Potrzebie
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Labels: fridge, jack davis, russ jones
¶ 4:06 PM 0 comments
Sunday, March 11, 2012
The Mad staff in 1963 (clockwise): publisher Bill Gaines, contributing editor Nick Meglin, art director John Putnam, editor Al Feldstein, Leonard Brenner (production), Nelson Tirado (subscriptions) and associate editor Jerry DeFuccio.
When I edited the Mad Style Guide in 1994, I gave George Woodbridge the assignment of illustrating the Mad Zeppelin. The notion was to facilitate any company that might choose to manufacture a model kit. Previous depictions in the magazine were too sketchy or lacking in smaller features. Woodbridge delivered these drawings showing the Zeppelin from four different angles, so detailed that it even includes the nearby curious bird from two angles. The page also includes Harvey Kurtzman's hand with six fingers. As I recall, Kurtzman was disappointed that no letters arrived from readers who noticed the extra finger.
Labels: bill gaines, jack davis, mad, mad style guide, woodbridge
¶ 10:31 AM 1 comments
Friday, December 02, 2011
Jack Davis at the Scott Eder Gallery.
"Welcome to Texas"
"Bill Clinton and Newt Gingrich"
"Jack London"
Labels: bill clinton, jack davis, jack london, newt gingrich, scott eder
¶ 7:43 AM 0 comments
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
Poster from Jack Davis' 1961 Yak Yak cover
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For the ASIFA Animation Archive, go here.
For the ASIFA Animation Archive, go here.
Labels: asifa, jack davis, yak yak
¶ 5:18 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
From Gutenberg to iPad in six minutes
For the movie version, go here.
Mad #13 (July, 1954) ©2010 EC Publications
For the movie version, go here.
Labels: book, gutenberg, harvey kurtzman, helvetica, ipad, jack davis
¶ 7:06 PM 0 comments
Monday, April 12, 2010
Studio visit: Jack Davis
"Murder the Lover" appeared in Crime SuspenStories #12 as a three-pager, followed by the three-page "Murder the Husband". This was in a format known as the "EC Quickie". Harvey Kurtzman reprinted "Murder the Husband" in Mad #11, followed by the three-page "Murder the Story".
From Meet Abraham Lincoln by Barbara Cary (Random House, 1965)
Full screen resolution okay.
Notice that he drew everyone on the recording!
And here he drew almost everyone on NBC!
"Murder the Lover" appeared in Crime SuspenStories #12 as a three-pager, followed by the three-page "Murder the Husband". This was in a format known as the "EC Quickie". Harvey Kurtzman reprinted "Murder the Husband" in Mad #11, followed by the three-page "Murder the Story".
Labels: bob and ray, flashback, jack davis, kurtzman, nbc
¶ 6:13 PM 0 comments
Monday, March 22, 2010
The Gorbals Vampire
On September 23, 1954, strange things were happening in Glasgow as hundreds of children raced through a local cemetery, the Southern Necropolis, with stakes, sticks, stones and knives seeking to vanquish a vampire with iron teeth.
Hy Fleishman's "The Vampire with the Iron Teeth" appeared in Dark Mysteries #15 (December 1953). To read Fleishman's full story, go to The Horrors of It All. Also see Monsters with Iron Teeth (Sheffield Academic Press, 1988) by Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith. Numerous books on urban legends mention the Gorbals Vampire of 1954 and the 1879 poem "Jenny wi' Airn Teeth".
On Tuesday, March 30, BBC Radio 4 will broadcast a documentary on the connection between the Gorbals Vampire and EC and other horror comics, exploring how this incident triggered censorship of comic books in the UK. The Gorbals Vampire event was previously described in Martin Barker's A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign, published by London's Pluto Press in 1983. This book is still available from the University Press of Mississippi which reprinted it in 1992. To read what Barker wrote about the Gorbals Vampire, go here.
Here's a link to the BBC News story and a 1989 Scottish Herald article. Thanks to Trevor M., Pappy and Karswell for the tips. (See comments.) For a memorable film set in the towering Glasgow projects, see Andrea Arnold's Red Road (2007).
