No one likes to make fun of THE FAMILY CIRCUS more than I. In fact, if you go beyond the jump, you'll see a couple of samples of the re-captioned cartoons I frequently post on Facebook.
But I have to say that I have new admiration for Bil Keane after reading about his somewhat gutsy and altruistic trip to Vietnam.
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In 1941, Safeway began including comic strips in their newspaper ads. The comics continued throughout World War II until 1947.
Nat Gertler collected these comic-strip ads together in a book titled
Wife Gets Smart, Makes Husband Happy. It's a collection WUvies might enjoy since it offers a bizarro window onto the concerns of mid-20th century American families.
One theme in particular emerges repeatedly: wives desperately trying to manage the moods of their husbands (the husbands being either cranky, obnoxious, clueless, or lethargic). Somehow the wives always manage to save the marriage by shopping at Safeway.
More info:
AboutComics.com,
Amazon
Frederick N. Goldsmith published a successful stock-market newsletter from 1916 to 1948, when he came under investigation by the New York Attorney General for telling his subscribers that his market advice was based on "inside information."
Goldsmith, however, had an unusual defense. He revealed that the primary source of his inside information was the comic strip "Bringing Up Father." Goldsmith believed that the comic strip provided clues, in code, about the direction of the market. The clues had been placed there by "big insiders." This was apparently their way of communicating with each other. But Goldsmith believed he had cracked the code.
Details from The Manipulators (1966) by Leslie Gould:
Goldsmith got the "word" as to what the market and individual stocks would do from following the antics of Jiggs in the "Bringing Up Father" comic strip, which for years was drawn by George McManus. If Jiggs was pictured with his right hand in his pocket, the market was a buy. If there were two puffs rising from Jiggs' cigar, it meant the second hour would be strong.
In one episode, explained Goldsmith, Jiggs was at the theater and remarked: "The intermissions are the only good thing about this show." Goldsmith interpreted that as a sure-fire tip to buy Mission Oil, which he passed on to his market letter subscribers. It went up fifteen points the next day.
When questioned, McManus (author of the comic-strip) insisted he knew nothing about the stock market and pointed out that he prepared his strip nine weeks ahead of publication. He also noted, "What would I be doing with cartoons if I were so hot on the stock market?"
Having learned the truth, the AG could have dropped the case, but he decided to shut down Goldsmith anyway for misleading his subscribers.
NY Daily News - Nov 18, 1948
The problem that the AG faced at the trial, however, was that Goldsmith's predictions had actually been pretty good and had served his subscribers well. In fact, many of his subscribers came to his defense during the trial. Nevertheless, the judge shut down Goldsmith's business. More details from
The Manipulators:
Despite Goldsmith's record of accurate predictions, New York County Supreme Court Justice Benjamin F. Schreiber signed an injunction putting him out of business for keeps in these words:
The defendant. . . was engaged in the business of writing and distributing a market letter to the public which attempted to forecast and predict future prices of securities and commodities.
Subscribers were led to believe that the defendant used statistics, financial reports and charts in preparing. . . prognostications of future price movements. The letter was also so worded as to imply that the defendant had sources of special and secret information concerning stock movements. . .
The subscribers to the defendant's daily market letter had the right to assume that the defendant possessed a superior knowledge of the stock market, that whatever information he had came from living persons and recognized sources and not as a result of interpretations of comic strips. When he failed to inform his subscribers of the alleged sources of information he was concealing a material fact.
Terre Haute Tribune - June 13, 1948
Just a few days ago, Alex made a
post involving the infamous Fredric Wertham. As an inveterate comics reader from way back, I long knew of Wertham's crusade to ban comics. But I did not realize that the UK had undergone the same crusade.
Apparently, the offending material proved to be too attractive to remain on exhibit.
Source:
The Charlotte Observer (Charlotte, North Carolina) 22 Apr 1955, Fri Page 1
In
Seduction of the Innocent, published in 1954, Fredric Wertham accused comic books of corrupting youth. One of the specific ways they did this, he alleged, was by concealing images of naked women in seemingly inoffensive panels. He helpfully reproduced one of these hidden images in his book.
The image in question originally appeared in
Jungle Comics #98, Feb 1948.
via
Legends & Rumors