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Lion's Roar, a deluxe soft cover trade magazine printed by MGM from 1941 to 1947 (sometimes monthly and sometimes bi-monthly) to promote their "current" movies and stars. This was at the time when MGM was far and away the leading studio in Hollywood, and where other studios made similar publications once each year (referred to as "campaign books" or "studio yearbooks"), MGM spent the extra money to do this publication either every month or every two months! Because each Lion's Roar issue was published so frequently, each issue could focus on just those movies that MGM was releasing during that month or two, which meant that instead of devoting just one or two pages to each movie, they would devote 5, 10, or even 20 pages to a single feature! Each issue was an over-sized deluxe trade magazine with varying numbers of pages, but each issue always contains much art, photos, and written information that can't be found anywhere else, and I don't know if very much of it at all is available anywhere! Most issues were at least 100 pages, and many had a few color pages (sometimes elaborate fold-outs), but always a large number of black and white illustrations and photos throughout. Because this was the time that Al Hirschfeld and Jacques Kapralik were quite active in creating artwork for MGM, many issues have art by one or both of these great illustrators. While each issue had many articles about the current MGM feature movies and stars, every issue also had a section about the current MGM shorts and cartoons (which at that time included ones made by the great Tex Avery)! These magazines (like studio yearbooks) are quite rare, and are rarely offered for sale or auction! Note that until 1941, MGM, like the other studios, had in past years made annual "campaign books", which presented an overview of their films for the coming year. However, in 1941, they started a bi-monthly (sometimes monthly) publication called "Lion's Roar", which measured 11 1/4" x 14", and each issue was a square-bound softcover book, telling about "what was new" at MGM in that past month! The first issue was 40 pages, but the page count grew over the next few years. The publication continued until the Spring of 1947, and MGM published a total of 32 different issues, plus three very rare "supplements" (which measured the same size, but only had a small number of pages, because they were added information to the issue that had already gone to press).

Artist: Jacques Kapralik

Important Added Info: Note that this is one of a remarkable collection of 29 different issues (plus one super rare supplement) of Lion's Roar (see above). It is nearly a complete run, and we are auctioning all 30 items in 30 separate auctions. It is rare that even a few of these come up for auction or sale at one time, but here is a very rare opportunity to purchase almost every issue (or one person could purchase them all!). We have included many images from each, but we wish we could have photographed all the pages! Note that the person who owned these 30 issues put a "number" in the top area (between the words "LION'S" and "ROAR") on the cover of each. He wrote it in pencil, and each one says "No. One", "No. 2", etc. He simply numbered all the ones he had, and since he did not have every one, these numbers do not correspond to the actual order of publication (except for the first few). They could likely be erased, since they are written in pencil, but we will leave that to the new owners of these.

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