ESQUIRE gags, also from the December 1959 issue.

I wonder if Benson & Hedges got their idea from this.




I think what happens here is a man with a Christmas tree crosses the path of oncoming soldiers and after they leave he discovers they took his tree and he has a bayonet, so he makes a tree out of that. How did these things switch places when he was walking on the opposite side? I've worked with R.O. Blechman and love his drawings, but I have to admit I was confused by the transition between the fourth and fifth panels. But knowing how he worked, he probably drew the situation several times with different solutions until he figured out the best way to execute it, and I can't think of any other.

This is one of the few gag cartoons I've ever seen in any magazine that has no signature.

from the December 1959 issue of ESQUIRE

Early work of David Levine. He agrees with me when he laments there are no tabloid-sized magazines anymore. As he told Comics Journal, “All those magazines were much nicer in their full scale from the point of view of the look of the art...There was a time when I could do something on a travel trip for Holiday magazine and have full scale of reproduction. It was a nice feeling to be able to get that.”

more of the October 1958 ESQUIRE

illustrations for “The Fairest of Fair Game”






These next three are from the March 1962 issue

The swashbuckling cut of a cape

from ESQUIRE, July 1971




from ESQUIRE, February 1958

from "All The Hughes That's Fit to Print" illustrated by Gray Morrow, Esquire July 1971

from ESQUIRE, February 1958

from "The Goings On in Gorki Park" illustrated by R. O. Blechman, ESQUIRE September 1958

These next two are also from that issue.