Sports: Indoor and Outdoor

I could care less about sports (is it could or couldn't? Whichever one means “who gives a shit?”). I just see a bunch of flying colors when they're on the screen. I never even know when the Superbowl is. If you were to show me a picture of a strong person and falsely tell me they were a professional athlete, I'd believe you. Mention a team name, I won't even know what sport that is. That said, I like these cartoons.

These cartoons, from Comic Art In America in 1959, represent what was prominent on the sports pages of newspapers at that time. The captions to all these cartoons say more than I ever could.

As much as I like these cartoons, they still haven't convinced me to care about sports.

Herewith the captions:

Floyd Johnson never reached the top, but HYPE IGOE did. The cross-hatching was almost an IGOE trademark.

Sketches of Tim Hegarty and Kid Lavigne, by the great DORGAN, from the New York Evening Journal in December 1904.

TAD DORGAN once more. This Outdoor Sports was drawn shortly before he died.

RUBE GOLDBERG's preview of the Dempsey-Carpentier fight. This was done fifteen years after he left San Francisco, and the figures at the right give some idea of the kind of thing he had been doing all along.

Four immortals drawn by BOB EDGREN for the New York World in 1927. He used many techniques; this was soft pencil.

Some of EDWARD WINDSOR KEMBLE's baseball figures, from Harper's Weekly of July 28, 1900.

A typical Believe it or Not, this one from 1935. Two of the items are on sports,ROBERT RIPLEY's first love.

The lost days of fistic glory: comment by BURRIS JENKINS. JR., on the Ross-McLarnin fight, September 1934.

BILL CRAWFORD helps the Dodgers toward victory.

Golfing luminaries as drawn by PETE LLAZUNA in 1931.

[BELOW LEFT]WILLARD MULLIN's comment on the desertion of the Dodgers and the Giants.

[BELOW RIGHT] Another MULLIN. His bums—originally Brooklyn Dodger fans—are now classic.

LOU DARVAS, in the Cleveland Press, comments on the infrequency of Floyd Patterson's heavyweight title defenses. 1958.

MURRAY OLDERMAN's comment on Bill Veeck, a startlingly individualistic baseball executive.

A group of sketches by KARL HUBENTHAL for the Los Angeles Examiner. Hubenthal does editorial cartoons for the same newspaper.

This is one of TOM PAPROCKI's great cartoons for the AP. Pace, Variety, and good drawing. Drawn in April, 1937.

JOHN PIEROTTI looks askance at the complicated struggle for the middleweight championship.

LEO's version of the old Brooklyn Dodger fan.

Sorry I couldn't include everything in the tags. Blogger will only let me use 200 characters.

Whack #3, 1 of 2

Every comics publisher the 50s had dozens of humor comics modeled after Mad that only lasted three issues or so. St. John had Whack, the second issue of which I posted a few years ago. This one is from May 1954.

This parody of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde was drawn by Norman Maurer

Parody of Little Orphan Annie by Carl Hubbell.

Yet another parody of Ripley's Believe It Or Not.

Cracked #13

Looky here. It's the 13th issue of Cracked from March 1960.

cover by John Severin. By this time the entire magazine was written by editor Paul Laikin who had a hand in just about every humor magazine in existence. As he says in the book If You're Cracked, You're Happy:

“I started writing other stuff like a cannibal’s menu with roast shoulder and some other things. When Mad came out at that time, they started to become a hit and sold immensely and then Cracked came out, because Mad made such a splash. Soon as I saw issue #1 of Cracked, I said, 'Wow! This is a phenomenon!' So, I went to Cracked, and I started writing for Cracked. I was in issue #2 and 3. Sol Brodsky was the editor and Bob Sproul was the publisher. So when Mad found out I had put my name in it, they said, 'You can’t be writing for Mad and Cracked. Sorry, but you have to choose one.' So me, which shows you the choices I’ve made in life – that I’m here in West Babylon and not on the Riviera – chose Cracked. Cracked was easier to do. There was a lot of reasons. I don’t remember. Illogical reasons. Cracked took everything I wrote, because there was no one really to edit you.

