Hammond Edward “Ham” Fisher

If one were to compile a list of the most famous fictional characters from Luzerne County, they might immediately go to Mr. Peanut. The iconic name of Joe Palooka, one of the 20th century’s most popular comic characters, would be right up there in the same tier of fame. While Joe Palooka was made up of pencil lines and colored ink, the man who created the character was very real. His name was Hammond Edward “Ham” Fisher, and he, like his famous creation, was from Luzerne County.

Born in Wilkes-Barre around the turn of the century, Ham Fisher got his start in local newspapers after dropping out of school at age 16. He worked at the Wilkes-Barre Record (since absorbed by the Times Leader) and later the New York Daily News. The young Fisher worked as a reporter and ad salesman with the Wilkes-Barre Record, but neither job fit him quite right.

As the 1920s approached, Fisher was in need of a creative spark. He attempted to sell a proto-Joe Palooka package called “Joe the Dumbbell” in 1920, but the concept drew little interest. A chance encounter with champion boxer Pete Latzo served as Fisher’s creative turning point, inspiring him to redesign his previous character and give him a new name. With that, Joe Palooka was born.

Fisher struggled at first to secure independent sales for Joe Palooka, but the New York Daily Mirror and around 20 other newspapers eventually bit on the idea. In 1928, Fisher’s employer at the time, the McNaught Syndicate, agreed to give Joe Palooka a trial run. The character quickly became a national success, with interest in Fisher’s work exploding in short order.

Joe Palooka’s fame spread like wildfire, influencing popular culture and the American lexicon in the process. The word “palooka,” previously a niche term with unclear origins, became popularly synonymous with a clumsy but lovable character as a result of Joe Palooka’s fame.

The impact of Fisher’s work was felt beyond the newspaper comic strip, expanding into the other growing forms of media of the day. Joe Palooka was featured in comic books, animated and live-action films, and a radio series. Such crossover projects were fairly revolutionary in their time, and the brand of Joe Palooka continued to blossom.

The apex of Ham Fisher’s career was perhaps a cutting-edge storyline he developed for Joe Palooka, in which the character was set to get married. The faux-wedding invitation was accepted by judges, generals and politicians, further emphasizing the popularity of Joe Palooka. By the late 1940s, Joe Palooka ran in over 600 American newspapers and over 100 foreign newspapers.

Fisher was a founding member of The National Cartoonists Society, an organization dedicated to the preservation and integrity of cartooning. Ironically, Fisher was locked in a nasty professional and personal rivalry with Al Capp, a former employee of Fisher’s and the creator of Li’l Abner. Fisher and Capp’s feud served as one of the main inspirations for Max Allan Collins’ Strip for Murder.

Fisher died in 1955, but his most famous creation lived on. Joe Palooka continued to run in newspapers for nearly three more decades following Fisher’s passing. Locally, the work of Ham Fisher was given geological recognition when a mountain just south of Wilkes-Barre was named after Joe Palooka. The story of Ham Fisher is a complicated one, but his work’s impressive social and cultural reach can not be understated.