I came across an archive of Homer the Happy Ghost comics, a very-thinly disguised rip-off of Casper the Friendly Ghost from the 1950s. In a four page story in issue 18 (March 1958) the characters are reading copies of Homer the Happy Ghost and, unhappy with their depictions, they fly to New York to complain to Stan Lee and Dan DeCarlo about it. Now I’m wondering in what the earliest instances of author self-insertion meta-humor in comics are.
Margie #36 from 1947
And the entire Timely staff in Krazy Komics #12 (1944)
That’s a good one. I looked it up and the plot starts the same—Margie is angered by the depictions in an issue of Margie and goes to confront Stan Lee. Except he asks her out on a date. They go to a fancy restaurant and she blows it by running off to get an autograph from Bang Swoonatra. Stan leaves and in a fit of rage she punches out Frank…I mean Bang. She gets home and her family already knew what had happened because they had finished reading the issue where it happened.
Not sure if this counts, from 1942:
Mad Magazine often had a gag where editor Al Feldstien would show up and comment about how they were inserting a controversial subject in the magazine, and Publisher Bill Gaines would say (something else) was certainly controversial.
Norman Maurer – artist for 3D comics and The Three Stooges (and 3d Three Stooges comics) wrote himself into the comics more than once in the 1950s, including one entire story on (supposedly) how they drew 3D comics. Here’s the only example I could find on a quick online search, showing Maurer and Joe Kubert:
Maurer got so into the Three Stooges that he actually married Moe’s daughter Joan. Not only did he draw the Three Stooges, he went on to write and produce their post-Columbia movies, and even directed two of them. He also inserted himself into the movies in cameos. He was also involved in the Three Stooges cartoons in the 1960s and The Robotic Stooges in the 1970s.
Intersting guy. He was also co-produced The Angry Red Planet and was responsible for the Cinemagic process they used. And the “Live Action to Animation” process he showed in The Three Stooges in Orbit was actually something Maurer was trying to get to work (unsuccessfully).
It’s not early, but Stan Lee and Jack Kirby put themselves in several early issues of The Fantastic Four, always shown from behind, so you didn’t see their faces. Their most famous case was in FF Annual #3, which shows them being kicked out of the marriage ceremony for Reed Richards and Sue Storm. Alan Moore and Kevin O’Neill paid homage to this by having themselves kicked out of the wedding at the end of The League of Extraordinary Gentleman IV – The Tempest (again, only shown from behind).
Kirby finally did show himself and Stan Lee in What If…? #11 (October 1978), where members of the Marvel bullpen became The Fantastic Four. Stan gets to be Mster Fantastic Of course, Kirby becomes The Thing.
It’s even later, but in Asterix at the Olympic Games the creators, writer Rene Goscinny and artist Alberto Uderzo are depicted on a frieze behind the Olympic officials, calling each other “Despot” and “Tyrant”
Jack Kirby and Joe Simon appear in Boy Commandos #1 (1942)
I like how comic book Decarlo is consistently obsessed with golf. Here he is 27 years later, in Pep Comics #400 from 1985, when Archie and friends visit the offices of Archie Comics.
The first instance I can recall is Al Capp inserting himself in the last Sunday comics edition of Li’l Abner. In the final panel he plants a kiss on Daisy Mae.
https://www.dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2018/10/28/first-and-last-lil-abner/
I recall Bill Gaines showing up a lot, in many Mad artists’ works. But perhaps most often in things by Al Jaffee and Dave Berg.
Perhaps most relevant to the topic, at least as far as Mad is concerned, is Dave Berg. He always managed to insert himself into his “The Lighter Side Of …” strips (he was the guy in glasses who always smoked a pipe), who was often called “Roger Kaputnik.”
Often? The only time I recall them doing this was in their parody of Teenage Beach Movies (June 1965 “Mad Visits a Typical Teenage Beach Movie”). Out comes a surfer named “Iceberg” to challenge for supremacy on the boards
Someone: Iceberg? Whoever heard of a Jewish surfer?
Feldtstein: I’m glad to see Mad tackling a controversial subject
Gaines: Yes, surfing certainly is controbersial.
It’s also great to see that Mort Drucker drew William Gaines as he looked then (and had in the 1950s when defending EC comics in Congress) – with a crewcut and no facial hair. It wasn’t long after that he let his hair grow long and grew the extravagant beard and moustache that Mad artists loved to include in their pieces.
Dick DeBartolo also made frequent cameo appearances in Mad Magazine as various bald, horseshoe-mustached characters.
Sergio Argones drew himself in almost every issue of MAD.
I do remember that gag featuring the crewcut Gaines and also one featuring the bearded Gaines, so it ran more than once.
And after “The Lighter Side Of…” switched from the single-topic to multiple-topics format, there was always one strip titled “The Office” featuring caricatures of the MAD staff.
