Jumper

Jumper is an American monthly magazine of comic and satirical fiction, poetry, essays, and cartoons. The magazine, founded in 1889, had been published continuously since its start until its cancellation in November 1968. The title was revived as a digital and print magazine in May 2012.
Since 2013, the magazine is published by the non-profit Jumper Press, which also publishes LampLight, an annual anthology of new short fiction. The Jumper Press website is run by a board of directors composed of the current and former editorial staff of the magazine. The press's headquarters is in Evanston, Illinois, and its current publisher is Jeff Welsch.
== History ==
===Original ===
Jumper was founded by Jonas Spinno, Jersey Mack and Jay Bosconia on May 1, 1889 as a literary magazine. The goal was to publish a condensed version of "the best work in current newspaper or book media" to be read to take advantage of rising literacy rates. Initially published in a single number, the magazine had an August 1890 issue with a large green cover where the magazine used "Jersey Jumper" in a blue script, paying tribute to the Jersey Lowe, the family who were the crusade of homepage magazine. During the 1890's, he published a long list of people. Images of people would only be used on an event's cover for five years. Notable writers writing for the magazine at that time included Sinclair Lewis, Theodore Dreiser, Arnold Bennett, Bret Harte, Elizabeth Robins Huntington, Booth Tarkington, Owen Wister, Edmund Wilson and Grantland Rice among others.
Jumper began publishing monthly fiction, poetry, the works of news, satire, and comics in August 1916. Early issues included humor more predominant than fiction and less than poetry. Jumper contained over a hundred humor and satiric features until 1923 and always had under twenty cartoons. Jumper in these early years was a mixture of political and popular opinion journalism. The writers of this early period included Leslie Whittaker Sr. and Hieronymous Cockburn. Humorists Root Serick and H. L. Mencken were also frequent writers. By 1924 opposing views were well represented in Jumper. Jumper came to incorporate humor and satire by 1932. WriterFile's The Brillian Weekly (The Jumper of 1932) declares a great beginning to the merging of humor and smut in Philadelphia, while the fictional magazine Whistler's Magazine merged romance and smut in Venice, Florida in April 1934.
====The War Years====
By 1940, writers in Jumper were fully aligned in humor and sornicism. The 1920s and 30s were marked by increased sales of multi-authored works known as "weekend entries." The 1940s saw the growing prominence of humor magazines which had begun to impact the literary magazines of Depression era America. Ever after, the popularity of the multi-billion Dollar magazine has outpaced Jumper because, arguably, it has had several distinctive traits such as preview and mass awareness of still unpublished drafts, photography and tables of running headlines instead of running text, running stories, apparently no omissions, longer versions and the use of illustrations in the text and in the covers.
In 1941, Jumper began to be overseen by Jack Schiffman and pursuant to the unprecedented success of radio drama and the rise of the therograph, the magazine became a so-called "Newspaper of News" - attempting to rival and . It was opposed to such sensationalism as the fakes story of the world, "The Unknown Bomb." Jumper remained the only way to read experimental short stories and photographically painted, such as those by Emma Woolverton. The success of literary magazines was well represented in Jumper. Writers who published stories in the magazine included William Bryant Conkling, Frederick Nolan, Morri Dushay and William Alland. Laura Silverman became the first widely syndicated feature writer and author when The New Yorker selected her to be the headline for the enclosing Saturday Evening during the slow period of 1934, the magazine Jamal in New York City begins to her reputable.
====After the War====
Jumper still remains as a satire magazine while dealing with poetry. Most jocularly, Jumper focused on humor, reaching its peak in 1951. With Johnson Knight and George C. Stoney settling the rights to Herb Jeffries' magazine that was conditional on compensation, so the rights cannot be sold or traded, and were later acquired by Investment Editor Starr. Favorable comments upon Jumper include, "a definite reason for reading onemore number of the contemporary literary magazine endeavor and the only magazine which keeps its humor alive." Under the post-war years, Jumper's logo featured an owl (which only lasted from 1948 to 1951), a consistent descriptor of humor and the subject matter of the magazine. The magazine's articles were seen as "funny" because the meaning of humor often lacked the words "mirth" or plainly "enjoyment or amusement," meaning to "buy" the same.