And here's the BBC press release:
The Gorbals Vampire
Tuesday 30 March 11:00-11:30pm BBC Radio 4
Novelist Louise Welsh investigates how a comic-book vampire brought horror to Glasgow's south side and its impact on Britain's censorship laws. Glasgow's Southern Necropolis is an eerie place at the best of times but when two local policemen answered a call in September 1954 they encountered a bizarre sight. Hundreds of local children, ranging in ages from four to 14, were crammed inside, roaming between the crypts, armed with sharpened sticks, knives stolen from home and stakes. They said they were hunting down "a vampire with iron teeth" that had kidnapped and eaten two local boys. The policemen dispersed the crowd, but they came back at sundown the next night and the next. The local press got hold of the story and it soon went national. There were no missing boys in Glasgow at that time, and press and politicians cast around for an explanation. They soon found one in the wave of American horror comics with names like Astounding Stories and Tales From The Crypt, which had recently flooded into the West of Scotland.
Academics pointed out that none of the comics featured a vampire with iron teeth, though there was a monster with iron teeth in the Bible (Daniel 7.7) and in a poem taught in local schools. Their voices were drowned out in a full-blown moral panic about the effect that terrifying comics were having on children. Soon the case of the Gorbals Vampire was international news. The British Press raged against the "terrifying, corrupt" comics and, after a heated debate in the House of Commons where the case of Gorbals Vampire was cited, Britain passed the Children and Young Persons (Harmful Publications) Act 1955 which, for the first time, specifically banned the sale of magazines and comics portraying "incidents of a repulsive or horrible nature" to minors. This programme explores how the Gorbals Vampire helped bring the censorship of comic books onto the statute books.
Presenter/Louise Welsh, Producer/David Stenhouse
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Jenny wi' the Airn Teeth
WHAT a plague is this o' mine,
Winna steek his e'e,
Though I hap him ow'r the head
As cosie as can be.
Sleep! an' let me to my wark,
A' thae claes to airn;
Jenny wi' the airn teeth,
Come an' tak' the bairn:
Tak' him to your ain den,
Where the bowgie bides,
But first put baith your big teeth
In his wee plump sides;
Gie your auld grey pow a shake,
Rive him frae my grup—
Tak' him where nae kiss is gaun
When he waukens up.
Jenny wi' the airn teeth,
The bairn has aff his claes,
Sleepin' safe an' soun', I think—
Dinna touch his taes;
Sleepin' weans are no for you;
Ye may turn about
An' tak' awa' wee Tam next door—
I hear him screichin' oot.
Dump, dump, awa' she gangs
Back the road she cam';
I hear her at the ither door,
Speirin' after Tam.
He's a crabbit, greetin' thing,
The warst in a' the toon;
Little like my ain wee wean—
Losh, he's sleepin' soun'.
Mithers hae an awfu' wark
Wi' their bairns at nicht—
Chappin' on the chair wi' tangs
To gi'e the rogues a fricht.
Aulder weans are fley'd wi' less,
Weel aneuch we ken—
Bigger bowgies, bigger Jennies,
Frichten muckle men.
-Alexander Anderson, 1879
Hy Fleishman's "The Vampire with the Iron Teeth" appeared in Dark Mysteries #15 (December 1953). To read Fleishman's full story, go to The Horrors of It All. Also see Monsters with Iron Teeth (Sheffield Academic Press, 1988) by Gillian Bennett and Paul Smith. Numerous books on urban legends mention the Gorbals Vampire of 1954 and the 1879 poem "Jenny wi' Airn Teeth".
On Tuesday, March 30, BBC Radio 4 will broadcast a documentary on the connection between the Gorbals Vampire and EC and other horror comics, exploring how this incident triggered censorship of comic books in the UK. The Gorbals Vampire event was previously described in Martin Barker's A Haunt of Fears: The Strange History of the British Horror Comics Campaign, published by London's Pluto Press in 1983. This book is still available from the University Press of Mississippi which reprinted it in 1992. To read what Barker wrote about the Gorbals Vampire, go here.
Here's a link to the BBC News story and a 1989 Scottish Herald article. Thanks to Trevor M., Pappy and Karswell for the tips. (See comments.) For a memorable film set in the towering Glasgow projects, see Andrea Arnold's Red Road (2007).
And here's the BBC press release:
The Gorbals Vampire
Tuesday 30 March 11:00-11:30pm BBC Radio 4
Novelist Louise Welsh investigates how a comic-book vampire brought horror to Glasgow's south side and its impact on Britain's censorship laws. Glasgow's Southern Necropolis is an eerie place at the best of times but when two local policemen answered a call in September 1954 they encountered a bizarre sight. Hundreds of local children, ranging in ages from four to 14, were crammed inside, roaming between the crypts, armed with sharpened sticks, knives stolen from home and stakes. They said they were hunting down "a vampire with iron teeth" that had kidnapped and eaten two local boys. The policemen dispersed the crowd, but they came back at sundown the next night and the next. The local press got hold of the story and it soon went national. There were no missing boys in Glasgow at that time, and press and politicians cast around for an explanation. They soon found one in the wave of American horror comics with names like Astounding Stories and Tales From The Crypt, which had recently flooded into the West of Scotland.
