Tuesday, January 20, 2009

Comic Books Lead To Pornography

In 1962-63 my father did some work for "men's" magazines with titles such as

and


How did he descend from the sublime heights of cartoon grace into this ungodly debauched disgrace? If you recall, two posts ago I ended my Squeeks comic book post with the mention that his friend Harold, who edited Squeeks for Lev Gleason, would "lead him down the garden path." Well, Harold eventually ended up as an editor for a publishing house that put out these magazines. So my dad picked up some work. All of the published work I have is writing, fortunately or unfortunately -- depending upon you point of view. The illustrations that accompany each article are NOT my dad's -- it's by the magazine's regular artists. Here are the first page(s) of several pieces, with usually ran about four pagers per.






Now, I do have several pieces of his artwork and writing along these same lines in various stages of completion. These were never published -- believe me, I've scoured all the magazines many times over with a fine tooth comb in an attempt to find it...soley in the interest of historical purpose, of course! In these, it appears to me that my father was looking for a slant on men's humor different than the average one-panel risque gags one usually finds. And although they're quite rough I like them, or at least their potential, more so than the above.
The Martooni is probably my favorite





The title for this is The Constipated Serutan,
and describes what happens to middle-aged men in both body and mind.


3 comments:

Anonymous said...

This blog always keeps me coming back for more! Please keep it up!

p spector said...

Hey Mark, I always appreciate comments like yours. Since the blog doesn't get all that many hits, it's difficult for me to gague how much the people it actually does reach are actually enjoying it. I'm having as much fun putting the stuff online as you seem to be viewing it. At some point the boxes will be empty, but we have a good ways to go before then. - Paul

Eric Noble said...

The Constipated Serutan is great. What a fabulous design. He looks like he should have been in a commercial.