Michael Sporn Animation – Splog

- In a second posting of art reprinted from MAD Magazine, Bill Peckmann forwarded the following covers and the two stories that follow. I’ll let Bill’s words introduce the material. The material comes from the collected Mad For Keeps.

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Here is the cover, comprised from one of the issues,
which has Harvey’s great MAD logo, Bill Elder’s border and probably
Norman Mingo’s first Alfred E. Neuman illustration.

These are the only two stories from the MAD comic books in the book that are reprinted in color. (And good color it is because of the hard cover production.) Again, the talent of Harvey Kurtzman really shines through with his writing and laying out of the pages. They are also great examples of Harvey the editor choosing the right cartoon talent to complete the job.

The first story “Melvin of the Apes”, is drawn by John Severin, he certainly captures the flavor of the early Hal Foster Tarzan strip.

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Here is the second story, it’s with cartoonist Wally Wood. IMHO, it’s one the stories where their collaborative powers are at their zenith. The animated continuity is so good, It’s hard to picture this story without either talent or being done by somebody else.

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Here are the three faces of MAD. The first cover is of MAD comic book # 6, (1953) drawn by Harvey for the inside “King Kong” story spoof. This is the issue that contained “Melvin of the Apes”.

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This is the cover from # 20 (1955), by now Harvey had been spoofing “covers” (magazines, newspapers etc.) for about ten issues. This is the issue that contained “Sound Effects!”

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This is MAD magazine cover # 27 (1956). It is the fourth magazine cover done and the first Jack Davis cover. It’s easy to see the “It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World” (1963) movie poster lurking in there and also a lot of TV GUIDE covers to come.

(Side notes: As high school students, we cut class one day in 1958 to visit the offices of MAD on Lafayette St. and were so fortunate to see the original of this cover hanging on the office wall. The reproduction does not do it justice at all! I was also lucky enough to be at Elektra Films in ’63 when they shot a trailer for “Mad Mad Mad Mad World” using Jack’s original poster art. Jack’s originals have got to be seen to be believed.)

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Here’s the record jacket (front & back) for It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

Finally, this is the Kurtzman war comics crew as seen by John Severin. It was done sometime in the early ’50′s. John’s love for drawing historically accurate comic book stories really comes through here.

There are some great Basil Woolverton comic strips at John Glenn Taylor‘s blog

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