Fun (magazine)

Fun was founded in 1861 by a London businessman, Charles Maclean, who believed there was scope for a rival to the established comic weekly magazine Punch.

[2][3] Fun became known as "the poor man's Punch": at a penny for its weekly issue of twelve pages, it sold at a third of the price of its older rival.

[4] According to the introduction to the Gale Fun archive, the new magazine became Punch's most successful rival and surpassed the older publication in its commentary on literature, fine arts, and theatre.

The historian Jane Stedman describes them: Notable contributors included Tom Robertson, Ambrose Bierce, G. R. Sims and, most importantly for the magazine's fortunes, W. S. Gilbert, who was an unknown novice when Fun began, but who rapidly became its most valuable asset.

[10] Even though Fun was seen as liberal in comparison with the increasingly conservative Punch, it could cast satirical scorn or praise on either side of the political spectrum.

For instance, Disraeli, whose unorthodox character and Jewish lineage made him a frequent target of attack, was praised in the magazine, particularly for his Reform Bill of 1867.

Gilbert's contributions ceased in the early 1870s, and although Fun still had talented writers including Clement Scott and Arthur Wing Pinero, the magazine lost a key asset without his unique combination of what Stedman calls "squibs, fillers, puns, verses, drawings, social and dramatic criticism, suggestions for double acrostics (a special Fun feature), absurd letters, and, of course, the Bab Ballads, which out-laughed anything Punch had to offer".

[12] Fun was bought by the publisher George Newnes, who sold it to Charles Shurey, proprietor of a rival comic paper early in 1901.