Jack-in-the-Box Comics #1 (1946) is a Golden Age funny-animal and children's anthology published by The Charles Publishing Company — a publisher closely tied to the early Charlton organization. The debut issue collects lighthearted, kid-friendly humor strips, including the Christmas-themed tale of Stitches, a little toy doll who sets out to deliver presents on his own after Santa won't take him along on Christmas Eve, plus shorter gag features starring characters like Marty, Nutsy, and the mistaken-identity cowboy Pancho. Interspersed puzzles and activity pages round out a package squarely aimed at young readers.

The comic is a small but telling artifact of the post-war funny-animal boom and of Charlton's tangled early corporate history. The cover and first interior features are attributed — with some uncertainty — to Al Fago, whose Fago Studios was packaging comics for Charlton in this period; additional stories are signed "E.C." and credited to Ellis Chambers. The title's numbering history is famously confusing: a separate "Jack-in-the-Box Comics" line from Charlton continued the numbering of Yellowjacket Comics (starting at #11), making this Charles Publishing #1 a distinct first issue often confused with its near-namesake.

Today Jack-in-the-Box Comics #1 is a minor collector's curiosity valued mainly by Golden Age funny-animal enthusiasts and historians untangling the labyrinthine early-Charlton family of imprints. As an obscure, packager-produced children's comic that has lapsed into the U.S. public domain and circulates through digital preservation archives, it offers an accessible snapshot of the disposable kid-comics market of the mid-1940s.