This cartoon doesn't fit with cartoon themes that normally appear in Playboy, so I'm inclined to think it appeared elsewhere.
Here it is:
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| Kliban's first professional cartoon |
Kliban apparently became a Playboy cartoonist in 1962, but I've not established in which issue, or if his first Playboy cartoon appeared in one of their other publications (i.e. not the famous men's magazine). The earliest copyright notice in the two Playboy anthologies of Kliban's cartoons is dated to 1964. Don Novello writing in the introduction to Kliban's posthumous book (Advanced Cartooning) says that Kliban was paid $25 for his first Playboy cartoon. Perhaps, his first paid work was accepted in 1962, but perhaps it didn't appear in-print until later? Please leave comments if you can elaborate on this.
In my searches through the Playboy archives, their earliest Kliban work appears to be in the June, 1962 issue.
ReplyDeleteI've assembled a Facebook album of every one of his Playboy works that I could find. See it here:
https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10212068930891247&type=3
In Kliban's 1987 interview for Splat comics he said that his first printed cartoon appeared in Show Business Illustrated, which was a short-lived magazine published between September 1961 and April 1962, and was owned by Playboy. I haven't been able to actually check which issue, but I suspect this explain this the confusion. I guess he would have been paid by Playboy, but his work appeared in a sister publication to the more famous men's magazine.
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