Studio Cards: Funny Greeting Cards and People Who Created Them

Tall, narrow cartoon cards were the new big thing in greeting cards in 1958. When Hallmark Cards was printing official Christmas cards for President Eisenhower, the Eisenhowers asked Hallmark to also create a funny studio card that they could send to a few close friends. If you have one of the 200 cards that has a personal lip print (Mamie's) and a personal thumb print (Dwight's), you have a valuable collectible piece of cartoon art. And other studio cards from the 1950s and 1960s may become collectibles.

Studio cards began in the 1940s in art studios in New York's Greenwich Village. A company called Panda Prints published the first humorous studio cards in 1947, and soon there were many small companies following that path. The major greeting card companies (Hallmark, American Greetings, Rust Craft, Norcross and Gibson) began publishing studio cards in 1956 and then the public general became aware of them. Hallmark named their cards Contemporary Cards, and American Greeting named theirs Hi Brows.

Studio cards flourished into the 1980s and then became extinct in the 1990s, or perhaps it is more accurate to say that studio cards morphed into alternative humour greeting cards. When Hallmark and American Greetings discontinued the tall cards, their cartoonists easily moved into creating the cartoon cards you see in stores today. Hallmark calls theirs "Shoebox", and American Greetings call theirs "Just My Style".

Dean Norman joined the Hallmark staff in 1956 a few months after their studio cards line was launched, and moved to American Greetings to draw Hi Brows cards from 1960 to 1990. His book, STUDIO CARDS...Funny Greeting Cards and People who Created Them is a collection of humorous stories about these writers and artists.

The major companies hired young people out of college and art schools, and rarely gave them bylines or signatures on their work. Some of them worked for a career in greeting cards, and you may have never heard of them although you may have bought and sent many of their cards. Some moved into other fields of humour, and you may have heard of them. Mort Walker, creator of Beetle Bailey. Paul Coker, a Mad Magazine cartoonist. Phil Hahn and Jack Hanrahan, writers for Rowan & Martins Laugh-In TV series. Tom Wilson, creator of Ziggy newspaper cartoon feature. Russell Myers, creator of Broom-Hilda comic strip. Robert Crumb, underground cartoonist featured in the documentary film titled Crumb. Herb Gardner, author of Broadway plays I'm Not Rappaport and A Thousand Clowns.

Over 150 writers and artists are featured in the book, with illustrations from cards published by Hallmark, American Greetings, Panda Prints, Box Cards, Nellie Card Co., Bernad Creations, Dale Enterprises, Country Cousins, Comicana, Joy&Cheer and other cartoon art by the illustrators of studio cards. Also tossed into the mix are some funny stories about the CEO's of Hallmark and American Greetings, Joyce C, Hall and Irving Stone. Studio cards were funny, and not surprisingly, so were the people who created them.  more