Mad's Original Idiots Jack Davis by Jack Davis

While Davis was masterful at caricatures of recognizable figures, he took amusing liberties with all his subjects, endowing them with distinctly large heads, pipe-stem legs and snowshoe-size feet.Īs a proud alumnus of the University of Georgia (which he attended on the G.I. In 1961, he wrote, drew, and edited his own comic book, “Yak Yak,” for Dell Comics.

Neuman.Īlong the way, Davis also created numerous covers for TV Guide and Time, and provided artwork for books, record jackets, and posters for films including “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World,” “American Graffiti” and Woody Allen’s “Bananas.” His far-flung illustrations poked fun at politicians and celebrities along with countless portraits of the magazine’s perpetually grinning mascot, Alfred E. He remained a member of “The Usual Gang of Idiots” (as the magazine billed them) for the next six decades. Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman – when they launched the pioneering satire magazine Mad in 1952. Then, in 1950, he scored the first of many sales of his artwork to EC Comics, which published a line of horror titles including “Tales from the Crypt.” He was 91.Īs a struggling young artist in New York, Davis was “about ready to give up, go home to Georgia and be either a forest ranger or a farmer,” he recalled in an interview a few years ago. He died Wednesday morning, according to his son-in-law, Chris Lloyd.

Mad's Original Idiots Jack Davis by Jack Davis