Funnyman (comics)

File:Funnyman1.jpg

Funnyman #1 (Jan. 1948). Cover art by Joe Shuster.

Funnyman is a fictional comic book character whose adventures were published in 1948 by Magazine Enterprises.

Publication history

After leaving DC Comics and suing that company in a dispute over the rights to Superman, the character's co-creators, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster, rejoined their former DC editor Vin Sullivan—who had bought their character and edited the earliest adventures—at his new company, Magazine Enterprises.

The duo's new creation, Funnyman, starred in a series that ran just six issues (cover-dated January–August 1948). The premiere issue was preceded the previous month by a black-and-white "ashcan" printing for copyright reasons.

A newspaper comic strip debuted in October 1948, but Funnyman also failed to find an audience in this format, and his strip was soon dropped.

Fictional character biography

Larry Davis is a red haired television comedian with mannerisms based on those of Danny Kaye. Larry's manager/agent June Farrell talks him into performing a superhero-like stunt in order to obtain publicity. This stunt goes wrong when Larry finds himself in a real crime scene. Larry stops this criminal, not knowing what he is doing is real until after the fact.

Discovering that he enjoys fighting crime, Larry begins a career as a costumed crime fighter under the alias Funnyman.

References

• Funnyman at Don Markstein's Toonopedia
• Funnyman at the Grand Comics Database
• Funnyman at the Comic Book DB