Funnies on Parade

For other uses, see Funnies (disambiguation).
Funnies on Parade

Cover of Funnies on Parade (1933)
Publication information
Publisher Eastern Color Printing
Format One-shot
Publication date Spring 1933
Number of issues 1

Funnies on Parade is an American publication of 1933 that was a precursor of comic books.

The creation of the modern American comic book came in stages. Dell Publishing in 1929 published a 16-page, newsprint periodical of original, comic strip-styled material titled The Funnies and described by the Library of Congress as "a short-lived newspaper tabloid insert".[1] (This is not to be confused with Dell's later same-name comic book, which began publication in 1936.) Historian Ron Goulart describes the four-color, newsstand periodical as "more a Sunday comic section without the rest of the newspaper than a true comic book".[2]

In 1933, salesperson Maxwell Gaines, sales manager Harry I. Wildenberg, and owner George Janosik of the Waterbury, Connecticut, company Eastern Color Printing — which among other things printed Sunday-paper comic-strip sections — produced Funnies on Parade. Like The Funnies but only eight pages,[3] this, too, was a newsprint magazine. Rather than using original material, however, it reprinted in color several comic strips licensed from the McNaught Syndicate and the McClure Syndicate. These included such popular strips as cartoonist Al Smith's Mutt and Jeff, Ham Fisher's Joe Palooka, and Percy Crosby's Skippy. This periodical, however, was neither sold nor available on newsstands, but rather sent free as a promotional item to consumers who mailed in coupons clipped from Procter & Gamble soap and toiletries products. Ten-thousand copies were made.[3] The promotion proved a success, and Eastern Color that year produced similar periodicals for Canada Dry soft drinks, Kinney Shoes, Wheatena cereal and others, with print runs of from 100,000 to 250,000.[2]

Later in 1933, Gaines collaborated with Dell to publish the 36-page one-shot Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics,[4] followed in 1934 by Famous Funnies, which ran for 218 issues and is considered the first true American comic book.[5]

See also

Footnotes

  1. ↑ U.S. Library of Congress, "American Treasures of the Library of Congress" exhibition
  2. 1 2 Goulart, Ron. Comic Book Encyclopedia (Harper Entertainment, New York, 2004)
  3. 1 2 Brown, Mitchell. "The 100 Greatest Comic Books of the 20th Century: Funnies on Parade" (Internet archive link)
  4. ↑ Famous Famous - Carnival of Comics at the Grand Comics Database
  5. ↑ Goulart, Ron. "The Funnies: I" (entry), Comic Book Encyclopedia (Harper Entertainment, New York, 2004) ISBN 0-06-053816-3, p. 144

References

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 9/9/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.