“About issue #7 or so, Sol Brodsky got a call from Stan Lee to take him over to Marvel Comics. So he left for Marvel, and Bob Sproul called me into his office and said, 'Sol is leaving. Would you like to be editor of Cracked?' I said, 'Great!' 'Crazy' is what I should have said. 'How much do you want?' 'Well, how much do you want to pay?' I came up with a figure like $200, I didn’t care, it wasn’t about the money for my day job. 'I’ll give you $400,' which shows you how far off I was. I could probably live on $400 a month. I couldn’t live on the other, but I didn’t take it to live on. So, I became the editor I think with issue #11, and Sol Brodsky went on to do Marvel Comics. I left Mad because they didn’t want me writing for Cracked even if I used a different name. I used my own name and I must have quit my day job.”

After the contents, letters page, and an ad for “Ignited Airlines”, here was their first article.

Who doesn't love beatniks? If you don't, log off this page immediately. Otherwise, here's all you need to know in The Hip Alphabet Book illustrated by Vic Martin. The obligatory Believe It Or Not parody drawn by Jack Davis: Then there was another Severin article, Modern Appliances Have Overshot Their Function!

And back to Jack Davis with Cartoons of the Year Then after Send Out Your Greeting Cards and 10-Day Posture-Straightening Exercizes from Bill Ward (as Bill McCartney), there's Are You Civilized? from Russ Heath: Here's Don Orehek with Story of the Month. After Sick Unions for Sick People from John Severin and Memorial Tribute, Bill Ward (McCartney) returns with Wild Record Covers Russian Magazines where people like Bill Elder were looking anywhere for work. Fake magazine covers were a Laikin specialty. There's some Be Different Buttons and another Severin article If Different Poets Had Read Cracked, and a Smokey Bear ad parody by Russ Heath, before Jack Davis' parody of Bat Masterson. When It All Started from John Severin. Many of the early issues featured an ad for Horror House, the mail-order company of the publisher similar to how Warren Magazines had Captain Company. They had an article after that called Freezing People by Jack Davis, and another Shut-Ups from John Severin.

Then came this subscription ad on the inside back cover: The back cover was fake book jackets.

Next week: CRACKED #15.

Zany #3, 1 of 4

Another humor magazine from the 1950s and Ace Paperbacks' magazine division, which included Candar Publishing, which did a number of mens' magazines, as well as Cracked. It differed from many of those others with spot color, mostly parodies of comics and no Severin art. This issue is from March 1959.

The Universal Monsters were really popular around this time, so this is the magazine’s cashing in.

art by Bill Everett.


Many magazines parodied Norman Rockwell's “Look ma, no cavities!” Crest Toothpaste print ads, this time by Don Orehek.


The masthead, like many of the magazines of the time, was full of obvious pseudonyms, which I believe were probably those of the ubiquitous Paul Laikin. As the book If You're Cracked, You're Happy states:

“Although he did not originate the form or create any of the spin-off titles (save for Wacko in 1981), Laikin did write for virtually every black and white humor magazine that was created from 1956-1986 and edited three of the four magazines with the lengthiest runs (Cracked, Crazy, Sick) at one point or another.

Laikin explains, 'When Mad made the big splash and then Cracked came out, there was Thimk, then I got calls and when I saw Frantic. As soon as I saw that, I went there, too. There was no one to stop me. I could write for all of them. I was writing for Thimk, and every one. All I had to do is see the first issue and I went over there. I couldn’t write it with Mad's kind of criteria with every word checking this. My own level of humor was sustainable in these magazines and there really was no one else to question it. They had to take me. Only Mad objected and with Bill Gaines, they paid good money and were #1. The rest didn’t care. The readers didn’t care. Just change your name, which I did. I would change my own name. I was writing for Thimk, Frenzy, Loco, all while writing for Cracked. I was writing for Zany too, yeah. [...]I guess [Robert Sproul] felt there was enough market for two humor magazines.”


Another mandatory Believe It or Not parody


Orehek also drew did this parody of Smilin' Jack.



I'm not sure who did this parody of Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer, another popular target of 1950's humor magazines.




Or this parody of Alley Oop.


The mandatory article about how people are portrayed versus what they're really like.



Continued on Thursday.