Mad magazine pioneer Will Elder dies

CBC ^ | 105/16/08

[Borges]

William Elder, the illustrator who pioneered the visual style for iconic humour title Mad magazine, has died at the age of 86.

Gary VandenBergh, Elder's son-in-law, told comic world blog Journalista that the pioneering cartoonist died early Thursday morning after having battled Parkinson's disease for several years. DC Comics, which now owns Mad, also confirmed the news in a statement.

"Willie Elder was one of the funniest artists to ever work for Mad," John Ficarra, one of the humour title's editors, said in a release.

"Willie's 'anything goes' art style set the tone for the entire magazine and created a look that endures to this day."

Born in New York, Elder studied at Manhattan's High School of Music and Art, where he met writer and Mad magazine founder Harvey Kurtzman.

After a stint in the army during the Second World War, he teamed up with Kurtzman and Charles Stern to start an art studio that produced comics for several publishers.

In 1952, the duo launched Mad, with Elder creating the satirical, cartoony visuals for the influential title. He would become renowned for his packed panels, crammed full of background gags and jokes he later dubbed "chicken fat."

After they left Mad in 1956, Elder and Kurtzman's new collaborations included short-lived humour magazines such as Humbug and Help! as well as the comic characters Goodman Beaver and Little Annie Fanny, who was created expressly for Playboy and was featured in the magazine for about 25 years.

During his career, Elder also created myriad book and magazine illustrations, advertisements and caricatures. He retired in 1988 and his work was collected in several volumes, including Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art and, most recently, Chicken Fat, released in 2006.

He was inducted into the U.S. Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003.

[BlueStateBlues]

Talk about bringing back mammories, ah, I mean memories, “Little Annie Fanny”.

[Tanniker Smith]

I've been published in MAD once. One of these days, I have to try again. I've been sitting on two manuscripts for a couple of years now because they weren't quite right (now long enough, really, but you can only stretch a joke so far).

Sadly, one had to do with Hillary, and I wanted it for the campaign season, which started way too soon and she flashed out anyway. oh, well.

[Eye On The Left]

Thanks. I had only glossed over the excerpt when I asked. I see it now.

[Eye On The Left]

LOL! Thanks. I saved it, and found this larger version.

[scory]

Sorry to hear this. He and Kurtzman were great. May God grant him peace.

[Eye On The Left]

I managed to zoom in under high mag and read that they were being serious. They quoted a piece from Communist Party USA’s then newspaper, The Daily Worker, saying that comics were making boys too violent and ready to fight in the military. So they wanted to get rid of them.

[Eye On The Left]

Wish I still had this one.

I don't know about the rest of you, but I wish I still had a lot of the things I had back then, like my Matchbox cars and 1/124th scale model car collection. I used to customize the cars the way the pros did real cars. Reshaping the body with pieces of scrap plastic and smoothing it out with putty, swapping parts from other kits, chopping tops, etc, etc. Even metalflake paint jobs. Man, I miss those days! (late sixties, early seventies) , when New York City held an annual Rod and Custom car show at the 59th Colosseum. Now all they have is that dopey "International Car Show" crap in April.

[Lx]

Looks like a J.C Whitney catalog, just needs the AAoooogAAAA horn.

[Eye On The Left]

Remember it well. My oldest brother used to order the catalog. I think he still does? (40 yrs later)

Car Horns from JC Whitney (2008)
http://www.jcwhitney.com/autoparts/Product/tf-Browse/s-10101/Pr-p_Product.CATENTRY_ID:2009071/p-2009071/N-111+200730205+600015135/c-10101

[WorkingClassFilth]

I wonder if he’s worried...

[Eye On The Left]

What-me worry?

[thesaint2]

Add me to the list of those who cut their teeth on Mad and then on to Nat'l lamp. Will Elder was more than an inspiration, his art shaped my attitude toward life.

[weegee]

Bil Gaines would be revolted to see that Warner Brothers’ DC-Mad takes full page advertising now.

[weegee]

I think high grade copies would run over a hundred dollars easy. I haven't looked into it in years. I only have a signed copy of the first issue. Never got to meet Harvey either (he was too poor of health to attend his award ceremony when I went).

Looking online I see that there are now reprint hardcover collections of Humbug (the publisher offered them that way at the end of the series run in the 1950s as well) and Trump (or soon).

http://mikelynchcartoons.blogspot.com/2008/03/humbug-and-trump-book-collections.html

These were modeled off of early college lampoon magazines (as was early Mad). When Mad became a magazine, people like Bob & Ray, Ernie Kovacs, and Steve Allen wrote for it.

[stylecouncilor]

ping

[weegee]

He was deadly serious. Democrats called him before Congress to defend the content of his “obscene” comic books (he even got hassled for doing a satire of the Night Before Christmas).

Estes Kefauver ran it all the way to a VP nomination. His fellow Tennessee Senator Albert Gore SENIOR had to have taken notice leading to Albert Gore JUNIOR’s whole PMCE charade before the 1988 presidential election.

Al Gore will throw anyone under a bus for personal advancement.

[weegee]

PMRC