Word: shevelson
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...weird make-up and atom story were to celebrate April Fools' Day. Though the stunt was hoary, Pageant's 32-year-old Editor Harris Shevelson thought it had worked well enough for the Berliner Illustrirte Zeitung in prewar days to give the alien corn a try. For his nonsense section, Shevelson had even lifted one old'gag directly from the Zeitung: pictures of "man's first attempt to fly by his own lung power...
...April Fool stunt was another Shevelson attempt to pep up the pocket-sized magazine he took over 15 months ago. In the year and a half before he arrived, Pageant had lost $400,000, and Publisher Alex L. Hillman (who also owns a dozen pulps and comics) was getting ready to shut it down. Intense, hard-working Harris Shevelson, who had moved over from the managing editor's chair at Coronet, zipped up Pageant's articles and covers, put in more pictures. Circulation for March was 350,000, and 400,000 copies were printed for April. Pageant...
Reaction to the April Fool stunt was mostly favorable-though a few readers berated Pageant for joking about such a serious matter as the atom bomb. Said Editor Shevelson: "I hope the April Fool issue will become an annual thing...