Bill Peckmann &Comic Art 02 Sep 2011 06:56 am

Kurtzman Covers

- Here are some more comic book covers courtesy of Bill Peckmann. From his incredible collection, he’s sent us a blast of early covers by Harvey Kurtzman. Bill’s note reads:

    Sorry, these covers are far from being pristine, but I thought it’d be neat to show Harvey Kurtzman’s comic book covers (TWO-FISTED TALES, FRONTLINE COMBAT and MAD) in the order that he drew them. These are from 1951.

Here comes some great drawing.

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More from Bill:

    In issue No. 5 of ‘Frontline Combat” was one of Harvey’s classic war stories titled “Big ‘If’!”. No time like the present to send it along.

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8 Responses to “Kurtzman Covers”

  1. on 02 Sep 2011 at 7:44 am 1.Tim Rauch said …

    Hi Michael – great drawings! Watch out, though, frames 4 and 5 of the story are repeats of each other.

  2. on 02 Sep 2011 at 8:44 am 2.Michael said …

    Thanks, Tim. I caught it and corrected it. Nice to know someone’s paying attention.

  3. on 02 Sep 2011 at 12:39 pm 3.Paul Spector said …

    Aside from the wonderful art, I gotta love the written sound effects in the Big If: Squonk, Krump, Krumpf, Blom, Bowm, et al.

  4. on 02 Sep 2011 at 12:47 pm 4.Steve Segal said …

    Great art, but I look at these drawings and start to laugh in expectation of the humor that his work in Mad magazine elicited (especially with hilarious written sound effect that Paul pointed out).

  5. on 02 Sep 2011 at 12:57 pm 5.Eric Noble said …

    Beautiful! These are absolutely beautiful! Kurtzman really was a great artist. Although his work isn’t as polished as say Jack Davis or Wally Wood, his work is appealing and captures the spirit of the emotion his characters are feeling.

  6. on 02 Sep 2011 at 11:08 pm 6.The Gee said …

    Nice.

    He doesn’t repeat the sound FX either….ohhh, without looking it up, I forget what Mort Walker calls them…Unless I’m confusing it, Don Martin was a brilliant user of written SFX noises.

    Hurray for cartoon words! (And, for MAD paperbacks that someone gave me years ago)

    The art is great to see. When I was younger (not EC contemporary young) war comics were still great reads for me. I don’t know why but comparing the tone and the art to what I’m used to: the way Kurtzman did it looks great in an abstract way. The curves remind me of Thomas Hart Benton’s paintings….to a brief point and then it diverges.

    Again, as usual, thanks for sharing these. There’s a lot of great cartoon art that doesn’t need to be complained about…If you know what I’m saying,

  7. on 03 Sep 2011 at 3:52 am 7.sandeep@ Free Animation tutorials said …

    I love your work Michael.great work..

  8. on 20 Feb 2023 at 1:54 am 8.The Watchmen Bestiary 20 - Absent Friends said …

    […] particular, among his many 1950s achievements, used flashbacks to powerful effect in stories like Big “If”.6 Nor were match cuts a new thing — Stanley Kubrick among many others made masterful use of […]

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