comic book
A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...
character whose adventures were published in 1948 by
Magazine Enterprises
Magazine Enterprises was an American comic book company lasting from 1943 to 1958, which published primarily Western, humor, crime, adventure, and children's comics, with virtually no superheroes. It was founded by Vin Sullivan, an editor at Co ...
.
Publication history
After leaving
DC Comics
DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery.
DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...
and suing that company in a dispute over the rights to their character Superman,
Jerry Siegel
Jerome Siegel ( ; October 17, 1914 – January 28, 1996) Roger Stern. ''Superman: Sunday Classics: 1939–1943'' DC Comics/ Kitchen Sink Press, Inc./Sterling Publishing; 2006 was an American comic book writer. He is the co-creator of Superman, i ...
and
Joe Shuster
Joseph Shuster (; July 10, 1914 – July 30, 1992), professionally known simply as Joe Shuster, was a Canadian-American comic book artist best known for co-creating the DC Comics character Superman, with Jerry Siegel, in ''Action Comics'' #1 (c ...
— who had edited the earliest Superman adventures — at his new company,
Magazine Enterprises
Magazine Enterprises was an American comic book company lasting from 1943 to 1958, which published primarily Western, humor, crime, adventure, and children's comics, with virtually no superheroes. It was founded by Vin Sullivan, an editor at Co ...
.
Siegel and Shuster's new creation, Funnyman, starred in a series that ran six issues (cover-dated Jan.–Aug. 1948).
In the first issue, Siegel and Shuster mocked what they saw as the rush of Superman clones in a story called "Funman, Comicman and Laffman". In the story, TV comedian Larry Davis dresses up in a costume to catch a fake criminal for a publicity stunt, but he catches a real criminal instead, and decides to become a superhero.
Funnyman's enemies include Doc Gimmick, a criminal robot, and the crime team of Schemer Beamer, Bug-Eyes, Crusher, Rockjaw and the Curve.
A
newspaper
A newspaper is a Periodical literature, periodical publication containing written News, information about current events and is often typed in black ink with a white or gray background.
Newspapers can cover a wide variety of fields such as p ...
comic strip debuted in October 1948, but Funnyman also failed to find an audience in this format, and the strip was soon dropped.Funnyman at Don Markstein's Toonopedia Archived from the original on July 30, 2016.