Humbug by Harvey Kurtzman, Will Elder, Arnold Roth, Al Jaffee & Jack Davis
Publisher: Fantagraphics ISBN: 978-1-56097-933-3
As I'm not long out of short trousers, I'd never heard of Humbug, and I suspect there's a fair few of you who never have either. During the mid-fifties the successful creative team of Mad magazine were tempted away to the Playboy offices to begin work on a brand-new humour mag called Trump. It lasted two issues. However, Hugh Hefner felt so dreadful he let them have free use of the offices, so they decided to pool their cash and produce their own funny book, doing just whatever the heck they liked in it. It was called Humbug. It lasted twelve issues.
If you've ever looked at Mad you'll have a fair understanding of what this collection contains. An awful lot of it is based around events of the time so sometimes, as a 21st Century reader, you're left floundering a bit, but there's still plenty to appreciate, not least the sterling artistic efforts of its creators. Towards the beginning of the first book is a lovely parody of Around The World In 80 Days with the running gag of the characters not being able to find one another in the new 'wide-screen' format that the movie was shot in.
It's a two-volume hardback, slipcase edition containing everything, cover-to-cover, plus interviews and articles to give a very rounded insight into how the magazine was created and, ultimately, failed. It's expensive, but a bit of a treasure.
And if you liked that: In a similar vein, try Don Martin's Droll Book.
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