Sometimes I hate my compulsion to pursue nagging questions. And a compulsion it is. Something piques my curiosity and the next thing I know hours have passed and I find myself deep in a rabbit hole without even a carrot to show for it.
I don't care much for TV Girls and Gags. The cartooning is generally poor, the gags stupid, and the cheesecake photos the sort of stuff that was everywhere in the 1950s. And yet... I couldn't help but notice a sudden change in the nature of the magazine between Vol. 6, #1 (January 1959) and Vol. 6, #2 (March 1959). Since its premiere in 1954 TVG&G had been 64 pages, usually without ads. With the March 59 issue it becomes 96 pages and is stuffed with ads for stag films, girlie pictures, and sex books. The cartoons always offered a mix of risque (but not explicit) sex gags and general topics. With March 59 the sexual content of the cartoons is more pointed and there are fewer general gags. It looks like a change in ownership, with the new owners wanting to appeal more directly to the sleaze market.
That's what started me down the rabbit hole. Figuring out ownership from a publisher's indicia name is nearly impossible. I don't understand the business behind it, but I know the Victor Foxes and Martin Goodmans of the world released magazines under dozens of different indicia names although their underlying corporations were a single unit. With that caveat, I note that initially TVG&G is a bi-monthly published by Pocket Magazines, Inc. at 40 Hilliard Street, Atlanta, Georgia. The editorial offices, however, are in New York at 1140 Broadway. With Vol. 2, #1 (July 1955) editorial moves to 745 5th Avenue.
There's one other change which will be important later. The indicias of the first three issues report that an "application [is] pending for entry as Second-Class matter." A Second-Class mailing permit was a precious thing, allowing publishers to send periodicals through the mail at a substantially lower rate than other mail. Getting one was complicated (and I would guess expensive as well) and comics and magazine publishers did everything they could to keep permits they had and to avoid taking out new ones. That's what's behind indicia notices like "My Secret Life, formerly Murder, Inc." Shady publishers gamed the system by piggybacking a new title onto a cancelled book's existing permit so they wouldn't have to apply for a new one. Beginning with Vol. 1, #4 the indicia reads "Entered as Second-Class matter at the Post Office at Atlanta, Ga." Sounds like the permitting process is moving along nicely.
In Vol. 2, #4 (January 1956) the publisher becomes Enterprise Magazine Management, Inc. The Atlanta address is the same but editorial has moved again, this time to 381 Fourth Avenue, NYC. In Vol. 2, #6 (May 1956) editorial has moved again, this time to 9 East 48th Street. In the indicia the new address has been clumsily pasted over the old one.
That arrangement remains in place through Vol. 3. Then with Vol. 4, #1 (January 1957) the publisher becomes Sports Report, Inc. The editorial office is still on 48th street. The indicia still says "published bi-monthly at Atlanta, Georgia" but the Atlanta street address is dropped and "Second-Class mail privileges authorized at Atlanta, Ga." is added to the mix.
Everything continues this way until Vol. 6, #2 (March 1959) and the Big Change. The publisher becomes Publication Management Corp. The magazine is still "published at Atlanta, Ga.," but "business and editorial" offices are at 35 West 53rd Street in New York. 16 pages are added, many filled with sleaze advertising. A Statement of Ownership appears, dated October 1958. It refers to the previous publishing company, Sports Record Inc. The publisher of record is Howard R. Cook of Atlanta. There's no way to tell if Cook was still top man in 1959 when the issue was printed. The CB+ collection runs out with Vol. 6, #4 (July 1959). The GCD says TV Girls and Gags ran 15 more issues. Publication Management Corp. published all but the last two, which are credited to Four Star Management Corp. The last issue, Vol. 8, #4, was dated November 1962.
I could find nothing about Howard R. Cook on the Internet. I did learn that Sports Record, Inc., published other cheap small-format magazines while it was putting out TVG&G. Tempo and Picture Weekly were celebrity/pop culture mags with lots of covers of big-breasted starlets popping out of their tops. Bold seems to have ditched the dreary celebrities and pop culture to focus on top popping. We can all guess what Chicks and Chuckles was like.
By far the most interesting bit of ephemera was the transcript from May 1961 of a hearing regarding Publication Management Corporation's Second-Class mailing permit. It seems the Post Office had revoked the permit for TV Girls and Gags and Chicks and Chuckles because they didn't meet the criteria for "periodicals." Publication Management Corp. objected and the matter wound up in this hearing.
The debate centered around the definition of "periodical" in the postal laws. Publications aren't periodicals "simply because they are serially issued at stated intervals more than four times a year, bound in paper, bear dates of issue and are numbered consecutively." A periodical must also meet a content standard. The US Supreme Court summed it up thus:
A periodical, as ordinarily understood, is a publication appearing at stated intervals, each number of which contains a variety of original articles by different authors, devoted either to general literature of some special branch of learning or to a special class of subjects. Ordinarily each number is incomplete in itself, and indicates a relation with prior or subsequent numbers of the same series. It implies a continuity of literary character, a connection between the different numbers of the series in the nature of the articles appearing in them, whether they be successive chapters of the same story or novel or essays upon subjects pertaining to general literature. (My emphasis.)
Publication Management argued that the cartoons in their magazines could be considered "articles" and that their common themes constituted a "connection between the different numbers." The Post Office lawyer got PM to admit that in fact the cartoons were interchangeable. Any cartoon could have appeared in either magazine at any time. Thus "...the several numbers of the publications have no relationship with their immediate successors or immediate predecessors" and that means each issue is complete in itself, making it a cartoon book rather than a periodical.
Publication Management Corp. lost the appeal and didn't get their mailing privileges back. A little over a year later TVG&G folded. By the way, the Petitioner here is "Mr. Jules Warshaw, President of the Publication Management Corporation." The Corporation's Atlanta address is 30-40 Hilliard Street SE. No mention is made of Howard R. Cook. So maybe there was a change in ownership, not just in editorial outlook. To find out one would have to scare up an issue from Vol. 7 with a Statement of Ownership.
