From the early days of cartooning until the market went south in the 1980s, there are a lot of humor publications (and would-be humor publications) that all followed the same basic format: black and white gag cartoons, jokes, odd little articles and features, and the occasional pin-up girl. Many of these publications sported cartoons from cartoonists who would go on to careers at the top cartoon markets like Playboy and The New Yorker, and many of these publications served as dumping grounds by cartoonists who sold off their rejects: selling a dozen cartoons at once that had already made the rounds for $15 each was a quick $180, a way to monetize finished work that no one else wanted. Hey, cartooning is a business, too.

The publications had names like Best Cartoons, Broadway Laughs, Army Fun, Laff Time, Cartoon Carnival, Cartoon Capers and Good Humor and were published by companies like Charlton (at the same time they were publishing their comic books) and Crestwood and Magazine Management. You can guess the target audience by some of the titles.

One of my favorites of that era was the digest-sized Army Laughs (one of many similar titles published by Crestwood), which featured a high-volume of risqué military-based cartoons – almost all of them sexist, along with the usual jokes, text features and teasing pin-up girls with funny captions.

Crestwood, by the way, was also a comic book publisher that published Joe Simon and Jack Kirby’s Fighting American, Black Magic and Young Romance.

I actually have a copy of Army Laughs I acquired some time ago. It’s from September 1971 (Army Laughs Vol 19, #8). The cover is by Bill Wenzel, who was a mainstay of these publications. (Fantagraphics published a fine collection of his work a few years ago that’s well worth grabbing.) In my copy of Army Laughs, one of the contributors was Don Orehek, the wonderful cartoonist whose work appeared everywhere from Cracked to Playboy to The Saturday Evening Post and Playgirl. Other cartoonists in the issue include Dick Hodgins, Jr. (who worked with Dennis The Menace’s Hank Ketcham on “Half Hitch”; he later worked on King Features’ “Henry”), Pete Wyma (another mainstay of these magazines; his style also varies from cartoon to cartoon), Gladir (who may be the George Gladir who currently works for Archie Comics), Bo Brown (a regular Playboy contributor), George Wolfe, Dave Gerard (creator of the newspaper strip Citizen Smith and the comic book Will-Yum), and Joseph Farris (a New Yorker regular).

If you want a few laughs and a look at the golden age of low-to-mid-level magazine cartooning, you can’t go wrong with a copy of any one of these types of publications.

[Artwork: Cover to Army Laughs, September 1971 by Bill Wenzel]