College Comics

There are approximately 800,000 college or university students in the U. S. What if an editor could find a common denominator to their interests and publish a magazine that each of these 800,000 would read? To probers of student psychology the publication would be a telltale document. And to tailor, tobacconist, maker of sweets or shoes--what a medium for national advertising!

Such a magazine, according to editors of College Humor, is College Humor, a monthly which prints collegiate stories by professional humorists, reprints jokes and drawings from college periodicals. But recently it seemed that College Humor neither represented nor pleased the tastes of U. S. colleges.

In the University of Minnesota at Minneapolis met six of the representatives of 14 college humorous publications which together form the Midwest College Comics Association. Thoroughly they repudiated College Humor, unanimously they resolved not to renew contracts to give that magazine exclusive reprint rights.

Reasons given by Michigan Gargoyle Business Manager Carl U. Fauster, President of the Association, were: "College Humor through its general makeup has misrepresented the colleges and created false impressions about college life. . . . College Humor is claimed to be receiving advertisements on the assumption that as a magazine it covers the college field whereas the general belief expressed is that it does not cover the field but is read mostly by factory girls, drug store cowboys and high school students. . . ."

Potent source of indignation was an advertising survey published by College Humor estimating the cost of a full page advertisement in 86 college comics at $3,409.84, which by tacit inference was about $2,000 more than the same advertisement would cost in College Humor, presumably read by the same public.

Further indignation was caused by an article describing students at the University of Virginia* as genial and not infrequent drinkers./- Editors of University of Virginia magazines, outraged, pledged their efforts to have the Eastern College Comics Association also repudiate College Humor. The sole other college comic association, the Western, voted to cancel all contracts with it eight months before the recent action of the Midwestern.

Unperturbed, editors of College Humor could still point to their survey which covered seven fraternities in colleges from Yale to Wisconsin, from Syracuse to the University of Virginia, where at Kappa Sigma more than 95% of the fraternities were readers of College Humor. The result of this survey showed that out of 276 collegians, 242 read College Humor regularly, frequently or occasionally.

* Not a member of the Midwestern association. There are three college comic associations: the Western, including colleges west of a line drawn south through Denver; the Eastern, including colleges east of a line drawn south through Pittsburgh; the Midwestern lying between the two.

/-At Colorado College last week, all formal social activities except the Junior Promenade were suspended because of student drinking.