cartoon themes: christmas

Al Stine
Playboy, January 1954

Eldon Dedini
Playboy, January 1963

Alden Erikson
Playboy, December 1963

Whitney Darrow, Jr.
The New Yorker December 1, 1962

Ace, January 1973

William Steig
Esquire, January 1934

Charles Edward Martin
The New Yorker December 8, 1962

Frank Modell The New Yorker December 12, 1963

The New Yorker December 15, 1962

The New Yorker December 19, 1964

The New Yorker December 22, 1962

Howard Shoemaker
Playboy, December 1967

Claude Smith
Playboy, January 1968

50s Playboy

The first couple years of Playboy were basically put together in Hugh Hefner's kitchen with the photos bought from calendar companies and the other material was mostly reprints. The first issue was almost all black and white. Still, there are a lot of great cartoons to be found in those earlier issues.

Gardner Rea, from the second issue in January 1954

Virgil “VIP” Partch in February 1954

Arv Miller (March 1954) was one of the earlier contributors before he started his own imitation, Fling, from which I found a lot of the cartoons he used.

Sam Cobean (April 1954) was a long-time gag cartoonist that probably drew more variations on the now-established cartoon cliches of the unwed mother being turned away in the snow and the man imagining the passing young woman naked than anyone else.

May 1954

June 1954

July 1954

Hugh Hefner was an aspiring cartoonist himself but wisely quit for more more lucrative endeavors. I wonder what ever happened to him.

William Steig, September 1954

Same issue

October 1954

Comic Art here in America

Again from the chapter from the book Comic Art in America from 1959 by Stephen Becker, part of a chapter entitled A Century of Magazines: From Corny Almanacks to The New Yorker. All cartoons from the New Yorker unless otherwise noted.

Charles Addams, 1954

William Steig, 1952

Barney Tobey, 1954

Garrett Price, 1942

George Price, 1952

Sam Cobean, 1947

Cobean, 1950

Cobean, 1949

Cobean, 1952

Cobean, 1952

As per the captions in the book:

The breadline as seen by REGINALD MARSH in 1930. This was hardly comic art; it was an extension of the magazine cartoon into the area of social comment.

Another breadline, seen a bit differently but no less effectively by ALEXANDER KING in Americana, December 1932.

Eldon Dedini, 1959

Charles Elmer Martin, 1951

Chon Day, 1953

Richard Taylor, 1941

Claude Smith, 1953

Great Cartoons of the World VII, part 8

These are more excerpts from the seventh annual volume of Great Cartoons of the World from 1973.

The first cartoon by William Steig was in the New Yorker.

In the foreword, editor John Bailey describes what the contributors look like (previous examples can be seen in previous installments):

Steig is a true intellectual in the physical form of a dockworker. He is mainly surprising—he looks tough, but he is gentle and civilized. He never speaks without expressing his sense of humor, most often with some detectable ironic twist. Nothing about the artist's following of the artist being an avid follower of orgone therapy. On the other hand, there are and were several cartoonists that believed in all sorts of medical, religious, and political quackery but it usually doesn't spill into their work.

Vahan Shirvanian, also in the New Yorker.

Mischa Richter

Bruce Petty

Vladimir Renčin in Dikobraz

James Stevenson

Charles Elmer Martin

Edward Koren

Hans Moser

Whitney Darrow, Jr.

The final two were drawn by John Glashan.