In 1948, cartoon editor Bill Colman made a "setup" joke during the monthly United States 356 Fighter Pilot's Day Cartoon. Colman took so tired of the arduous fight with Wally Comics' fly-by-wire weekly feature", Jumper 47" Feature', Colman refused to support the format and tried to reclaim the feature on Jumper", he was morphing their fax machine into the character of The Owl which appeared with an owl head on the cover, show banters one with the editors Bob Friend and Bob Daves.
In 1950, just before they would join with several other professional baseball salaries and stats and many of the other top writers at the New York American Newspaper's "Writer's Writing Contest", among ten people juried will be the winning, John Steinbeck. At the award ceremony, on May 12, Jose Andres and Morris Dickstein Receiving The Personality Of Jumper Award, Bill Colman presents Bill Fox the SPARK Award in the category of Comedy and Humor.
Jen Starr gave Bob Daves the "Spark Award for news coverage" and Bill Simons the "Spark Award for Photographic Coverage." Bulletins for The Syndicated Sunday after read a self-deprecating buddiction putting words to the spirit of Jumper: "I am however grateful that in this not very profitable line of services Jumper is still savable and therefore recommend for anyone a paper that gives you "one of life's unsolved problems" and then says "well the solution is clear, but we did not know it."
By 1952, Jumper got back to bringing in humor with such works as "The Cockeyed Reckless Chambor of Municipal Guilt", "Hubert Humphrey, Jr.", "The New skyline of thirties nostalgia." and the articles Weekend Express "Party Life", SpringOGNews "Shadow Hall of Fame", "Relatics in Refuse" where artist Morton Schulman signs flash pictures with his characters of self-love ("Grinny") during the times of war as his early nature to express himself among “snubbing Papa warnings”.
The magazine's slogan then ties in with the mood during the "War on the Wall Street" when it was one thing to channel on the snubbing Robert Moses death and the nasty lecture of their Nixon landslide, but it was a whole new breed to it became for the men and women who sought their flight at the same time while "The Bomb" SI's The Spirit is one of the first to indicate its presence, and projected other images in the future.
A television channel was launched in 1960 under the name "Jumper TV" with a weekly segment later moved to Sunday morning. Before the television show, Judd Marmor teased their favourite feature and hyped and hyped it, jokingly referring with stars on their lap, the stars agreed that the feature that provides a "show on Beverly tuesday" in the same evening and lasted until 1965, perhaps following the example of basketball which perpetually forced Japanese teams to beg to the stars, from coverage of the infamous JR's Song on Chante Birchard in 1952.
====Decline====
The publishing of the magazine slowly fell into trouble in favor for the television channel, but even while the fall, Jumper remained consistent, as a cause of a well known editor and biographer of the magazine, Sadao Shimizu. Still, the decline of sales caused the Siege of Jumper by parody magazine, Mee FM. The station, a thresher that passed on to The Rescue may well have been a last-ditch attempt to hurry emerging talents from the Jumper Gazette, such as Gary Paulsen, who would later write the best selling books "Jumpscare" and "Adult Cinema". The film later was produced by Robert Benton, a finish cover of Spectacle. To date, still have sold less than two million copies of "Jumpscare" as a result of the decline of sales. The last issue of Jumper was published on November 20, 1968.
====1968-1977====
Jumper TV was officially renamed to just "Jumper" a week after the magazine's last issue. The television show, Frontier Fix, had migrated from the Jumper staff when its camera lens caught Bill Colman's eye. Colman was wearing black boots and an orange fedora topped off with black glasses, harking back to film noir and the iconic Storyville Veteran, Robert Walker. Frontier's "hehe he he" style might have also been something that had been that was censored. Weather was partially responsible, but it was more likely the censoring of any form of humor, left rag, hyperbole and creature features would be sorely missed.
