| Categories | Humour, satire |
|---|---|
| Frequency | Weekly |
| Publisher | James Henderson |
| Founded | 1874 |
| Final issue | 1894 |
| Country | UK |
Funny Folks was a British periodical published between 1874 and 1894. It was published in London by Scottish newspaper proprietor James Henderson. It has been called "the first English 'comic' paper",[1] and "the model for all later British comics".[2]
The first issue, on 12 December 1874, was produced as a supplement to the special Christmas edition of Henderson's weekly magazine The Weekly Budget. Its popularity led to its subsequent publication as a free-standing periodical, priced at 1d. per copy. It was subtitled A Weekly Budget of Funny Pictures, Funny Notes, Funny Jokes, Funny Stories.[2]
The newspaper-format journal was innovative in combining entertaining stories and puzzles with large cartoons.[1] These were often satirical in tone, with some by John Proctor, known as Puck,[3] and some from German and French sources. It was aimed at an adult lower middle-class audience, rather than at children, and benefitted from innovations in the use of cheap paper and photo-zincography printing.[2] One of the contributors to the journal was Alfred Harmsworth, who launched his own Comic Cuts a few years later.[1]
- ^ a b c Louis James, "Funny Folks", in Dictionary of Nineteenth-century Journalism in Great Britain and Ireland, Academia Press, 2009, p.238
- ^ a b c Nicholas Hiley, "Comic Periodicals", Gale.com. Retrieved 22 November 2020
- ^ John Adcock, "Funny Folks", Yesterday's Papers, 29 September 2009. Retrieved 22 November 2020