Presenter/Louise Welsh, Producer/David Stenhouse
BBC Radio 4 Publicity
Jenny wi' the Airn Teeth
WHAT a plague is this o' mine,
Winna steek his e'e,
Though I hap him ow'r the head
As cosie as can be.
Sleep! an' let me to my wark,
A' thae claes to airn;
Jenny wi' the airn teeth,
Come an' tak' the bairn:
Tak' him to your ain den,
Where the bowgie bides,
But first put baith your big teeth
In his wee plump sides;
Gie your auld grey pow a shake,
Rive him frae my grup—
Tak' him where nae kiss is gaun
When he waukens up.
Two views of the gatehouse in the
much-vandalized Southern Necropolis
much-vandalized Southern Necropolis
Whatna noise is that I hear
Comin' doon the street?
Weel I ken the dump-dump
O' her beetle feet.
Mercy me, she's at the door,
Hear her lift the sneck;
Whisht! an' cuddle mammy noo
Closer roun' the neck.
Jenny wi' the airn teeth,
The bairn has aff his claes,
Sleepin' safe an' soun', I think—
Dinna touch his taes;
Sleepin' weans are no for you;
Ye may turn about
An' tak' awa' wee Tam next door—
I hear him screichin' oot.
Dump, dump, awa' she gangs
Back the road she cam';
I hear her at the ither door,
Speirin' after Tam.
He's a crabbit, greetin' thing,
The warst in a' the toon;
Little like my ain wee wean—
Losh, he's sleepin' soun'.
Mithers hae an awfu' wark
Wi' their bairns at nicht—
Chappin' on the chair wi' tangs
To gi'e the rogues a fricht.
Aulder weans are fley'd wi' less,
Weel aneuch we ken—
Bigger bowgies, bigger Jennies,
Frichten muckle men.
-Alexander Anderson, 1879
Labels: barker, censorship, crypt, ec, glasgow, gorbals, hajdu, jack davis, vampire, wertham
¶ 6:42 PM 5 comments
Sunday, August 30, 2009
Memories from the Fridge
This is the cover and one page from the comic book Russ Jones and I did in 1973. When I devised that title in 1973, I had never heard the phrase "tales from the fridge," but I just now typed it into Google and got more than 13,000 results, including even a blog with that name.
During the late 1960s, Russ lived at 127 West 79th Street, a huge apartment building called the Clifton House, and I would go over there to join him in inking pages for DC Comics. A few years later, Russ and I collaborated on a series of stories for Charlton Comics. I previously posted "Truck Stop", published in Ghostly Tales #108 (November 1973). After "Truck Stop"was finished, Denis Kitchen took an interest in publishing Tales from the Fridge, and we began work.
The premise derived from a short Time magazine article I had once read about a promoter responsible for finding Colonel Sanders. According to that article, the promoter intended to generate a burger chain around a guy from Brooklyn who supposedly made the world's best hamburgers. The character Global McBlimp was based on a Boston University student Russ knew, and Global's name was a homage to a Li'l Abner character. Scripting and art were done simultaneously. In other words, we were doing inked pages with no set plan of how the story developed and what the ending would be. This was somewhat risky and might explain why the book ends with several one-page fillers.
Some people have asked me how the front cover was created. One art director even asked me if we pasted up photostats! No, here's how it was done: I put a copy of Tales from the Crypt #42 (see below) on an opaque projector, traced it off and made alterations. Russ then said to me, "Don't let me see that cover!" Russ, who had watched Jack Davis at work in New Rochelle, knew that Davis worked very fast, so he then began brush inking at a very fast pace, doing it like Davis but without any attempt to duplicate individual brush strokes. Thus, it really does look like Jack Davis art if you don't make a line-by-line comparison.
The Vault-Keeper became the Fridge-Keeper. Replacing one of the EC GhouLunatics, Russ drew in his own self-portrait as Rod Usher on the front cover. In the story, Russ embellished the character of Usher with occasional injections of self-satire.
