Jack Davis, 90-Year Old "MAD" Artist, Retiring After 60+ Year Career

bralinator

From MAD Magazine covers (and interiors), TIME magazine, Cracked, famous movie posters, TV Guide covers, and even album covers, this man has had one seriously prolific career. Thanks for the great, great work Jack.










"I'm just gonna sit on the porch and watch the river go by. And maybe go fishing once in a while." Jack Davis

Full story here: http://www.wired.com/2014/12/jack-davis-mad-mag-retires/

RickM

He's a legend. I'm ashamed to admit that I thought he already retired; what has he been working on in recent years?

bralinator

As far as I can tell, the most recent thing he's done was provide illustrations for the Criterion Collection's Blu-Ray release of "It's a World, World, World, World Mad" in 2014 in the accompanying booklet.

nweathington

Probably the first Jack Davis art I ever saw and where I learned his name:

bralinator

Oh yes! He's got a signature style.

SolitaireRose

He did a piece for our charity art auction at the Minnesota con this year, and put a note with it, apologizing that his work just isn't good any more. He was wrong. It was an incredible Frankenstein and if I would have had a couple grand sitting around, I would have picked it up.

He's always been one of my favorite artists, and I do believe he's the last of the original EC artists with us. He's a treasure, and I hope he knows how much he's loved.

DoctorDoom

What a classic. I hope he gets to enjoy his retirement. :)

Chuck_Melville

bralinator said:

From MAD Magazine covers (and interiors), TIME magazine, Cracked, famous movie posters, TV Guide covers, and even album covers, this man has had one seriously prolific career. Thanks for the great, great work Jack.










"I'm just gonna sit on the porch and watch the river go by. And maybe go fishing once in a while." Jack Davis

Full story here: http://www.wired.com/2014/12/jack-davis-mad-mag-retires/

I could be mistaken here, and not to take away from Davis' brilliant work, but I don’t think that second Trek illustration is by Davis at all – it was part of a quartet done in ’66 for NBC’s highly-touted premieres that year, and I believe they were done by James Bama – best known for his Doc Savage covers for Bantam Books.

...for that matter -- isn't that first MAD cover actually by Jack Rickard, another fine MAD caricaturist...?

nweathington

Chuck_Melville said:

I could be mistaken here, and not to take away from Davis' brilliant work, but I don’t think that second Trek illustration is by Davis at all – it was part of a quartet done in ’66 for NBC’s highly-touted premieres that year, and I believe they were done by James Bama – best known for his Doc Savage covers for Bantam Books.

...for that matter -- isn't that first MAD cover actually by Jack Rickard, another fine MAD caricaturist...?

No, you are absolutely correct, Chuck. I wasn't looking closely at those images when I posted, but I knew immediately that Star Trek cover wasn't Davis. I didn't even look at the blurred signature on the Mad cover, but you can tell it's not Davis’ just from the length. Haven't had much time to post the past couple of weeks, so I never got around to verifying.

But on that note, here is one of the handful of covers Davis did for Mad, issue #27 (Apr. 1956), perhaps his most impressive for the magazine. (Harvey Kurtzman and Bill Elder did the artwork for the frame.)


I don't think Davis ever did anything Star Trek related—I couldn't find anything anyway—so here’s the original art for one of his EC sci-fi covers Incredible Science Fiction #31 (Sept.-Oct. 1955).

bralinator

Those are gorgeous @nweathington‌

And thanks for the correction @Chuck_Melville‌

Credit where it's due

Chuck_Melville

Hey, they were all a brilliant bunch of artists. Love 'em all.