There Oughta Be a Law!

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There Oughta Be a Law!
Author(s) Harry Shorten (1944–1970)
Frank Borth (1970–1983)
Mort Gerberg (1983–1985)
Illustrator(s) Al Fagaly (1944–1963)
Warren Whipple (1963–1981)
Mort Gerberg (1981–1985)
Current status/scheduleConcluded daily gag panel
Launch date1944
End dateApril 13, 1985
Alternate name(s)Bitter Laff (1944–1945)
TOBAL!
Syndicate(s) McClure Newspaper Syndicate / Bell-McClure Syndicate (1944–c. 1972)
United Feature Syndicate (c. 1972–1985)
Publisher(s) Midwood Books
Belmont Books
Genre(s)gag-a-day, humor, adults

There Oughta Be a Law!, or TOBAL!, was a single-panel newspaper comic strip, created by Harry Shorten and Al Fagaly, which was syndicated for four decades from 1944 to 1985. [1] The gags illustrated minor absurdities, frustrations, hypocrisies, ironies and misfortunes of everyday life, displayed in a single-panel or two-panel format. There Oughta Be a Law! was similar to Jimmy Hatlo's They'll Do It Every Time . [2] TOBAL! was initially syndicated by the McClure Newspaper Syndicate; eventually it moved over to United Feature Syndicate. [3]

Contents

Publication history

In 1944, while an editor at MLJ Comics, Shorten created the strip, bringing along MLJ artist Al Fagaly. The strip's original title was Bitter Laff, changing to There Oughta Be a Law on October 22, 1945. [1] A Sunday strip began in 1948, and ended in 1980. [1] Eventually, the strip incorporated reader ideas. [3]

Fagaly died in 1963, with Warren Whipple taking over the art duties until 1981. Shorten provided scripts until 1970, [4] when Frank Borth took over the writing, lasting until 1983. Mort Gerberg took over art duties in 1981, and both writing & art in 1983. [3] The strip ended on April 13, 1985. [1]

Characters and story

Many strips ended with a character yelling out the phrase "There Oughta Be a Law!", or just "TOBAL!" [3] Because of its format, recurring characters were infrequently used, but TOBAL! did feature occasional characters such as Cringely, Carbuncle, Locknutt, and so on, as well as the daughter character Bratinella.

Collected editions

Many collected editions were published by companies affiliated with Harry Shorten, including Midwood Books, Belmont Books, Belmont Tower, and Roband Productions:

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Tower Publications was an American publisher based in New York City that operated from 1958 to c. 1981. Originally known for their Midwood Books line of erotic men's fiction, it also published science fiction and fantasy under its Tower Books line and published comic books in the late 1960s under its Tower Comics imprint. In the early 1970s, Tower acquired paperback publisher Belmont Books, forming the Belmont Tower line. Archie Comics' cofounder Louis Silberkleit was a silent partner in Tower's ownership; longtime Archie editor Harry Shorten was a major figure with Tower in all its iterations.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 Holtz, Allan (2012). American Newspaper Comics: An Encyclopedic Reference Guide. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. p. 382. ISBN   9780472117567.
  2. Markstein, Don. "THERE OUGHTA BE A LAW!," Toonpedia. Accessed Oct. 22, 2018.
  3. 1 2 3 4 "GREEN SHEET|THROWBACK THURSDAY — COMICS EDITION: 'There Oughta Be a Law!' tapped readers for material," Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (May 05, 2016).
  4. Shorten entry, Who's Who of American Comic Books, 1928-1999. Accessed Feb. 25, 2017.