Famous Funnies

Famous Funnies
Famous Funnies #1 (July 1934). Cover art by Jon Mayes.
Publication information
Publisher	Eastern Color Printing
Schedule	monthly, then bimonthly
Format	Ongoing series
Publication date	July 1934–July 1955
Number of issues	218

Famous Funnies is an American publication of the 1930s that represents what popular culture historians consider the first true American comic book, following seminal precursors.

The creation of the modern American comic book came in stages. Dell Publishing in 1929 published a 16-page, newsprint periodical of original, comic strip-styled material titled The Funnies and described by the Library of Congress as "a short-lived newspaper tabloid insert". (This is not to be confused with Dell's later same-name comic book, which began publication in 1936.) Historian Ron Goulart describes the four-color, newsstand periodical as "more a Sunday comic section without the rest of the newspaper than a true comic book".

It was followed in 1933 by Eastern Color Printing's Funnies on Parade, a similarly newsprint tabloid but only eight pages and composed of several comic strips licensed from the McNaught Syndicate and reprinted in color. Neither sold nor available on newsstands, it was sent free as a promotional item to consumers who mailed in coupons clipped from Procter & Gamble soap and toiletries products.

That same year, Eastern Color salesperson Maxwell Gaines and sales manager Harry I. Wildenberg collaborated with Dell to publish the 36-page one-shot Famous Funnies: A Carnival of Comics, considered by historians the first true American comic book; Goulart, for example, calls it "the cornerstone for one of the most lucrative branches of magazine publishing". It was distributed through the Woolworth's department store chain, though it is unclear whether it was sold or given away; the cover (see left) displays no price, but Goulart refers, either metaphorically or literally, to Gaines "sticking a ten-cent pricetag [sic] on the comic books".