Lys Mykyta: A Satirical-Humor Magazine. Issue 3.Detroit, March 1976

Lys Mykyta: satirical humor magazine. Issue 3, March 1976. Publication year 26 / editor and publisher Edward Kozak.

Detroit: Lys Mykyta Publishing House, 1976. — Issue volume not verified against a copy. — Approx. 28 × 21 cm. — Cover price: 50 cents.

Original two-color printed cover, black and green, combining a drawing and a halftone photograph: on the right, a tall bust of a uniformed official with decorations; on the left, a vertical line reading “Until the XXV Congress of the CPSU”; at the bottom, a row of identical figures in green lie side by side, among whom a female figure holding a candle reaches out toward a censer. The drawing’s title is “Plenum of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Ukraine.” The signature at the bottom right is the letter “L.” — not the monogram “EKo” usual for the magazine; the authorship of the drawing requires separate verification. Slight yellowing of the paper, minor wear to the edges. Condition: very good.

The issue has historical and cultural value and is of collector’s interest.

INFORMATION

The cover responds to the XXV Congress of the CPSU, held in Moscow in late February–early March 1976, and the mandatory republican plenums that accompanied it. The drawing denies the plenum participants even individual faces: they are a row of identical bodies laid out before the bust. The letter “L.” in the signature shows that even the magazine’s covers did not always belong to Kozak himself, although his hand determined the publication’s style.

Edward Kozak (1902–1992), known by the signature “EKo,” was a caricaturist, painter, writer, and publisher. He studied at Oleks Novakovskyi’s art school in Lviv, and in the 1930s edited the satirical magazines Zyz and Komar and illustrated publications by Ivan Tychter. From 1951, he lived in Detroit, where he drew, edited, and published Lys Mykyta himself.

The magazine was founded in Munich in the second half of the 1940s (sources cite 1946 and 1948), published as Lys in New York in 1950–1951, and from 1951 to 1991 in Detroit; the “publication year” designation is counted from the Detroit series.