Bernard Wiseman
Born in the Canarsie area of Brooklyn to Jewish parents in 1922, Bernard Wiseman showed an interest in cartooning from a young age. He was the teenage art director of his high school yearbook. In one illustration from his senior year he drew the class in cartoon format, engaged in a variety of ridiculous situations, himself at center with sketchbook, capturing it all. As a young adult he enlisted in the US Coast Guard during World War II. On his registration card, at age 23, he lists himself as a “Free lance cartoonist”. Inspired by popular magazines he was reading, particularly The New Yorker, he began developing his own unique style and submitting his work while at sea.
In the late 1940’s through the 1950’s some of his earliest and sketchy black and white cartoon gags appeared in True, Look, Sports Illustrated, Cosmopolitan, The Wall Street Journal and other popular magazines of the time. Additionally, he created a number of advertisements for clients such as American Airlines, New York Transit Authority and Woolite. Wiseman also made some contributions to the early Mad magazine including illustrating a short piece in issue #26 and a feature for #28 in 1956. An amiable professional, Wiseman seemed to have longstanding relationships with a number of New York editors.
A prolific cartoonist, Wiseman really hit his stride in the mid 1960’s. His work from that decade in particular is exemplary of a completely different direction that cartoons for adults could have gone in, but never did. Ribald humor reflecting the battle of the sexes was never so prevalent as when Wiseman’s colorful full page cartoons were published in men’s magazines from 1963-1970. If you’ve never seen them before, it might be different from what you’d expect from a pop culture standpoint- there is no hint of neurosis or psychedelia here. Let’s get this straight - Wiseman was far from an underground cartoonist. He was already in his forties at this time (and his Jewish/Bronx upbringing probably had more in common with Harvey Kurtzman than R. Crumb). His focus is not so much on the youth movement as it is on lust in general and of our misunderstanding of each other as adults. Still, there’s no denying that Wiseman’s work is daring as he is not afraid to put nudity into his work, or to poke fun at both business men and prostitutes. But to a hip generation, there is also something that feels square here and his humor remains locked into 1950’s values with only a rare hint at counterculture or a notice of feminism. If you can look past that, what you have are some cartoons with a lush visual appeal that were truly doing their own thing.
Today, he is remembered as the creator of several well-known easy reader picture books starring Morris the Moose. Some of those titles are still in print and can easily be found at your local library, including reprints of the first book, originally published in 1959. The adult material is indefinitely more obscure. But Wiseman is not alone in this cannon. When looking back at the history of comics and cartoons, this spicy area somewhere between comics and illustration often gets overlooked. Magazines such as Judge or Cartoon Humor were aiming content at mature readers as far back as the late 1930s, reflecting the artistry from more popular magazines such as Esquire and The New Yorker. As design tastes changed and photography became more prevalent, especially in advertising, the 1960’s saw many cartoonists of this type entering the more lucrative area of children’s books. William Steig would be an example. Others pushed on, such as Bill Wenzel, continuing their strictly adult material, even as this particular magazine market became raunchier and indefinitely paid less. Most just quit and moved on to positions as art editors or left commercial art completely. Wiseman was one of those rare creatures that had the best of both worlds. For Wiseman was foremost a storyteller: a writer who told stories with pictures. This is evident in all of his work, and his designs are quite distinctive. They never appear in the traditional sense to be “comics” — as panels borders and word balloons are cleverly absent from his art. Still, Wiseman experiments with a variety of formats in both the single panel and of the sequential variety.
Wiseman was not the only famous children’s book creator who created “adults only” content, he just seemed to push it further -with nudity- and a steady stream of material throughout his career. Lest we not forget that Stan and Jan Berenstain (of whom he was roughly the same age) began depicting the problems of teenagers and newly married couples in the pages of the popular Collier’s magazine prior to creating their bear characters. Or that Syd Hoff drew on the humorous side of adult immigrant’s lives in New York’s tenements via Esquire magazine before chronicling the lives of Danny and his Dinosaur. Even the fairly tame Brad Anderson, remembered for the Marmaduke comic, would make the occasional sexy contribution to a Humorama title.
Ballantine was the first to publish a book by Wiseman for adults at the same time that his children’s book career was launching in 1959. It was a space themed collection called Cartoon Countdown. The space race, and Russia in general, became a source of humor for many of Wiseman’s cartoons. A few years later, Dell published Irwin the Intern (1962) which featured a shy doctor who constantly found himself in uncomfortable sexual situations. Sex-Ed was another paperback that satirically looked at children in school from an adult’s perspective. Another theme, that most likely came from his time in the service, and later living near the Atlantic Ocean, was nautical life. This was reflected in The Boatniks, a satire of the leisure minded sea bound crowd, published by Dell in 1962. All of these books are somewhat of a throwback to the staples of men’s humor from the 1950’s. Other books that he published outside of his kids book oeuvre included the novelty item Sadness is a Back View (1964) and The Hat that Grew and Grew (1965). It wasn’t until Wiseman started making work for less mainstream publications, that he would expand upon these themes and push them further into more risqué territory. The techniques and materials also became more lavish.
