#304 - Joker 1959 Humorama Bill Ward

Joker, Volume 7, Number 63
A Humorama Magazine
Timely Features, Inc., 1959
New York, New York

digital replica

Throughout the 1950s and 1960s, the Humorama magazine brand appeared on a host of pocket-size, monochrome magazines, printed on pulp paper. Titles included Snappy, Breezy, Jest, Gaze, Stare, Comedy and Gee-Whiz. Limiting pictures to good-girl cheesecake permitted the sale of the line at candy stores and sidewalk newsstands.

The digest-sized zines focused on risqué gags and pinup pulchritude in photographs and cartoons. Henry Boltihoff, Bill Kreese, Homer, Jefferson Mechamer, Bill Wenzel, Dan De Carlo and Charles Jackson were among the many comic illustrators who added lively female curves to Humorama pages.

Morley Burteen, Art Helfant, Harry Jones, Ramon Henri, Jimbo, Hamilton, Al Ellis, Leo Garez, Berg, Jefferson Machamer, and Henry Gaings Goodman contribute comic art. The most enduring illustrator whose work appeared in Humorama magazines was the great Bill Ward, and eight of his Conté crayon delineations of voluptuous female forms brighten this issue of Joker.

Single comic panels and pinup photos illuminate saucy quips and dumb puns. Jokes poke at eager men, older men, men with money, men without money, taxes, newlyweds, marriage, going steady, and office shenanigans. Complete jokes and a crossword puzzle also entertain.

Models include Joanie Grant, Gay Dawn, Kathleen Cooper, Carol Saunders and Holly Daye. Some of these pretty posers are dressed as burlesque dancers, but many of the sexy models are actually philosophers who observe contemporary culture, financial matters, and the vagaries of dating.

The digital replica includes all the content of the magazine in the original page sequence. The tonality of pictures was adjusted to improve brightness and contrast.

All original scans. 100 pages.

The cover promises gags for stags and photo gems with jest-propulsion. The ebook iteration makes it all easy to enjoy.

One e-book, delivered by download from your 30th Street Graphics account.