In 1952, comic books were a little odd. Most publishers were struggling to recover from the dying superhero craze and turned to horror. Keep in mind this is 1952. People were a little easier to unnerve in those days.

The Ziff-Davis Publishing company (now an internet media behemoth) was one of the premier vendors of the macabre until it left the comic book industry entirely and let most of its comics fall into the public domain.

Here's Ziff-Davis' classic tale "The Devil from the Deep" about a mermaid who is introduced to the wonders of meat and she'll do anything to get more! Ooooooo — scary! This comes from Nightmare, No. 2, Fall 1952.

Click below to download the story or the entire comic book.

Story:
PDF format (book reader apps)
CBR format (comic book reader apps)

Entire book:
PDF format (book reader apps)
CBR format (comic book reader apps)

Source: The Digital Comic Museum — Scan by Cimmerian32

Long before they got their pie ingredients from a Libby's can, Americans got their daily meat from it. Most people who are familiar with the name "Libby's" are thinking of canned pumpkin and other fruits and vegetables. Perhaps you remember the television ads with children singing "Libby's Libby's Libby's on the label label label." The name is synonymous with juice, but it wasn't always that way.

Libby's started out as Libby, McNeill & Libby in Chicago, Illinois, presumably in the 1870s. Founders Archibald McNeill and the brothers Arthur and Charles Libby actually sold canned meat. Specifically, the company sold beef in brine, or corned beef. In 1875, the cannery launched a unique trapezoid shaped can that put them on the map.¹ During this time Libby, McNeill & Libby used print and premium marketing heavily, even going so far as to offer William Shakespeare plays in trading card format to help move the then popular canned ox tongue.

By the 1880s, Libby's was a major player in Chicago's job market with over 1,500 employees. Libby's continued to grow, but was controlled by the Chicago meat-packer Swift & Co. between 1888 and 1920.²

In the early twentieth century, Libby's began selling fruits and vegetables, and yes, its famous juices. You can still, however, get your hands on an authentic can of Libby, McNeill & Libby Corned Beef (direct from Brazil).

Sources:

1. Libby's – Our History
http://libbys.com/our-history
2. Encyclopedia of Chicago – Libby, McNeill & Libby
http://www.encyclopedia.chicagohistory.org/pages/2751.html

I was definitely born in the wrong era! Damn inflation! That's probably a $40 steak in today's prices.

Gee, that Bill sure is a lucky boy! His mom lets him have TWO wieners and wraps them all with bacon to boot!

MMMMMMM... BACON!

Click image to enlarge.

On May 27, 1933, the Chicago World's Fair ("A Century of Progress International Exposition") opened in Chicago. It remains one of the largest fairs ever held, bringing in 22.5 million ticket sales in 1933 and another 16.4 million in 1934.¹ The fair promoted architectural and industrial innovation. Ford Motor Company even produced a $5 million, nine-hundred-foot long building with a 20-foot globe, recreations of historic highways and an automobile assembly plant.

There were a few oddball displays, however, like the "Magic Mountain" slides for the kiddies, Sally Rand's infamous "fan dance" show for the bachelors and, of course, the "Living Babies in Incubators" exhibit.² But what I want to know is...

where the hell is my robot cow?

Click here to see
Popular Science's article
on the elusive cow.<sup>3








1</sup>"World's Fairs," Encyclopedia.com
²"Century of Progress 1933-34," Chicago History Museum, ChicagoHS.org
³"Robot Cow Moos and Gives Milk," Popular Science, May 1933

The meat-eaters of the world have a lot of corporate characters to look up to — Ronald McDonald, The Burger King, George Foreman... but my all time favorite has to be Bob's Big Boy. Big Boy also happens to star in one of the longest running comic book series in history.

Click below to enjoy a classic from 1956.

PDF format (book reader apps)

CBR format (comic book reader apps)

The classic hamburger was under no uncertain terms created in the United States. But who actually is responsible for this creation and when it was first served remain something of a debate. Every well known claim is based on local oral history which was finally written down long after the events allegedly occurred.

New Haven, Connecticut

According to the citizens of New Haven, Connecticut, the first hamburgers in U.S. history were sold at Louis' Lunch, a small lunch wagon run by New Haven native Louis Lassen. Lassen specialized in steak sandwiches, and decided to grind up the trimmings, grill them and serve them up as another sandwich option for the local factory workers to purchase. There was no bun (these sandwiches were served on fresh sliced bread). The sandwhich was essentially what we know today as a loose meat sandwich.¹

You can still buy a hamburger at the Crown Street luncheonette (now called Louis Lunch), owned and operated by the third and fourth generation of Lassens. But you can't have it your way - they only offer cheese, tomato and onion.²

Athens, Texas

According to Texas historian Frank Tolbert, Fletcher Davis of Athens, Texas actually invented the hamburger. Davis (who went by "Old Dave") reportedly ran a cafe in Athens and served hamburger sandwiches in the 1880's. The only actual documentation of Davis' hamburger, however, is a photo of "Old Dave's Hamburger Stand" at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair and a report noting the stand in the New York Tribune as "the innovation of a food vendor on the pike." The "pike" refers to the fair's midway.³

McDonald's Corporation has spent a great deal of time and money trying to find the true inventor of the hamburger and their own historians report that "the inventor was an unknown food vendor at the St. Louis Fair in 1904."⁴


Hamburg, New York

The Hamburg Chamber of Commerce tells yet another tale. They report that Charles and Frank Menches from Stark County, Ohio, were travelling a circuit of fairs and farmers' picnics in the early 1880's. Using a portible gasoline stove they prepared and sold sandwiches made of pork sausage, fried egg, fried liverwurst, fried mush and fried peas porridge.

In 1885 while selling primarily pork sausage sandwiches at the Erie County Fair in New York they ran out of pork sausage. They obtained ground beef from a local butcher (Andrew Klein or Stein's Market, depending upon which of many versions of the story you choose to believe). You can figure out the rest.⁴

Thus the hamburger was born... or so it seems.

Seymour, Wisconsin

Finally, we reach Wisconsin. Home of all things cheese. So why not the hamburger? There sure are a lot of cows in Wisconsin. At any rate, Seymour historians claim that Charlie Nagreen served the world's first hamburger at the Seymour Fair of 1885, five months before the Hamburg version.⁴ It was reportedly a flattened meatball, which the Hamburg Chamber of Commerce says doesn't count (and that they first coined the word "hamburger" on a downtown awning).⁵

Unfortunately for Seymour natives, the program printed for the "Home of the Hamburger Celebration" in 1989 contained a reprinted account of the first Seymour Fair in 1885... and there was no mention Nagreen's invention.⁴ Well, at least they have the world's largest hamburger festival, the Annual Hamburger Festival, of course.⁶

And so, in my opinion at least, it comes down to this: who's got the biggest roadside sign making the claim "We Invented the Freakin' Hamburger!"


Where does Sven come up with this stuff?

1. The Library of Congress, America's Story
http://www.americaslibrary.gov/cgi-bin/page.cgi/es/ct/burger_1
2. Louis Lunch
http://www.louislunch.com/
3. Athens, Texas
http://www.hamburgerhome.com/history.shtml
4. Atlas of Popular Culture in the Northeastern United States, John E. Harmon
http://www.geography.ccsu.edu/harmonj/atlas/burgers.html
5. Hamburg Chamber of Commerce
http://www.hamburg-chamber.org/index.php?BirthBurger
6. Home of the Hamburger
http://www.homeofthehamburger.org/

Way back in the fifties, everyone seemed to still be on the same page. Check out this free pamphlet from the California Market.

Click below to see full image.