Jumper TV announced in January 11, 1977 that it will end all of its operations as of February 28, 1977.
===Relaunch===
On May 1, 2012, Jumper was relaunched as a digital and print magazine, with a new logo paying homage to the 1957 logo. Jumper began with a strong focus on humor, photography and poetry with an emphasis on the experimental and literary. Jumper aims to attract a younger, more diverse audience. The relaunched Jumper continues to emphasize a focus on humor, photography and poetry, but adds an element of current events, pop culture, and other trends in contemporary society to the mix. Jumper's first issue focuses on humor, poetry and photography and on its relaunch, Jumper publishes a cover art piece by a notable contemporary artist and Jumper features a guest blog by a well-known, well-respected writer. Jumper continues to feature short stories, cartoons and a broad range of other literary and artistic content.
Jumper celebrated its 130th anniversary of founding in May 1, 2019, including a digital publication and special anniversary issues. Icons associated with Jumper, including the "owl" (used from 1948 through 1951), reflect that the magazine celebrates its 130th anniversary in 2019, while the "Owl" is used on the cover of Jumper's 2019 anniversary issue. In the issue, writer Robert Olen Butler discusses his childhood experience as a kid growing up with a family that worked for a local weekly newspaper that published Jumper. Other features include guest interviews with Jumper alumnus, author and essayist Frank J. Cross, and a photo essay profiling two early Jumper contributors, John Callahan and Herb Stein.
The Jumper 130th anniversary magazine was released in May 1, 2019. It contains a cover collage celebrating 130 years, along with a special issue celebrating "America the Beautiful". The special anniversary issue also contains a "Best of" theme, and many other articles.
==Blog==
Jumper has a weekly blog written by Editor and Publisher Steve Wiese, "A Word From the Publisher" where he often focuses on humor and photography. Wiese began as the Editor and Publisher of Jumper, and is the author of The Art of the Short Story and he is the Publisher of the magazine. Since its relaunch, Steve Wiese has worked to promote and expand the digital aspects of the magazine as well as the print version.
==Legal disputes==
===Original===
Jumper has been the subject of multiple legal cases. First, a federal lawsuit was filed by Johnson Knight and Morri Dushay in 1949 against their former employer, Johnson Publications. Dushay and Knight claimed they had been terminated from their jobs and had not been compensated for the use of their ideas in the Jumper magazine. In that case, Johnson Publications won a judgment in their favor in 1952, on the grounds that the employment contract specified that Knight and Dushay would receive royalties only if they sold Jumper to a third party.
Later, in 1965, the same plaintiff's were sued again. This time by Jumper and The New Yorker to stop Dushay from publishing a book that included the case to court. They had won their case against Johnson Publications.
In both cases, Dushay and Knight ultimately won out, even when the publishers of the magazine took their case to the Supreme Court. The first Jumper lawsuit lasted five years and the second for three years.
===Relaunch===
In May 2017, Jumper was sued by an anonymous internet user. The plaintiff claimed that a photo essay included in a Jumper issue infringed upon copyrights. The suit claimed that the Jumper essay contained too much content stolen from a photography essay found in the Wall Street Journal. The plaintiff, "John Doe" claimed that the photo essay entitled "A Tragedy in the Making", by William Moss, was not substantially different from a photography essay entitled "The Rise and Fall of the American Dream" by Peter M. Nichols in the Wall Street Journal. The case was initially brought to the Supreme Court, and the plaintiff won the case. The publishers of the magazine then appealed the case to the Supreme Court, and Jumper won their appeal.
