Good Morning was an American political humor magazine, first published in May 1919. It was founded by Ellis O. Jones, a former associate editor of Life magazine and editor of Ladies’ Home Journal who once called for the US Army and Navy to be disbanded and went on to head the National Copperheads, an isolationist anti-war organization during World War II, and the veteran radical and brilliant cartoonist Art Young, who drew cartoons for The Libertor and The New Yorker. Both had worked together on the staff of the a socialist bohemian monthly The Masses.
Funded in large part by donations, the magazine was financially troubled from the outset and over time it was forced to decrease in frequency from weekly to semi-monthly to monthly. Costs still continued to outstrip revenues, however, and the publication was terminated in October 1921. An effort by Young to revive the publication in 1922 as the Art Young Quarterly failed after just a single issue.
The Poor Fish
The Poor Fish was recurring character. An everyman figure, the fish would appear to think up to the point when he he found his miserable lot understandable.
The Poor Fish was a nod to Henry Dubb, a charater created by American political activist and cartoonist Ryan Walker (December 26, 1870 – June 23, 1932). Dubb was the American worker who ambled through life blithely being victimized by capitalism ostensibly as a result of his blind acceptance of the ideas of the ruling class.
Treason Can Be Funny
As the New Yorker writes, Art Young was a jovial man who even had empathy for his enemies:
Young had a winning sense of humor as well as a strong sense of social justice – some of his funniest drawings are about Hell. During the First World War, when Young was tried for treason alongside John Reed and Max Eastman, his colleagues at The Masses, the prosecuting attorney couldn’t help stating, in his otherwise excoriating summation, that “everybody loves Art Young.”
Good Morning notes that when it come to blame, the knowing elite and their acolytes always go for the Jews
The entire Good Morning Magazine Archive
Even if you don’t sympathise with the politics and Jones’s career which lurched between the far left to the far right, Young’s drawings are terrific. You can browse the entire run of Good Morning below:
1919
v1n01-may-08-1919-good-morning:
v1n02-may-15-1919-good-morning
v1n03-may-22-1919-good-morning
v1n04-may-29-1919-good-morning
v1n05-jun-05-1919-good-morning
v1n07-jun-19-1919-good-morning
v1n08-jun-26-1919-good-morning
v1n09-jul-03-1919-good-morning
v1n09-jul-03-1919-good-morning
v1n10-jul-10-1919-good-morning
v1n11-x-advert-oct-1919-good-morning
v1n15-oct-29-1919-good-morning
v1n14-oct-22-1919-good-morning
v1n13-oct-15-1919-good-morning
v1n12-oct-08-1919-good-morning
2020
v2n01-may-01-1920-good-morning
v2n02-may-15-1920-good-morning
v2n03-jun-01-1920-good-morning
v2n04-jun-15-1920-good-morning
v2n05-jul-01-1920-good-morning
v2n6-7-jul-15-aug-01-1920-good-morning
v2n8-9-aug-15-sep-01-1920-good-morning
v2n9-10-sep-15-oct-01-1920-good-morning
2021
v3n01-jan-01-1921-good-morning
v3n02-jan-15-1921-good-morning
v3n03-feb-01-1921-good-morning
v3n04-feb-15-1921-good-morning
v3n05-mar-1-15-1921-good-morning
v3n06-apr-01-1921-good-morning
v3n07-apr-15-1921-good-morning
v3n08-may-1-15-1921-good-morning
v3n09-jun-15-jul-1-1921-good-morning
Via: The Marxists Internet Archive
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