Funnyman is a comic book character whose adventures were published in 1948 by Magazine Enterprises.

Publication history

After leaving DC Comics and suing that company in a dispute over the rights to their character Superman, Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster rejoined their former DC editor Vin Sullivan — who had edited the earliest Superman adventures — at his new company, Magazine Enterprises. Siegel and Shuster's new creation, Funnyman, starred in a series that ran six issues (cover-dated Jan.–Aug. 1948). In the first issue, Siegel and Shuster mocked what they saw as the rush of Superman clones in a story called "Funman, Comicman and Laffman". In the story, TV comedian Larry Davis dresses up in a costume to catch a fake criminal for a publicity stunt, but he catches a real criminal instead, and decides to become a superhero. Funnyman's enemies include Doc Gimmick, a criminal robot, and the crime team of Schemer Beamer, Bug-Eyes, Crusher, Rockjaw and the Curve. A newspaper comic strip debuted in October 1948, but Funnyman also failed to find an audience in this format, and the strip was soon dropped.