Max Fleischer's "Fan"- tastic Fan Cards

A Koko blank fan card created using a printing plate like those to the right.

Max truly loved making personal connections with his fans!

One of the clever, and delightfully captivating, ways in which he enjoyed making that connection was by sending out personally inscribed cards to people who requested them. Max created several different whimsical card designs for this purpose. Each featured an image of one or more of Fleischer Studios' popular characters, and plenty of space for a personal message from Max Fleischer himself.

Since this was before computers, Max would create all the drawings for these cards by hand, after which they would then be made into printing plates that were mounted on a wood block for printing.

Max starting sending out these fan cards in the 1930s and continued to do so into the 1960s! From the very start, he truly did inscribe virtually all these cards himself, which says a lot about Max and his very real affection for, and appreciation of, his many loyal and enthusiastic fans. Today these cards are popular with collectors, and occasionally can still be found for sale online.

What is little known is that Max created ‘templates’ to facilitate the writing of his messages. These templates allowed him to respond quickly to the numerous requests he received while still maintaining neat, even lines and ensuring that the text fit in the space allotted properly.

Below you can see the entire process Max used to inscribe these cards. He would place the template (far left) on top of the card that needed the inscription, and then use a pencil to rough out the writing in the cut-out area (center), then remove the template and use india ink to create the final inscription (far right.)

Below are three alternate Fan Card designs. If it seems as if the dimensions of the Gus Gorilla Card are slightly different than the dimensions of the Betty Cards, then you have a good eye! While there is little variation in size amongst the various designs, there is some.  

• The Koko Cards above measure 6” x 3 3/8”
• The Gus Gorilla Card below measures 6 ½” x 3 ¾'
• The two Betty Cards below measure 6 ¼” x 3 ¼”

The card far right, in which Betty has red lips, is an extremely unique, and may even be one-of-a-kind. Not only does Betty have red lips on this pink-hued card, the black ink is actually embossed (making the artwork slightly dimensional). This may have been an experiment on Max's part.

Do you have a Fan Card? 

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