Friday, April 13, 2012

 

Obscurity of the Day: Punjabs




Not being much of a fan of puns, and not knowing a whole lot about Bob Gumpertz, I don't have much to say about today's obscurity, Punjabs. The single panel series was syndicated by Adcox Associates from December 5 1960 (with 'teaser' episodes starting November 29) to January 19 1963.

The San Francisco Chronicle, which picked up the feature late, gave some information on Frisco resident Gumpertz in their January 1 1961 issue:

Gumpertz got the idea for Punjabs in 1958 while he was an art director for Guild, Bascom and Bonfigli, San Francisco advertising agency. He said it took him two years to work it up to the point where he could syndicate it. Gumpertz cartoons have appeared in the Saturday Review, Punch and Playboy as well as a number of European magazines. The New York Times buys many of his line drawings of scenes in Europe.

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Comments:
I was disappointed to find that the strip doesn't involve any Indians or Pakistanis.
 
Allan,

Here's an author's biography from the back of a book called The International Dog (1968):

"Bob Gumpertz is the wag who tailed the dog to five different countries to record hitherto buried aspects of the dog's life. A native Californian, his research has been conducted in Paris, New York, and Mexico as well as San Francisco, his current base of operations. His cartoons have appeared in Saturday Review, Punch, Playboy, The New York Times, and many other publications; a syndicated cartoon feature called 'Punjabs' ran in thirty papers for several years."

The book is a collection of cartoons about dogs with punning captions. Charles Schulz wrote an introduction in the form of a cartoon of Snoopy.

TH
 
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