Michael D Hamersky On Comics Presents His Take On:   Humorama - A Division Of Martin Goodman's Publishing Empire From the 1950s to the 1980s

TODAY'S FEATURE IS BLOG #3709 -   I'm continuing on a 'comics history' kick right now in this blog.  That started when I wanted to share a special photo album at my Facebook Fan Page, titled... "Red Circle Imprint of Lion Books".

The first nine photos shown at that link are from Martin Goodman's company, Lion Books, that published Red Circle Books.  Those pictures were talked about in blog #3706, titled: My Take On: Red Circle Books - From Martin Goodman's Company.

Martin Goodman, (pictured to the left in 1942), was the owner of the magazine house 'Magazine Management Company'.

In blog #3707, I added a little more info on Robert 'Robbie' Solomon, who introduced his nephews Stanley Martin Lieber (aka Stan Lee!), and Larry Lieber to Martin Goodman's publishing empire.

In blog #3708, I blogged about the Timely superheroes revival in the mid 1950s.

In this blog, I'm going to present a small amount of info on the Humorama division of Martin's publishing empire.

First, it was Martin's brother, Abe Goodman, who headed this division. Humorama was actually a line of digest-sized magazines.  Several of these magazines were featuring 'girlie' cartoons by the likes of Bill Ward, Archie's Dan DeCarlo, Bill Wenzel,  Playboy's Jack Cole,  illustrator Jefferson Machamer, Basil Wolverton, Mad's Dave Berg, Belvedere's George Crenshaw and others.

In addition to the cartoons, the magazines also displayed black and white photos of pin-up models, that included Bettie (Betty) Page, Eve Myer, Lili St. Cyr.  Also there were minor actresses, including Joi Lansing, Tina Louise, Irish McCalla, and Julie Newmar that were featured, among many others.

The Humorama magazine line was published from at least the mid-1950s up to the early 1980s. These Humorama titles were thought to be profitable for the company, because the content pages were inexpensive and production costs were minimal in comparison to the more complex full-size magazines published by the company's other divisions.

Indeed, these magazines outgrew the digest sized and became full sized magazines by the late 1970s. For example, 'Popular Cartoons' cover page was subtitled: "Wild Adult Sex And Comedy Magazine".  Yet a lot of the cartoons were 'reprinted' cartoons by that issue...

I don't see a history of this division being written, which is a shame, as there appears to be quite a few magazines that this division published.

Among the titles published by this 'Humorama' division were:  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.

I'm posting a couple of pics from the magazine line here in this blog, and the rest will be posted at this special photo album on my Facebook fan page.

~ Michael

NOTE FROM Michael D Hamersky On Comics:  My thanks again to all of YOU reading this blog and our archived blog posts, now at 3,709 total posts in number!   I do appreciate your continued reading and support of this Blog!

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Note:  My online 'Loca8' Comic Book Shop (LCBS), carries many different genres of comics, magazines, graphic novels, and comic con promotional items. Possibly even copies of the item(s) that was mentioned here today...!  If I have it, you'll find under the BIG TOP of Comics, at Comic Books Circus.com, including the book 'Gotham City 14 Miles' that I am shown holding to the left. I'm 1 of 14 essayists in that book! !     

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