Bawdiness was just one side though. Wiseman was clearly a storyteller whose passion for cartooning saw no boundaries. He was also a regular contributor to Boys’ Life magazine (1964-1972) and named one of his sons after the editor, who he was friendly with. The illustrations in Boys’ Life were often painted. They accompanied text stories written by Wiseman and perhaps served as a template for an illustrated novel for young readers that unfortunately was never published. It should be duly noted that at this point Wiseman was living in Westport, Connecticut. Westport, and the surrounding Fairfield County, was home to a whole slew of popular newspaper cartoonists at the time.
Our focus of interest herein is on the magazines Rogue, Monsieur and Jem, from roughly the mid to late 1960’s. Rogue, like Fling, was a Playboy competitor based out of Chicago. The New York based Monsieur (later titled The Swinger) and Jem (later titled Gem) were raunchier magazines than Playboy, featured less ads and had more of an emphasis on humor. Both magazines had a history of changed ownership and Wiseman’s connections were largely based on who was the editor at the time. For example, Jem premiered in 1956 and was published by Joe Weider, but Wiseman’s association with the publication didn’t come until 1963 when Will Martin was editor under the fifth avenue L&L Publications name. Wiseman’s production art for these cartoons was usually drawn on illustration board in full color at approximately 10” x 13”. Often they were reprinted in duotone in order to cut costs. Later, in 1968, when Jem changed ownership again (now as Gem), some of these cartoons would be reprinted in their original color.
Of course the sexism inherent to this work does not lend itself well to be considered seriously over time, despite its craftsmanship and arguable charm. There is also a bit of a conundrum when analyzing this type of work. Were these cartoonists really pushing taboos, or was this just the type of work a paycheck from these commercial outlets demanded? Were the artists more likely to make their work chock full of obscene humor knowing that it probably wouldn’t be seen by most of their neighbors? Remember this was way before the internet and an artist didn’t even have to use a pseudonym to remain fairly anonymous in two separate markets. And add to this the fact that there was a general shame and disdain many cartoonists of this generation have historically expressed over their own craft. Comics were hardly considered art and most paying gigs, particularly in the comic book field, fell under strict censorship codes.
Wiseman’s interest in the adult cartoons, however, appears far from casual. The proof is that he edited his own magazine on the topic, Prize Cartoons (1968-1969), that lasted for 7 issues (he painted three of the covers). He was also involved with an additional magazine, Popular Cartoons, as a contributor and assistant editor. It is interesting to note that Joe Simon, the co-creator of Captain America, also had a hand in editing these magazines along with Wiseman.
The connection that cartoons have to the history of men’s magazines is not random. Hugh Hefner and Arv Miller were best friends growing up. Both were cartoonists who drew their own gags and comic books. When Hefner started Playboy, he gave up cartooning and hired Arv as his art director. Soon after this, Arv, gave up cartooning too. In this case, it was to start his own magazine, Fling, a Playboy competitor. At different points, Wiseman would make contributions to both. For Hugh and Arv, cartoons were as important as sex. Both magazines featured some of the most skilled humorous cartoonists of the time. Hugh hired Jack Cole, Buck Brown, Dedini, Phil Interlandi, Jules Feiffer and Shel Silverstein (the later two also gained fame as children’s book creators). Arv had Don Margolis, Charles Dennis, Bill Wenzel and Vic Martin.
In terms of humor cartooning at the time, B. Wiseman’s full page gags are some of the strongest entries in the field. He created full realized scenes, rich in style, uncluttered in content as if he were creating a children’s book for “adults only”. There is a depth to his cartoons where he often draws a more elaborate space than many of his contemporaries. He also created several “reports” or double paged cartoon spreads for Jem that consisted of a narrative, made up of many images, though not essentially sequential. It seems as if Wiseman had the bend to write mature humorous stories for adults in a picture book format at one image per page, as opposed to a comic book. But the audience and the market didn’t seem to be there. As his children’s books became more popular, he followed that, creating numerous sequels to the Morris the Moose book, amongst others. It was a good life, with modest success and he retired to Florida where he lived until his passing in 1995.
For those who favor a time that celebrated glamour, a curvy figure and naughty playfulness, Wiseman’s work offers appeal. It’s also a glint into the eye of an alternative comics history where certain men born slightly before the Great Depression saw cartoons as something different than a means of pulp action or super-heroic adventure. On one hand, there were the enormously talented and well-documented visionaries like Jack Kirby, Steve Ditko and Will Eisner whose work in comic books eventually brought about the foundations of the modern graphic novel. On the other hand, there were there were those drawing from a different tradition. These would be cartoonists like Syd Hoff, William Steig, The Berenstains and Bernard Wiseman. Humorists who told stories with pictures that reflected their own lives, as opposed to a purely fantastical one. Jules Feiffer did it with his nearly forgotten graphic novel Tantrum, published in 1979.
What if there had been a means for these others to pursue their visions to a wider audience? To create visual stories told for an adult audience at one picture per page? I wonder what the results would be? What would comics look like today?