Studio Cards - Beatniks

Beatniks

Hallmark labeled their early 1950s line Fancy Free, and American Greetings called theirs Hi Brows. In its official history, American Greetings acknowledges Hi Brows were published in 1957 because the earlier studio cards were a cartooning breakthrough:

Beatniks launched the anti-establishment movement in the 1950s, and Americans began to question tradition. Building on this counterculture momentum, American Greetings introduced a new kind of greeting card - Hi Brows. These irreverent, witty cards were slim and tall. Even the name of the cards was a rebellious parody. The inspiration for Hi Brows came from funny cards being made by Bohemian artists in their Greenwich Village studios. Hi Brows featured short, comic punch lines and cartoon-style artwork, a new generation of greeting cards to help a new generation communicate.

In 1960, Box Cards were collected into a book, Burn This, with an introduction by Mort Sahl, who wrote:

My initial exposure to the new awareness cards, as I shall refer to them, was not in the area of shock, because I recognized them for what they were. This is a cliché but they were a sign of the times. This isn't so much the beat generation, as Alfred Bester has pointed out, as the hip generation. The greatest disservice we can do ourselves is not to be aware of our times and how things are changing. Now the things we dared not say in the old days, especially when we observed the saccharine reverence of unworthy institutions, has gone the other way. It's gone full circle. People now state their hostility, or if they're much too busy being caught up in the squirrel cage, they let the Box Cards state their hostility for them. This is not to say that I think the work of Bill Box is merely a statement of hostility or anything sick.

With the major card companies taking over, Box looked elsewhere. Leaving the card business, he had a successful career as a comedy writer for top talents, including Jonathan Winters, Steve Allen, Phyllis Diller and George Gobel. His work for television included gagwriting for several Dean Martin Roasts. Box retired in 1985 but occasionally contributes to Duck Press ("America's Golf Greeting Card Company") in Tucson.