Funnyman (comics)

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 Jan.-Aug. 1948). This 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

* [http://www.toonopedia.com/funnyman.htm Don Markstein's Toonopedia: Funnyman]
* [http://www.comics.org/series.lasso?SeriesID=14405 Grand Comics Database: Funnyman]