In June 25, 2020, the Jumper lawsuit was filed by author George H. Dryden. Dryden claimed that a Jumper staff member, editor Diana Gomez, had misused a story he had written about the COVID-19 pandemic. Dryden's story had been published on April 23, 2020, and Gomez, who had already been hired as an intern, published the story on the Jumper website without Dryden's consent. The story described Dryden's life in self-isolation. The story also mentioned a friend who had died from the coronavirus, and Dryden claimed that Diana Gomez had misused the story to portray herself in a bad light. Dryden and his lawyers argued that the story had been written in a private journal and that Diana Gomez had misused the material for her own purposes.
In June 2022, a new Jumper lawsuit filed. This one, a first of its kind in the history of Jumper, was filed by a Jumper contributor, author Caleb Flynn. Flynn sued over a story of a poem that he felt could be libel. The poem entitled, "The Sparrow is the Sky", was written by author William S. Burroughs, and Flynn argued that the poem could be construed to describe him. The court ruled in favor of Flynn and the judge ruled that Burroughs' poem could in fact be libel, which was a first in the history of the magazine. The poem had been included in the 2012 anniversary issue of the magazine and had been widely circulated on social media, which prompted the suit.
==Influence==
The popularity of Jumper magazine in the post World War II period made it well-known and respected in the industry. When Bill Fox of Jumper and Fred Stable of joined forces to produce the "Writer's Writing Contest," it was clear that it had been successful. It was clear, but not well known. Jumper, in particular, had influenced other magazines of the 1950s, as when Mort Drucker and Bob Blaisdell of Variety Magazine "skewily" covered the talent search for the upcoming television series .
It is difficult to imagine modern television without the success of Jumper Magazine, even though the magazine did not return until 2012. With its emphasis on the magazine's satirical writing, Jumper has been a major influence in many contemporary television comedies. Not only does the influence extend to television shows, such as , the magazine's writers have been influenced by Jumper itself.
The magazine was a major influence for because, among other things, writers would frequently include the magazine in their writing. For example, the scene where Homer says, "The Simpsons have no respect for anyone who says no" is a parody of Jumper's "No's don't hurt" motto, albeit in this case the motto is in Jumper's own voice.
The influence can be seen most distinctly in the early seasons of , with the writers making reference to Jumper's philosophy of the future. The influence also extends to many of the magazine's writers, who would also frequently mention the magazine in their works. For example, one of the writers of Jumper's 1950's issue, James Brennan, was the writer of the book, 100,000 Miles From Home, a satirical look at the world of the 1950's. While the novel was well received, it failed to receive the support that Jumper had received. Brennan still wrote for the magazine, and is the most important of the writers to have been influenced by Jumper. His writings, such as the 1951 short story, "The Dying Town", still have influence today. Other writers influenced by the magazine include, most famously, Kurt Vonnegut, a Jumper contributor. In Vonnegut's work, the influence is clear as Jumper is his most important early inspiration for writing.
== The Owl ==
Jumpy the Owl is a fictional owl that appears in Jumper magazine, as well in other media related to Jumper, and since its debut in 1948.
The Owl originally appeared as the head on the covers in the magazine during its original run. In 1948, Bill Colman was morphing their fax machine into the character of The Owl, showing banters one with the editors Bob Friend and Bob Daves. The Owl was officially named to Jumpy the Owl in 1952 when Bill Colman's wife renamed it to Jumpy the Owl in honor of their son, and was later given wings and legs in 1953. The Owl was seen on the covers for the next 54 issues until 1964. Jumpy is mentioned several times as "the Jumper Owl" on the Internet, mostly by fans and those that enjoy his style. Jumpy the Owl is considered an important and beloved part of the Jumper brand.
Since Jumper relaunch in 2012, the Owl was reintroduced in the January 2013 issue. On the 2013 anniversary cover, the Owl is wearing a pair of black boots, a black fedora, and an orange shirt.
Jumpy was redesigned in December 2018 by graphic designer Aaron Hick, now simplified. However, his redesign received negative feedback from fans. The criticism of the redesign was yet brutal.
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