News at Eleven: At the time [John] Updike's work consisted mainly

of cartoons and lighthearted prose and poetry he poured into The Harvard Lampoon, the campus humor magazine, "that snobbiest of snob organizations," as he wrote once he became its president, or top editor, in 1953. A paragon of industry, he almost single-handedly filled entire issues, even as he was submitting cartoons and light verse to The New Yorker. These were rejected but with encouraging comments from William Maxwell, the novelist and editor who would become Updike's mentor when the magazine hired him in 1955.

from The New York Times: John Updike's Archive: A Great Writer at Work
also The New York Times: Literary Ore of Updike, Do-It-Yourself Man of Letters
also The New York Times: The Roommates: Updike and Christopher Lasch

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