Studio cards

The approach was sometimes cutting or caustic, a distinct alternative to the type of mild humor previously employed by the major greeting card companies.

Her best-selling card combined the song title "Stay as Sweet as You Are" with a happily sloshed woman drinking herself under the table.

Although Los Angeles gift shops initially showed little interest, sales soared at the USC and UCLA student stores.

His cards were tall, explained Box, because he was more comfortable drawing standing figures and because #10 envelopes were the least expensive he could find.

Another contributor to Box Cards was the cartoonist Joel Beck, credited as one of the founders of the underground comics movement in the mid-1960s.

Leaving the card business, he had a successful career as a comedy writer for top talents, including Jonathan Winters, Steve Allen, Phyllis Diller and George Gobel.

Box retired in 1985 but occasionally contributes to Duck Press ("America's Golf Greeting Card Company") in Tucson.

In 1959-60, Gardner did The Nebbishes as a syndicated comic strip, and his autobiographical novel, A Piece of the Action (1958), has a thinly disguised recounting of the creation and marketing of his characters.