1941 - Communications, Media

Communications, Media

British authorities suppress London's Daily Worker January 21.

The comic strip "Archie" is created by New York writer and pulp magazine publisher John L. Goldwater, 25, with help from teen-aged artist Bob Montana. Archie, Jughead, Reggie, Betty, Veronica, and their prototypical teenaged friends inhabit a suburban Riverdale, U.S.A., which bears no resemblance to the East Harlem neighborhood in which Goldwater was raised by a foster mother (his own died in childbirth and his father abandoned the infant soon afterward); they will appear in as many as 750 newspapers worldwide, and comic books based on their antics will have sales of as many as 50 million per year.

Parade magazine begins publication in May for newsstand distribution. It has been founded by Marshall Field III; the Washington Post takes the picture magazine in August for distribution with its Sunday edition, and other papers acquire distribution rights.

Germany abandons Gothic type May 31 in favor of Roman type.

A giant smoker in a Times Square spectacular put up by Artkraft-Straus begins blowing five-foot-wide smoke rings (created by steam from Consolidated Edison Co.) every 4 seconds to promote Camel cigarettes. Designed by Douglas Leigh, the sign will continue until 1966, attracting attention as the figure is changed from time to time, becoming variously a soldier, sailor, marine, or, finally, a civilian (see 1942).

Illinois-born radio commentator H. R. Bowkage, 52, arrives at the White House December 7 at the same moment as press secretary Stephen E. Early and persuades him for the first time to install a radio microphone in the White House newsroom. Bowkage broadcasts the breaking news of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor.