Monday, June 15, 2015

The Good Girl Art of Humorama

Publisher Martin Goodman's Humorama was a line of digest-sized magazines produced under at least twenty different titles (Breezy, Cartoon Parade, Comedy, Eyeful of Fun, Fun House, Gaze, Gee-Whiz, Humorama, Instant Laughs, Jest, Joker, Laugh Circus, Laugh Digest, Laugh Riot, Popular Cartoons, Popular Jokes, Romp, Stare, Snappy and Zip) featuring single panel girlie cartoons and black-and-white cheesecake photos of pin-up models. Bettie Page, Eve Meyer and stripper Lili St. Cyr, plus actresses, Joi Lansing, Tina Louise, Irish McCalla and Julie Newmar all graced the pages of this popular men's magazine over its ten long run. The line was published from at least the mid-1950s to mid-1960s using some of the best pretty girl artist's in the business at the time including Bill Ward, Bill Wenzel, Dan DeCarlo, Jack Cole and many others. Run by family member Abe Goodman, these titles were profitable for the company because the contents were inexpensive and production costs were minimal in comparison to the more complex full-size magazines published by the company.