

January 6, 2012 was Martin Filchock's 100th birthday. I knew he was born in 1912, but the actual day & month was something I just discovered yesterday.

In my last post, I mentioned how it had been a year since I scanned anything. Well, I can now check-off "What's Cookin' # 7" from the list of things I wanted to finish. Featuring the work of Joe E. Buresch, Woody Krimbell and birthday-boy Martin Filchock, "What's Cookin" was another humor digest published by the Comic Corporation of America (or "CCA" for short), one of the many publishing names used by Raymond J. Kelly & Joseph J. Hardie. CCA was the publishing name used from 1939 onward for such Golden Age comic books as Amazing-Man Comics, Liberty Scouts, Man of War Comics, World Famous Heroes, the third issue of The Arrow, Stars and Stripes Comics, and C-M-O Comics. CCA was also used on various humor digests, such as What's Cookin, Keep 'em Laughing, Pocketful of Pepper, Yoo Hoo, Khaki Humor, Khaki Wacky, Smiles, and Cheers, until 1945. From 1942 through 1944, CCA was the publishing name used for All-American Band Leaders magazine (shortened to simply "Band Leaders" after several issues).

And all you Martin Filchock fans, take note! It would seem that sometime during 1943, Filchock was promoted from Corporal to Sergeant in the US Army, while still finding time to create gag cartoons.

To download the entire contents of What's Cookin' # 7, click here.

Art Appreciation: Martin Filchock & The Humor Digests!

April Fools!!! Every year, the week before April 1st, I say to myself, "Hey! I've got a great idea for an April Fools Day joke", but the ideas I have usually require a ton of time and effort, and one week simply isn't enough time to get anything done. And then there's the fact that if I did post something on April 1st, I would imagine that people just aren't stupid enough to believe something that came-out of nowhere & was posted on somebody's blog. Still, even if I can't think of something clever that takes no time what-so-ever to do for today, I can still do something mildly entertaining, like another post focusing on the legendary Martin Filchock including some of his humor digest work. In 1936, Martin Filchock started working for The Comics Magazine Company, contributing features like "The C.C. Kid" and "Windy", and occasionally providing cover artwork. When the comic work dried-up, he moved on to providing one-page gags to Joseph J. Hardie & Raymond J. Kelly's humor digests. Presented today are a few of Filchock's covers, some pages from Star Ranger Funnies, and a few of his humor digest pages. In interviews, Filchock has stated that while working for The Comics Magazine Company, and then for Hardie & Kelly starting in 1938, he was paid $5.00 per page. It wasn't bad money for the time. I've seen Bob Lubbers state that he was paid $6.00 per page, while Lew Glanz (aka Louis Glanzman) says he was paid about $7.50 (but he also colored his own work). Anyway, when Filchock started providing artwork for Hardie & Kelly's humor digests (something he continued doing well into the 1950s), he was still paid $5.00 per page. That's not a bad deal, since, as you can see, the amount of work that went into a gag page was considerably less than what he put into a regular comic book page.

More Humor Digests

Long after Joseph J. Hardie & Raymond J. Kelly stopped producing Amazing-Man Comics, World Famous Heroes, Man of War Comics and C-M-O Comics, they continued cranking-out various magazines (including crosswords) and several humor digests under a variety of publishing names (this is very much like what Martin Goodman did while he owned Marvel/Timely Comics, where different comics would carry different publishing names, yet basically they all came from the same company). Raymond J. Kelly, if you don't know, was part of the ownership group that purchased Funny Pages, Funny Picture Stories, Star Comics and Star Ranger from Ultem Publications in 1938. Joseph J. Hardie started-out as the publisher of Kelly's books, then at some point in 1939 he became part-owner alongside Kelly. The duo remained together for the next couple of decades producing all types publications.

Today, I'm posting highlights from the following:

From Pastime Games Inc:
Crossword Pastime Pad Series 3 - circa 1946 (as best I can tell).
The bulk of Hardie & Kelly's crossword magazines were published under the "Harle Publications" name. "Harle" is still in use today as an imprint of the Kappa Publishing Group, who themselves publish various puzzle magazines, "Games Magazine" and wrestling magazines through London Publishing. Crossword Pastime Pad was published using the name "Pastime Games Inc". Other publishing names Hardie & Kelly used for their puzzle magazines include Fifty Crosswords Inc, Dime Crosswords Inc and American Championship Crosswords Inc.

Crossword Pastime Pad (Series 3) was a unique venture in the world of crossword publications, but don't take it from me when you can read what "Uncle Joe" Hardie had to say himself.

