{"id":2799,"date":"2021-03-09T09:32:00","date_gmt":"2021-03-09T17:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/?p=2799"},"modified":"2024-01-10T09:49:22","modified_gmt":"2024-01-10T17:49:22","slug":"maggies-world-089-looking-for-laughs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.comic-con.org\/toucan\/maggies-world-089-looking-for-laughs\/","title":{"rendered":"Maggie’s World 089: Looking for Laughs"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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MAGGIES WORLD BY MAGGIE THOMPSON<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maggie’s World 089: Looking for Laughs<\/h1>\n\n\n
Maggie Thompson<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n
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One of our favorite forms of entertainment has been called \u201ccomics\u201d for a long time, emerging from the 1700s usage that meant \u201cfunny.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Stand-alone gag cartoons have been around a while. A fascinating collection from 1945 was\u00a0Cartoon Cavalcade<\/em>\u00a0edited by Thomas Craven, which demonstrated that such one-panel jokes can provide clear (here from\u00a0The Masses<\/em>) or hidden (from\u00a0Collier\u2019s<\/em>) political and social commentary. \u00a9 2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. When comic books appeared on newsstands, stand-alone gags were the norm for covers of the funny ones.\u00a0Thirteen\u00a0<\/em>#24 (September 1967) was by the often-anonymous John Stanley. \u00a9 2021 Penguin Random House LLC.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Standing Alone<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Frequently, as the comics artform developed, one of its most popular\u2014and challenging\u2014formats was the single-panel gag.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It may have survived to greatest effect in stand-alone political cartoons, but such ongoing syndicated panels as Dennis the Menace <\/em>and The Far Side<\/em> have, of course, been popular enough to merit book collections over the years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Among the challenges is that the background of the stand-alone gag often has to be understood without elaboration. Whether the reader sees it as a stereotype or a meme, there\u2019s a commonality to the setup: Do you see a cannibal pot? Two people on a desert island? Or behind bars? Is there a St. Bernard? Someone emerging from Asia via a deep hole? Someone pounding on the wall to complain about noise from another apartment? A thought balloon? You get the idea. (The wonderful collection paying tribute to cartoonist Sam Cobean, The Cartoons of Cobean<\/em>, featured a combination of these on the jacket: A man and woman stand on a traffic island in the city, surrounded by cars. The man\u2019s wistful thought balloon, as he admires the woman, is of them stranded alone on a desert island.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Magazines and newspapers featured countless gag cartoons over the decades, and the evolution to ongoing serial adventures of humorous characters really took off with newspaper syndication. Then, newsstand-distributed comic books emerged in the 1930s, initially supplied with content collected from what had been syndicated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

(Note: While a hefty percentage of comic book material was funny, a lot of it was not\u2014and wasn\u2019t intended to be. There quickly emerged discussions in which some griped that \u201cfunnybooks aren\u2019t funny,\u201d \u201ccomic books aren\u2019t comic,\u201d and the like. But, even as action-adventure became a major genre of comics in newspapers and on magazine racks, gags and imaginative humor still maintained their presence.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Golden Age<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

