"Punch" Magazine, 1841–2002

Cafe Society
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LONDON (AP) — The British satirical magazine Punch, first founded in 1841 and revived after a four-year gap in 1996, is ceasing publication again after serious financial losses. Mohamed al Fayed, owner of the Harrods department store, said Wednesday that he was closing the publication he brought back to life in 1996. The original Punch had shut down in 1992 after more than a century and a half of publishing irreverent humor. I have done everything in my power to keep Punch alive by pumping in massive amounts of cash,'' al Fayed said. But as a businessman, sometimes the head has to triumph over the heart and it is therefore with great regret that I have decided to close.’’
The first edition of the original Punch was published on July 17, 1841, and the magazine developed a reputation for satire. By Wednesday, the magazine had fewer than 6,000 subscribers. Punch is a British institution. I was immensely proud when I was able to revive the magazine after four years of absence,'' he said. However, the warmth with which many people welcomed the return of Punch has not been reflected in sales.’’ Al Fayed said the Punch name would live on through its Web site. The magazine’s archive and library of 500,000 cartoons will also be maintained, he said.

—It was long past its prime, but still, it’s sad.

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As you say, long past its prime. Its irrelevance and poor sales have long been a running joke in Private Eye (not the most objective source, I admit). Fayed seems to have this touch.

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In college, I took a history class that was focused on World War II. One of the major projects of the quarter was that each student had to pick a major periodical published during that time (anywhere in the world) and read every issue from 1939-1945. We were supposed to keep a journal of what we were reading, our thoughts, trends we noted, etc. It wasn’t a paper, really very freeform.

I used Punch. First, I was the only one in a class of 150 using that magazine so all the bound volumes were on the shelf when I wanted them (let me just say that by the end of the quarter competition for the 1945 volumes of Time was pretty intense). Second, it was much more amusing than anybody else selection so I enjoyed it much more. Third, there was actually a very interesting shift in humor (I feel I should say humour) as the war progresses, looked bleak, and then turn the corner towards victory.

That journal was one of my shining academic achievements as an undergrad and I was saddened when the magazine went under in 1996. I hadn’t realized that a comeback had been attempted.

The journal was lost in a housefire in 1997. It is the only thing I ever produced in college that I wish I still had available.

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Gosh, obfusciatrist, what a swell assignment! Did your library actually have stacks and stacks of old bound magazines for the browsing? I remember back in the Eighties, the New York Public Library on 40th Street had a whole floor of bound magazines, some going back to the early 1800s. A favorite place to spend my lunch hour, browsing through, say, the 1876 issues of Harper’s Weekly or the 1931 Vanity Fairs.

Now you have to put in a request, and you’re lucky if you get what you asked for before lunch hour’s over . . .

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I remember ‘discovering’ this magazine during my freshman year of college: we had bound editions, though not dating before the 30s. I remember inadvertabtly skipping a couple of classes because I was so wrapped up in reading. Of course, much of the humor went straight over my head, so I was quite happy to find a couple of library work-study students from England who could translate for the “British-impaired”.

The Handelsman cartoons were my favorite. Somewhere I still have a collection of these (long out of print, unfortunately).

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Yes, the bound volumes were just there for the browsing (and still were when I last visited in 1999).

The entire third floor of Suzzalo Library at the University of Washington is periodicals. 70% of all the serials owned by UW are available on that floor. It is a very nice, very complete collection. The rest are put in storage (on campus, so retrieval is still only a few hours at most), but all the most commonly used items are in the stacks.

As a history major it was very convenient to just be able to walk in and browse the entire run of American Whig Review.

I worked their for most of my four years.

Shelf reading (using the downtime between quarters to make sure all the books on the shelf were in the right order) was a bitch though.

051 Ti, Volume 1, Part 1, Copy 1
051 Ti, Volume 1, Part 1, Copy 2
051 Ti, Volume 1, Part 1, Copy 3
051 Ti, Volume 1, Part 2, Copy 1
051 Ti, Volume 1, Part 2, Copy 3*
etc… for eight straight hours.

That got boring, but nobody really cared how hard you worked, so if you found something interesting (say, the Journal of the Washington State Bean Counters Annual Convention) you could sit and read it. If nothing else, we had a complete run of TV Guide for time-filler reading.

At one time they also had one of the most powerful, useful search functionality I have ever seen in a library catalog. But that was lost when they converted to a web based search engine.

This, by the way, is Time for 1923. Six years later I still remember that.

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You know, I had seriously considered using Collapse of Stout Party as my handle on SDMB, but I figured no-one would get it.

I do use “Curatesegg” as a handle on another board, though.

I must have 30 or so bound volumes from various years, earliest from about 1855, latest about 1925. Used to be able to buy them in used bookstores here and in the UK for about $10. Now it seems they run about $40–still a bargain, though. Best contemporary social history for my money. I’ve been a fan of Tenniel since I was a kid, reading a reprint of “Alice in Wonderland.”

I subscribed to Punch from 1980 to 1989 or so. I looked at one copy of the “new” Punch, but it was very, very bad. “Fuggin’ bad,” as the Phoney Pharaoh might say.

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Sigh.

It was sad when PUNCH went under the first time, and now it’s gone under again.

Somewhere around the early 1970s, when I had a subscription, they ran a series of what would later be called “politically correct” jokes. PUNCH didn’t use that term, they were called jokes that removed ethnic and racial biases.

The first joke started: “A man and a man and a man were walking down the street…”

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Not sure of the year, it was during the late 60’s early 70’s, my dad had a subscription. There was a wicked December Punch cover picture of the Beatles portrayed as a religious stained glass image, guitars, drums and all. Still have it, I finally got it framed.

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I’ve got some bound volumes from late 19th C - picked up in the UK for GBP5 a few years back. Great fun if you know a bit about the history of the period. Afghanistan was a problem even then.

The cartoons are superb - cartoonists were excellent draughtsmen in those days, and the attention to detail is fascinating as you see modern inventions like gas lights and electricity start to appear, and lothing fashions change.

Civil War fans will find Punch’s treatment of Lincoln and the war interesting…
http://www.boondocksnet.com/editions/lincoln/

This site includes cartoons by Tenniel - the artist who illustrated the original Alice in Wonderland

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**Obfusciatrist ** that assignment in college sounds absolutely wonderful. What a great way to really submerse oneself into a time period. Too bad about your journal though. :frowning:

What grade did you get for the assignment?

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Subscribed in the 60’s and early 70’s. Actually enjoyed reading cinema reviews from Malcolm Muggeridge. IMHO Punch passed away in 1992.

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I STILL think Alan Coren (editor in the 1980s) was the best comedy writer in the English-speaking world at the time. And he had to churn out his 2000 word piece week after week after…

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“…Parts of it are excellent!”
H.M. Bateman was always my favorite artist.

And I’m also fond of the little 1896 George du Maurier drawing of a small girl strolling with her Colonel-Blimp type grandfather:
“What are Tories and Radicals, Grandpapa?”

“Tories, my dear, are people who like to have a Queen, and Lords, and Bishops, and more or less remain as they are – whilst Radicals object to having a Queen and a House of Lords, and are dissatisfied with everything and everybody, jealous of all who are better off than themselves, and are always trying to rob them of their property, and, in fact, they’re a pack of infernal rogues and scoundrels!”

“…and which are you, Grandpapa, a Tory or a Radical?”