H-K Publications:
Mirth 36 & 38 - March & June 1955

Getting information for some of the magazines is like looking for a needle in a haystack, at least when it comes to what you can learn online. All I know about Mirth is what I learned from the books themselves. In fact, I didn't know anything about this title until I saw an ad in one of the Smiles digests I own.

Mirth, which ran at least 58 issues, was published throughout the 1950s, possibly from 1950 until 1958, but again, information is scarce (one issue I have yet to scan carries no publisher info at all).

H-K Publications (as far as I know) was first used to publish the pulp magazine "Comet: Stories of Super Time and Space".

Also from H-K:
A Pocketfull of Pepper 14 - Jan 1946

H-K Publications was the publishing name used for quite a few publications from 1940 through 1959 (possibly past that but I'm not 100% sure). Publications included Yoo Hoo, Flying Models, Motorsport, Melodyland, Boat Sport, Speed Mechanics, Water Ski and Foreign Car Guide, as well as Pocketful of Pepper.

Band Leaders Publishing Company Inc:
Smiles 22 & 46 - Summer 1947 & Feb 1951

The first several issues of "Smiles: A Magazine Gone Mad" were published by Comic Corporation of America (or "CCA") from 1942 until 1944. CCA was the publishing name used for Amazing-Man Comics, Stars & Stripes Comics, Liberty Scouts, The Arrow # 3, World Famous Heroes and C-M-O (or "Chicago Mail Order") Comics. In 1941, CCA was used to publish several humor digests, including Khaki Whacky, Khaki Humor, Yoo Hoo, Cheers, Pocketful of Pepper, What's Cookin', Keep 'em Laughing and Smiles. All-American Band Leaders (later changed to simply "Band Leaders") was also published under the CCA imprint.

"Band Leaders" eventually became yet another publishing name Hardie & Kelly would use. Besides publishing Smiles & Band Leaders magazine under this imprint, another humor digest called "Zing!" was produced.

Smiles would last until 1958 (a guess actually, based on the info I have at the moment), reaching issue 90. Smiles was magazine-sized at one point (I have issue 18 which is in that format) but was switched to the smaller digest-size by issue 21 (which I have yet to scan).

All of the above digests (but not Crossword Pastime Pad) can be downloaded & read cover-to-cover by clicking the following links:

Mirth 36
Mirth 38
A Pocketful of Pepper 14
Smiles 22
Smiles 46

If you want to learn more about humor digests or the publishing efforts of Joseph Hardie & Raymond Kelly, good luck! I have no idea where to point you to as there isn't much out there that focuses on either subject.

Humor Digests

Something that doesn't seem to get a lot of attention are the humor digests from the 1940s & 50s. Published by such companies as Crestwood and Harvey, info on these types of books seems kind of scare whenever I poke around the 'net. There doesn't seem to be any one place to go to learn more about the books, as opposed to the thousands of sites dedicated to comics, or even the dozens of sites focused on magazines. That said, most of what I know comes from the books themselves, and what I know about them doesn't add-up to a whole lot. Obviously, the contents were geared towards a more mature audience, with scantliy clad women on nearly every page, so if that's not the kind of comic artwork you're into, you should just skip this post altogether.

Today I'm presenting single-panel cartoons from a few issues of "T.N.T." and "A-Laugh-A-Minnit", two titles published by Toby Press/Minoan. Both titles were published during the mid-50s, with "A-Laugh-A-Minnit" published at first under the Toby name, then using the Minoan imprint starting with issue # 12.

The quality of both the artwork & the writing seems rather spotty. Maybe it's just my personal preferences for humor, maybe it's a reflection of the times, maybe the jokes & art simply aren't that good. Still, there's a few pages that made me say to myself "That's kind of clever" or "That looks nice", so I figured I would share some of those here. Oh, and I apologize if some of the pages are a little out of focus. Toby/Minoan produced the books in a square-bound format, making scanning the pages a little difficult.

On a totally unrelated topic ...

I was reading about DC Comics digital comic plans, and while it's nice to see them finally get with the program and offer digital comics, I can't help but wonder ...
"What the heck are they charging $2.99 for?"

The problem I have with today's digital comics' pricing is that, physically, you aren't getting anything in return. All you have are a bunch of images that are formatted for viewing through some device (iPod, computer, what-have-you), so if that file gets corrupted or your device craps-out on you, you're pretty much left with nothing.

I think digital comics would work better at a 99¢ price (and no, I'm not the first person to make this statement). It's not like DC or Marvel have to pay for printing or distribution of physical books, so "$2.99" simply seems like they are trying to squeeze every penny they can out of people ... at least until some company comes along with some quality titles, and figures-out that it can turn a profit with a smaller cover-price.

Oh well, maybe some day somebody will come along and show Marvel & DC the error of their ways.