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

World Encyclopedia of Cartoons B-D

Albert Blashfieldin 1908


Jean Bosc


More Bo Brown


Design for Destination Magoo by Pete Burness


Orlando Busino


Giampolo Cheis for Editoriale Corno

Again, according to the World Encyclopedia (keep in mind it was written in 1980):

GIAMPOLO CHIES (b. 1947) Italian cartoonist born in Bologna, Italy. Giampolo decided to go into cartooning after finishing his high school studies. He started his career in 1966, drawing Virus Psik, a comic strip about a somewhat extravagant woman scientist, on texts by"Max Bunker (Luciano Secchi). He then drew a great number of cartoons and illustrations for the monthly magazine Eureka.

In 1971 Chies moved to Milan and briefly worked as an animator for Gamma Film. Later that year he resumed the Virus Psik strip and also created the monthly cartoon panel Monodia. In these somewhat disquieting cartoons,strange objects float in the air, mechanical women nurse real-life babies, and robots weep or bleed. The air of eerie unreality is further enhanced by the total absence of captions or dialogue. Chies [was] working on a comic book adaptation of Pinocchio, scheduled for publication in 1979.


Sam Cobean


Siegfried (Cosper) Cornelius


Campbell Cory in 1919

CAMPBELL CORY (1867-ca. 1925) American cartoonist born in Waukegan, IL, J.C. Cory was educated in Waukegan and began cartooning in New York in 1896. His style was breezy, with slashing, thick-and-thin pen strokes held together by by beautiful areas of precise, old-fashioned crosshatching; he and Fred Morgan of the Philadelphia Inquirer were probably the last great crosshatch political cartoonists. Throughout his career the doctrinaire Democrat drew for many of America's largest newspapers and magazines, including New York World and Harper's Weekly

Cory's significance lies in his enterprising approach to cartooning, however. He was a self-starter, almost a vagabond, who worked in many formats, experimented with the business end and was a pioneer syndicator. As a publisher, he put out the Great West monthly in 1907-08 and the Bee, an oversized chromolithographed humorous weekly during the Spanish-American War. In 1912, beginning a practice that was to continue for two decades, he became a paid cartoonist for a political party; the Democrats supplied Cory cartoons to any paper that could use them. Soon afterward, in the days of large-scale syndication, Cory started a syndicate, distributing his own cartoons and those of others. He ran a correspondence school and published books containing the elements of cartooning, including Cory's Hands, and The Cartoonist's Art. Active in other spheres as well, Cory was a prospector, miner, champion balloonist, pioneer aviator, big game hunter, sportswriter, and athlete.

Cory was responsible for helping many youngsters into professional cartooning careers. Charles Kuhn was one, and Cory's niece,Fanny Y. Cory was another; just after she had her first work published in St. Nicholas, she became a featured contributor to the Bee, and her uncle boosted her early work through syndication as well.


Louis Dalrymple, 1898


Whitney Darrow, Jr., in Collier's

Chon Day in True.


Eduardo Del Rio (Rius) for Ja-Ja.



Michel Demers in L'Aurore

MICHEL DEMERS (b.1949) Cartoonist born in Quebec City, Canada. After studies in Quebec and Montreal, Michel had his first cartoon published in the French language weekly Sept-Jours; since that time he has been contributing one cartoon to the magazine every week.

Michel Demers is [was] now busily engaged in a promising and prolific professional career. His political and gag cartoons have appeared in such publications as Forum, Perspectives, and the daily Le Jour. He has also produced several comic strips, the most notable being Célestin for Le Jour, but none have proved long-lived.

Michel has been influenced, in his graphic choice as well as in his choice of themes, by Tomi Ungerer and Jean-Jacques Sempé: his drawings have a dry, sparse look, while his themes lean heavily toward surrealism, social protest, and black humor.


Jean-Pierre Desclozeaux