Twin exhibits celebrate 100 years of U-M humor magazine The Gargoyle
The University of Michigan’s Gargoyle is, thankfully, both. The Gargoyle (a.k.a. Gargoyle or Garg, alternatively) is the U-M’s official student-run humor magazine. An off-and-on branch of the U-M’s Student Publications, The Gargoyle is a part of the group that includes The Michigan Daily and the Michiganensian Yearbook.
As illustrated in two concurrent local exhibitions — “The Gargoyle Trawls the Depths for Humor: 100 Years of Cartoons and Quips at the University of Michigan” at the U-M Bentley Historical Library and “Celebrating 100 Years of The Gargoyle” at the U-M Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library — this student periodical has consistently and resolutely (as the Bentley’s exhibition statement says) sought to “bend the rules ‘inflicted’ on them by the Board in Control of Student Publications.”
For indeed, MAD or most other American satirical magazines are ultimately tame (and, quite often, simply lame) by comparison. Let’s just say Alfred E. Neuman has nothing on the shape-shifting Igor Gargoyle.
Originally founded as a literary-cum-humor magazine in 1909 by future Detroit News editor Lee A. White, the magazine has gone in and out of publication — as well as on and off campus due to its scatological humor — through the last 10 decades.
The Gargoyle finally shook off its literary moorings to pursue its more consistent purpose of lampooning the mores of American higher education in the early 1950s. And as the Bentley’s “The Gargoyle Trawls the Depths for Humor” shows us, it’s a tough job. But as the cliché continues: Somebody’s got to do it. The Gargoyle just does it with uninhibited enthusiasm.
Featuring samples crafted by some of the magazine’s most famous contributors — names that include Mark Dancey (“Motorbooty”); Lloyd Dangle (“Troubletown”); Max Hodge (“Batman”); Lawrence Kasdan (“The Big Chill”); George Lichty (“Grin and Bear It”); David Newman (“Bonnie and Clyde”); Frederick Ziv (“Sea Hunt”); as well as some playwright named Art Miller (as was his byline at the time) — the exhibit traces The Gargoyle’s history through samples like Hodge’s 1937 risque two-page, black bordered “In Memoriam” tribute to Hedy Lamarr after her marriage and the monopolyesque Dec. 1937 Howard Collins and George Quick “Complete College Education in an Hour: A Dice way to go through College” (complete with dice and board).
Other Gargoyle samples include the Sept. 1966 “Gargoyle All-Un-American Team” featuring Stokely Carmichael as left tackle, Barry Goldwater as right end, Hugh Hefner as quarterback (because he always “scores”), Everett Dirksen as right half, Timothy Leary as wrong half, Mamie Van Doren as “distraction,” and Igor Gargoyle as “mascot.”
Additionally, a 1930 sample of writing by the youthful Miller is on hand. Phil Zaret’s Feb. 1967,”Kill-a-Commie-for-Christ Man” was reprinted by college newspapers across the country at the height of Vietnam War. And cartoonist Charles Schulz’s 1962 endorsement of Gargoyle showing Snoopy for the first time in his famed “gargoyle” pose holds a center place.
By contrast, the Hatcher’s “Celebrating 100 Years of The Gargoyle” seems almost sedate - until it's looked at closely.
A lot of thought has gone into The Gargoyle’s covers over the last century. Working through the decades not only illustrates the marked shift of American college satire; far more important, these covers trace the shifts of American humor writ large.
A sample of covers in “Celebrating 100 Years of The Gargoyle”:
A faithful parody of Saul Steinberg’s cover art for what the November 1965 Gargoyle called “The New Forker” is easily an eye catcher. A 1956 “Plow Boy” cover (with bowtied rabbit mascot and model) is equally wry. A 1969 “Nightstick — the Police Club Journal” effectively bludgeons its point home. And a 1941 shot of a coed doing her best to advertise “Garg” is easily ahead of its time.
From deceptively prim early 20th century cover illustrations to the no-holds-barred 1960s and 1970s, the Garg’s done its best to insult everybody equally. We can only hope the next 100 years lives up — er, down? — to The Gargoyle’s first iconoclastic century.
John Carlos Cantú is a free-lance writer who reviews art for AnnArbor.com.
“Celebrating 100 Years of The Gargoyle” continues through Oct. 25 at the U-M Harlan Hatcher Graduate Library North Lobby, 920 N. University Ave. Exhibit hours are 8 a.m.-2 a.m. Monday-Thursday; 8 a.m.-7 p.m. Friday; 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Saturday; and 1 p.m. to 2 a.m. Sunday. For more information, call 734-764-0400.
“The Gargoyle Trawls the Depths for Humor: 100 Years of Cartoons and Quips at the University of Michigan” will continue through Dec. 31 at the U-M Bentley Historical Library, 1150 Beal Ave. Exhibit hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday; and 9 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. Saturday. For more information, call 734-764-3482.