NOTE: Blimey! is no longer being updated. Please visit http://lewstringercomics.blogspot.com for the latest updates about my comics work.

Friday, December 05, 2014

Comic oddities: The mystery of Lola

For many years, particularly in the decades after World War 2, magazines devoted to cartoons were a familiar sight on bookstalls and in newsagents. I'll be looking at them in more depth at a later date but today I just want to focus on one publication. Cartoon: It's a Hoot! was an 84 page pocket-size magazine published by IPC Magazines in 1969. Like most publications of its ilk it contained lots of gag cartoons covering topics such as marriage, work, mothers-in-law, glamourous secretaries, bars, women .... you guessed it, they were very much aimed at the average man of the times. 
Amongst the gag cartoons in this publication were 11 four-panel silent comic strips starring an attractive woman named Lola and her dealings with various men. I get the impression that all the cartoons in the magazine are reprints from America and/or Europe, and I'm guessing Laugh with Lola is an import too. A Google search turns up nothing, but that's no surprise as I imagine 'Lola' isn't the name the character originally appeared under.

This strip has always mystified me. Where did it originally appear? Spain? Italy? (I'm inclined to think it's likely to be European rather than American.) Typically, IPC whited out all the signatures on the cartoons, but they missed one. Here's an enlargement. Does anyone recognise it? Looks like 'SIGO' perhaps? (Of course, it might be a serial number - 5160!) 
According to the numbering inside It's a Hoot that was 'Cartoon Book No.37' so clearly it had run for some time under various titles. There was also a companion volume called Cartoon: Masterpiece of Mirth which I had but I threw it out years ago unfortunately.
Anyway, an IPC publication that you may not have seen before, and a comic strip to ponder over. Who was Lola? 




12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm sure this is not Italian, the kind of humor seems Spanish or French. I have never seen in France this strip so I think, Spanish. The signature seems to begin with an exclamation point, then Spain.

Lew Stringer said...

Yes, I asked David Roach and he felt it was likely to be Spanish too. I'm not sure if that's an exclamation mark or whether the line has just broken in printing.

A nicely drawn strip, whoever did it.

John Pitt said...

When it comes to cartoon books aimed at blokes, do you remember the cheeky Funny Half Hour, on the same spinner racks as the US comics, but higher up?

Manic Man said...

What's also intresting, not sure if it's some form of clue or not, is that top left of the first panel of that last one.. not only goes that strip have that bit in the last one, but it has a copyright there..

(c) C. E. I. 1098

Clearly not IPC's copyright.. but it brings nothing to my mind at all.. no luck on pushlishers with that name (far too many) and if that 1098 is a date, it's weird.. not that old.. clearly looks around late 50s/60s style.

and that signature does looks more like 15t60. to me but i'm not that great on some peoples hand righting ^_^

Lew Stringer said...

Yes, I looked up that copyright notice but there's nothing on the 'net about it.

It's definitely a 1960s strip because of the fashions and hairstyles. (And it being published in 1969 so obviously it's no later than that.)

Lew Stringer said...

Yes John, I remember those. They were more explicit than the 'cheesecake' type publications that preceded it. I bought a few that were going cheap on eBay a while back. Will feature a post about those joke mags soon.

Ken Shinn said...

Here's our mysterious cartoonist again, doing a slightly dodgier cartoon - not really any worse than Benny Hill, though. Signature is definitely clearer, although "Isigo" doesn' bear much fruit on a Google search...

http://www.chicagospankingreview.org/humorpage/the_shot_zip_may_1965.jpg

Dave Whitwell said...

Hello Lew, your recent post on 'Lola' got me thinking. I checked out my small collection of Spanish comics from this perod, but as most were children's comics I didn't think I'd find Lola. However I noted another artist named on one of the pages you posted (vazquez) and found this artist's work in some of my comics published by Editions Bruguera, which suggested to me that Lola may have also been published by the same publisher.

Googled 'Bruguera Lola' and found this:
http://www.tebeosfera.com/obras/publicaciones/lola_bruguera_1974.htmlhttp://www.tebeosfera.com/obras/publicaciones/lola_bruguera_1974.html

Dave W said...

Hello Lew,
I'm not sure if you received my previous comment but to I think I've solved the mystery of the origins of Lola.

http://www.tebeosfera.com/obras/publicaciones/lola_bruguera_1974.html
(Remember to click on 'translate page'). Lola was drawn by Inigo and her stories were published in a daily newspaper and other magazines. In 1975 her stories were collected in approximately 20 albums.
All the best ( and don't ever think about stopping your blog again!)
Dave Whitwell

John Pitt said...

Cheers, Lew, look forward to that!

Lew Stringer said...

Dave that's BRILLIANT! Thanks so much for solving the mystery. I'll update my blog tomorrow to reflect this new info.

Jose Thiesen said...

Hi! Glad to found your article and blog. "Lola" was a current carachter in Brazilian newspapers when I was a child - and one of my favourites too - but through the years it desapeared and I never more found nothing about the sexy lady that my mother deemed as indecent. Thank you very much!

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...