Bill Peckmann &Comic Art &Illustration 26 Aug 2011 06:54 am
Early Jack Davis
- Bill Peckmann has sent a number of early Jack Davis crawings our way, so let me turtn it over to Bill:
- After Jack left EC/Mad Comics in the late ’50′s, after Harvey Kurtzman’s “Trump” and “Humbug” magazine’s didn’t get the solid footing they so richly deserved and went belly up, and before Jack carved out that wonderfully successful niche for himself in the world of humorous illustration in the ’60′s, he had to really scramble for work to keep the wolf from the door. Here are some examples from that period from late 1958 to 1961. Jack would say that some of this art was done in his “fast” style.
1These first four western covers were done for
Stan Lee for Atlas Comics, later to become Marvel Comics.
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A cover for “Cracked” Magazine, Mad’s longest running rival.
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4 B&W pages from inside “Cracked”.
The first 3 pages are a spoof on TV show “Peter Gunn”.
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A single page (Kurtzman type) gag.
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This western magazine was published by Jim Warren
who also published Harvey Kurtzman’s “Help!” Magazine.
It was rumored that Harvey was also the editor of this book,
I don’t know about that.
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A 3 page gag from “Wildest Westerns”.
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Believe it or not, Jack actually did a Dell Comic book.
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4 pages from “Yak Yak”.
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All the art was sent in the chronological order it was done.
on 26 Aug 2011 at 8:48 am 1.Pat Rock said …
Holy cow these are amazing. Except for the John Wayne cover.
The second one down, ‘Gunsmoke Western’, that thing is priceless. Almost a Jean Giraud (Moebius) Blueberry look. Although I assume those westerns would have to predate Blueberry by quite a bit?
Thanks for sharing these.
on 26 Aug 2011 at 9:23 am 2.Elliot Cowan said …
Uli Meyer has a mountain of Davis originals hanging in his studio and home.
Wonderful stuff.
on 26 Aug 2011 at 1:42 pm 3.Eric Noble said …
Jack Davis is one of my favorite cartoonists/illustrators. I love his more serious work just as much as his funny stuff. These are all terrific. Thank you and Bill Peckmann for sharing these.
on 26 Nov 2014 at 10:57 pm 4.Elwood H Smith said …
When these pieces showed up in print, I was a kid, soaking ‘em up like crazy. I focused in on every one of Jack Davis’s drawings and knew intimately his every Colt 45 or Navy Colt .44 rendering. No other artist in those old comics drew cowboys and their guns, hats and boots like Jack. He was the master as far as I was concerned and I still think he’s the best of the lot. Thank you Bill, for digging up, scanning and posting these great pages!