©2009 Bhob Stewart and Russ Jones
This is the cover and one page from the comic book Russ Jones and I did in 1973. When I devised that title in 1973, I had never heard the phrase "tales from the fridge," but I just now typed it into Google and got more than 13,000 results, including even a blog with that name.During the late 1960s, Russ lived at 127 West 79th Street, a huge apartment building called the Clifton House, and I would go over there to join him in inking pages for DC Comics. A few years later, Russ and I collaborated on a series of stories for Charlton Comics. I previously posted "Truck Stop", published in Ghostly Tales #108 (November 1973). After "Truck Stop"was finished, Denis Kitchen took an interest in publishing Tales from the Fridge, and we began work.
The premise derived from a short Time magazine article I had once read about a promoter responsible for finding Colonel Sanders. According to that article, the promoter intended to generate a burger chain around a guy from Brooklyn who supposedly made the world's best hamburgers. The character Global McBlimp was based on a Boston University student Russ knew, and Global's name was a homage to a Li'l Abner character. Scripting and art were done simultaneously. In other words, we were doing inked pages with no set plan of how the story developed and what the ending would be. This was somewhat risky and might explain why the book ends with several one-page fillers.
Some people have asked me how the front cover was created. One art director even asked me if we pasted up photostats! No, here's how it was done: I put a copy of Tales from the Crypt #42 (see below) on an opaque projector, traced it off and made alterations. Russ then said to me, "Don't let me see that cover!" Russ, who had watched Jack Davis at work in New Rochelle, knew that Davis worked very fast, so he then began brush inking at a very fast pace, doing it like Davis but without any attempt to duplicate individual brush strokes. Thus, it really does look like Jack Davis art if you don't make a line-by-line comparison.
The Vault-Keeper became the Fridge-Keeper. Replacing one of the EC GhouLunatics, Russ drew in his own self-portrait as Rod Usher on the front cover. In the story, Russ embellished the character of Usher with occasional injections of self-satire.
Labels: charlton, denis kitchen, fridge, jack davis, memoir, russ jones, truck stop
¶ 6:43 PM 0 comments
Sunday, April 05, 2009
The Resurrection of Humbug
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Harvey Kurtzman went from Mad to Trump to Humbug to Help!
Mad went from a comic book to a magazine. Humbug was a magazine that was downsized to comic book proportions, which was a factor in its doom. I remember searching for copies by looking behind larger publications in the magazine racks. By the time Humbug increased in size, it was too late.
Harvey Kurtzman went from Mad to Trump to Humbug to Help!
Mad went from a comic book to a magazine. Humbug was a magazine that was downsized to comic book proportions, which was a factor in its doom. I remember searching for copies by looking behind larger publications in the magazine racks. By the time Humbug increased in size, it was too late.
©2009 Fantagraphics Books
Thanks to Fantagraphics, Humbug is back in a big way. Instead of crumbling newsprint, it's now a splendiferous two-volume slipcased set with quality paper, an attractive design by Adam Grano and extensive digital restorations by Paul Baresh. In addition to story annotations by John Benson, an intro by Benson and Gary Groth, and a lengthy Benson interview with Arnold Roth and Al Jaffee, there are even four pages detailing how the Baresh restorations were accomplished (see above). When no original art or paste-ups were available, they scanned from the printed pages.
The film clip below reveals that Jack Davis drew the bottom right panel almost identical to Eli Wallach's position in that scene.
The film clip below reveals that Jack Davis drew the bottom right panel almost identical to Eli Wallach's position in that scene.
Elia Kazan won a Golden Globe for Baby Doll, and it received four other Golden Globe nominations and four Oscar nominations. The film benefited from a terrific Kenyon Hopkins score, remastered in 2003. Listen to "Lemonade"! Hopkins also did the music for The Strange One, 12 Angry Men, Wild River, The Fugitive Kind, The Hustler, Lilith and This Property Is Condemned.
Labels: fantagraphics, humbug, jack davis, jaffee, kurtzman, roth
¶ 10:22 AM 6 comments
Monday, January 28, 2008
Trump towers
Despite the header above, Harvey Kurtzman's Trump magazine is not to be confused with Donald Trump's new Trump magazine. Actually, Donald Trump published two previous magazines with his name in the title, Trump Style (1997) and Trump World (2004).
After Kurtzman left Mad in 1956, he edited two issues of the glossy slick Trump for Hugh Hefner in 1957. Then it collapsed in a cost-cutting move. Interviewed by John Benson in 1965, Kurtzman recalled that Hefner's "attitude was that we didn't have any budget. We'd spend whatever we had to make a magazine, which is as it should have been. I mean, he was very right, and it would have been nice if he could have backed it up, but his intentions were the best."
