Monday Cartoon Day.
From the early fifties to the early sixties the pockets sized magazine of Humorama were the place to go for cheesecake photography and cheap cartoons. They weren't the bottom of the barrel, as far as cartoons go. But it doesn't take a lot to see the bottom shimmering. They have three things going for them, which makes them quite expensive to buy, around $10 each if you are lucky. The ones from the mid fifties featured a lot of pictures of fan favorite Betty Page, often shot by Bunny Yeager. As far as cartoons go, some of the more popular regulars were Bill Ward, Jack Cole, Dan deCarlo and George Wenzel. Boyond that, there were many comic book and newspaper strip artists moonlighting for Humorama as well. Among the regulars are Art Gates, George Crenshaw, Dave Berg, Jim Mooney, Joachim Albistur and many more.
As of now, no one has yet set up a website to collect infromation about these books. Or at least, not that I know of. It would be interesting to see who contributed when and if reprints in the later issues were as common as they are believed to have been. For instance, are the later cartoons by Jack Cole indeed reprints, as they are believed to be. Or did he continue doing them for Humorama even when he was working for Playboy? Although everyone believes they must be reprints, I have never see any evidence.
Here we have a few Dan deCarlo cartoons. Many those were flipped, or at least his signature suggests such a thing. From all DeCarlo cartoons I have seen, this is the case for more than 50%. dave berg was another regular, but the sequence I am showing here is a rarity. I particulary like the almost Don Martin inspired frenzyness of it.
I am ending with some Jack Cole cartoons, some early ones (from a jan 1955 issue of Comedy) and some later ones, which could of could not be reprints. Some of the Humorama works ha been reprinted in sifferent Fantagraphics books, but unfortunately none of them have publication information.
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