Pictorial to Sleep

When swart, crinkle-haired Monte Ferris Bourjaily gave up his job as General Manager for United Feature Syndicate six months ago and announced that he was taking over Midweek Pictorial from the New York Times, to give the U. S. its first weekly picture magazine, the publishing profession wondered about two things: Whose money was he using? What would he make of the Times's old photographic byproduct?

Monte Bourjaily stated that the money was his own and answered the second question in early October with a hybrid magazine on cheap paper containing, besides pictures, an equal amount of text. From the 30,000 circulation it had had under the Times, the Bourjailyzed picture weekly increased to 117,750 including 85,000 new-stand sales at 10-c- the copy.

Then LIFE appeared, with text condensed into captions for 50 pages of pictures, on heavy coated paper, also at 10-c-. As LIFE's circulation skyrocketed beyond its publishers' fondest hopes and their presses' best capacity, from 380,000 copies of the first issue to more than a million this week, Monte Bourjaily perceived that he had missed the market that was waiting for a U. S. pictorial weekly. Last week he announced that he would give Midweek Pictorial not death, but a whiff of anesthetic. He would discontinue its publication until such time as he could "give it a new dress and format."

The birth of LIFE was not without its bright side for Publisher Bourjaily. Wanting only the old Life's name when they bought it. TIME Inc. sold Life's subscription list, features and goodwill to Judge, to which the U. S. comic monthly field was thus left wide open. Monte Bourjaily immediately stepped in and bought Judge from its printers (Kable Bros, of Mt. Morris, Ill.). Last week he was able to report that Judge's circulation was up to 252.750 to which he would for the time being add Midweek Pictorial's 32,750 subscribers, devoting himself solely to "the concept that in a world torn with strife, a laugh is the best palliative."

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