A look at the evolution of comic book magazines (as opposed to reprint collections of earlier gags in book form) shows that early outings were filled with reprints of what had already appeared in newspapers. Eastman Color\u2019s Famous Funnies <\/em>#2 (July 1934) was the first second issue of any U.S. comic book, and it had a mix of action and humorous content. New Fun Comics<\/em> (February 1935) from what would become DC contained original content and included funny animals. Dell kicked off Popular Comics<\/em> in February 1936, and by the time of comic books dated January 1937 (on sale at the end of 1936), the comic book racks were beginning to fill. Centaur had Detective Picture Stories<\/em> #2 and Funny Picture Stories<\/em> #3. David McKay had King Comics<\/em> #10. DC had More Fun<\/em> #17, New Book of Comics<\/em> #1, and New Comics<\/em> #12. Dell had Funnies<\/em> #4 and Popular Comics<\/em> #12. Eastern Color had Famous Funnies<\/em> #30. And United Features had Tip Top Comics<\/em> #9. Most of the gag content seemed to come from strip reprints at that point; there weren\u2019t a lot of new laughs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A decade after the scant pickings dated January 1937, there were a few more titles on the newsstand (about 105). And a number of those were aimed at readers young and old in search of a laugh. Many of those comics were licensed and had fresh material, often created by people working anonymously (Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies<\/em>, New Funnies<\/em>, Our Gang Comics<\/em>, Disney titles, and much of the content of Animal Comics<\/em>, for example).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Parodies were (thanks to the excellence of the pioneering EC line) so popular in the mid-1950s that\u00a0MAD\u00a0<\/em>was even able to parody the current parody publications in issue\u00a0<\/em>#17 (November 1954). Yes, these were actual comics. Harvey Kurtzman and Wally Wood provided an elaborate explanation in\u00a0MAD\u00a0<\/em>#23 (May 1955) for anthropomorphic tales, though they\u2019d existed for centuries. \u00a9 2021 EC Publications, Inc.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While the Golden Age was often termed such in retrospect by fans of costumed heroes, it was also a Golden Age of humor. Such creators as Carl Barks, George Carlson, Walt Kelly, and John Stanley produced classics, even when some of them couldn\u2019t sign their names to their work, thanks to licensing restrictions. The humor in early comic books can be generalized as farce. But there are other forms of humor, and a detour into parody even emerged in the Golden Age. Will Eisner\u2019s action-adventure feature The Spirit<\/em> was often satiric\u2014and some installments even made fun of Will Eisner\u2019s own storytelling. (I call your attention to last month\u2019s Maggie\u2019s World<\/em> installment.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Writer-artist-editor Harvey Kurtzman took such material to the next level in MAD<\/em> (the first issue dated October-November 1952), mocking horror, crime, and western comics. In less than three years, there were a dozen such series on newsstands. (In fact, one of the earliest comics fan groups comprised people devoted to that sort of publication.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, of course, those weren\u2019t the only humorous avenues for gags in comic books. So-called \u201cfunny animals\u201d had become commonplace for creators who looked for slapstick at a slight remove from human hilarities. And the humorous comics did well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Sometimes, new comedic characters are introduced in humorous series featuring established ongoing characters. The same month\u00a0Showcase\u00a0<\/em>#4 kicked off the Silver Age, Carl Barks (working anonymously) introduced Flintheart Glomgold in the already classically funny series in\u00a0Walt Disney\u2019s Uncle Scrooge\u00a0<\/em>#15. (September 1956) \u00a9 2021 Disney Enterprises, Inc. Hey, look at this page from Marvel\u2019s series titled\u00a0Fear<\/em>. Despite its title and tale of swords, sorcery, and a Man-Thing in #19 (December 1973), it included a character with a difference. \u00a9 2021 Marvel<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
Silver Age Silliness<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

In fact, if the Silver Age is agreed upon as having begun with DC\u2019s Showcase <\/em>#4 (September-October 1956, featuring The Flash), it\u2019s easy to forget that\u2014whereas many superheroic titles had been languishing until then\u2014the funny comics had been chugging right along. That month\u2019s newsstand series featured more than 50 gag-oriented releases, including Abbott and Costello<\/em> #40, Archie<\/em> #82, Casper the Friendly Ghost<\/em> #48, Dagwood<\/em> #69, Dennis the Menace<\/em> #18, Fox and the Crow<\/em> #35, Fritzi Ritz<\/em> #46, Katy Keene<\/em> #30, Leave It to Binky<\/em> #56, Little Lulu<\/em> #99, Nancy and Sluggo<\/em> #136, Sad Sack<\/em> #62, Three Mouseketeers<\/em> #4, Tweety and Sylvester<\/em> #14, Uncle Scrooge<\/em> #15, and Wilbur<\/em> #68.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As superheroes began to take increasing space on comics racks, that didn\u2019t mean the fun had left the field.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These Days \u2026<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s old and funny can be current and funny (or even hit close to home), thanks to reprint accessibility. Moreover, our existing collections on bookshelves and in comics boxes can bring us laughs\u2014and so can delights from current newspapers and comics shops. Even the satire of times past turns out to have things to say about today, including such nods to our field as the behavior of The<\/em> Simpsons<\/em>\u2019 Comic Book Guy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A look at Stephen Becker\u2019s history of comics in Comic Art in America<\/em> (1959) demonstrated that what was old can be new again. A random page turns up a 1959 George Lichty panel cartoon of Civil Defense Headquarters: \u201c\u2026 and it\u2019s gratifying to note that public cooperation in the test evacuation of this city was 100% … They had traffic hopelessly snarled within minutes!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yep. And ouch.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Maggie\u2019s World by Maggie Thompson appears the second Tuesday of every month here on <\/em>Toucan!<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Written by<\/p>\n\n\n

Maggie Thompson<\/div>\n\n\n

Published<\/p>\n\n\n