To see a spectacular Wally Wood page from Trump, click on March 2007 in the Archives on right. Richard Corliss described the magazine in his Kurtzman profile, "Hail, Harvey!":
In the Jack Davis drawing at top, recognizable figures include Dave Garroway, King Kong, Tarzan, Rin Tin Tin with Rusty (Lee Aaker), the Trump mascot, Wrong Way Corrigan and Alley Oop. Can anyone identify the three figures in the left foreground? This 1957 drawing is curiously prophetic, since Garroway is shown holding a gun to his own head. In 1961, Garroway went into a state of depression after his wife's suicide, and on July 21, 1982, he did shoot himself in the head just as drawn by Davis 25 years earlier.
Despite the header above, Harvey Kurtzman's Trump magazine is not to be confused with Donald Trump's new Trump magazine. Actually, Donald Trump published two previous magazines with his name in the title, Trump Style (1997) and Trump World (2004).After Kurtzman left Mad in 1956, he edited two issues of the glossy slick Trump for Hugh Hefner in 1957. Then it collapsed in a cost-cutting move. Interviewed by John Benson in 1965, Kurtzman recalled that Hefner's "attitude was that we didn't have any budget. We'd spend whatever we had to make a magazine, which is as it should have been. I mean, he was very right, and it would have been nice if he could have backed it up, but his intentions were the best."
To see a spectacular Wally Wood page from Trump, click on March 2007 in the Archives on right. Richard Corliss described the magazine in his Kurtzman profile, "Hail, Harvey!":
The cover of Trump proclaimed it "a new magazine which would like to say... mainly HELP!" And, in the Prospectus on page one: "This, then, shall be the purpose of Trump. Making money. You have the money, You give it to us." Hefner gave Kurtzman the money for Trump. Elder, Davis, Wood (briefly) and Al Jaffee gave Harvey their loyalty; they left the sure thing of Mad for the iffy proposition of Trump. Chester came along as managing editor, leaving the Mad house virtually untenanted... Trump sold for 50 cents, five times the cost of Mad two years before. It was lavish, offering in the first issue a panoramic watercolor foldout, painted by Elder and Russ Heath, of a Life-type Epic of Man, updated to the 20th century, and, in the second, a nine-page parody of Sports Illustrated whose cover image, "First head-on photo of a bullet taken without mirrors," shows the photographer, as reflected in the speeding bullet, screaming and dropping his camera. And it was good. Some pieces lodged in my funny-brain when I read in 1957 and have stayed there, for reference and refreshment. Elder's Beck (Breck) shampoo ad for three kinds of hair: Dry, Oily and No. The Ed Fisher cartoon showing a cowboy at an Indian reservation opening a rifle-shaped box marked farming tools and exclaiming, "Great Scott! Farming tools!"
Davis' anti-hunting hunting story.Foremost, the Arnold Roth piece called "Russians Inventions We Invented First": vodka, borscht, Russian roulette and veto — "a word commonly identified with Russian U.N. delegation, was the accidental creation of Harry Thimk, sign-painter from Bushes, Florida" who tried to paint a VOTE sign but misspelled it. (Note the creepy presentiment in the town and state: In the 2000 Presidential election, the Bushes insured that Florida votes were vetoed.)
Davis' anti-hunting hunting story.Foremost, the Arnold Roth piece called "Russians Inventions We Invented First": vodka, borscht, Russian roulette and veto — "a word commonly identified with Russian U.N. delegation, was the accidental creation of Harry Thimk, sign-painter from Bushes, Florida" who tried to paint a VOTE sign but misspelled it. (Note the creepy presentiment in the town and state: In the 2000 Presidential election, the Bushes insured that Florida votes were vetoed.)In the Jack Davis drawing at top, recognizable figures include Dave Garroway, King Kong, Tarzan, Rin Tin Tin with Rusty (Lee Aaker), the Trump mascot, Wrong Way Corrigan and Alley Oop. Can anyone identify the three figures in the left foreground? This 1957 drawing is curiously prophetic, since Garroway is shown holding a gun to his own head. In 1961, Garroway went into a state of depression after his wife's suicide, and on July 21, 1982, he did shoot himself in the head just as drawn by Davis 25 years earlier.
Labels: corliss, garroway, humbug, jack davis, kurtzman, roth, trump
¶ 4:34 AM 4 comments
