Artist of the day: Artist of the Day, April 9, 2021: Jack Davis, an American cartoonist, illustrator (#1253)

Friday, April 9, 2021

Artist of the Day, April 9, 2021: Jack Davis, an American cartoonist, illustrator (#1253)

John Burton Davis Jr. (1924 –2016) was an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories. He was one of the founding cartoonists for Mad in 1952.His cartoon characters are characterized by extremely distorted anatomy, including big heads, skinny legs and large feet.

Davis was born in Atlanta, Georgia. As a child, he adored listening to Bob Hope on the radio and tried to draw him, despite not knowing what Hope looked like.

Davis saw comic book publication at the age of 12 when he contributed a cartoon to the reader's page of Tip Top Comics No. 9 (December 1936). After drawing for his high school newspaper and yearbook, he spent three years in the U.S. Navy, where he contributed to the daily Navy News.

Attending the University of Georgia on the G.I. Bill, he drew for the campus newspaper and helped launch an off-campus humor publication, Bullsheet, which he described as "not political or anything but just something with risque jokes and cartoons." After graduation, he was a cartoonist intern at The Atlanta Journal.

In 1949, he illustrated a Coca-Cola training manual, a job that gave him enough money to buy a car and drive to New York. Attending the Art Students League of New York, he found work with the Herald Tribune Syndicate as an inker on Leslie Charteris's The Saint comic strip, drawn by Mike Roy in 1949–1950. His own humor strip, Beauregard, with gags in a Civil War setting, was carried briefly by the McClure Syndicate. After rejections from several comic book publishers, he began freelancing for William Gaines' EC Comics in 1950, contributing to Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, The Haunt of Fear, Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales, Piracy, Incredible Science Fiction, Crime Suspenstories, Shock Suspenstories and Terror Illustrated.

"I was about ready to give up, go home to Georgia and be either a forest ranger or a farmer. But I went down to Canal Street and Lafayette, up in an old rickety elevator and through a glass door to Entertaining Comics where Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines were putting out horror books. They looked at my work and it was horrible and they gave me a job right away! Every time you went in to see Bill Gaines, he would write you a check when you brought in a story. You didn't have to put in a bill or anything. I was very, very hungry and I was thinking about getting married. So I kept the road pretty hot between home and Canal Street. I would go in for that almighty check, go home and do the work, bring it in and get another check and pick up another story".

His style of wild, free-flowing brushwork and wacky characters made him a perfect choice when Harvey Kurtzman launched Mad as a zany, satirical EC comic book in 1952. He appeared in most of the first 30 issues of Mad, all 12 issues of Panic and even some work in Cracked. Davis contributed to other Kurtzman magazines—Trump, Humbug and Help!—eventually expanding into illustrations for record jackets, movie posters, books and magazines, including Time and TV Guide. He completed an 88-card set of humorous cartoons called Wacky Plaks, which Topps Chewing Gum Co. released in 1959. He also illustrated a 66-card set called Funny Monsters and a 66-card set of Funny Valentine cards in 1959, also released by Topps Chewing Gum Co. In 1960, Jack illustrated another 66-card set of Funny Valentine cards and in 1961, he illustrated a set of Giant Funny Valentine cards.

Davis first worked with TV Guide in 1965, which hired him to illustrate an expansive eight-page advertising supplement for NBC's TV lineup, which featured icons such as Johnny Carson, Dean Martin and fictional characters such as Dr. Kildare, Napoleon Solo and Maxwell Smart. His first cover for the magazine came in 1968, when he depicted a tribute to Andy Griffith. Davis would contribute 23 covers for TV Guide between 1968 and 1981. In 2013 the magazine honored him in a retrospective in which it recounted his history with the publication and spotlighted some of his most memorable covers. Years later, while watching a TV interview of Hope, Davis was gratified to notice that his Hope cover was displayed on the back wall of the comedian's office; "it was one of the proudest moments of my life," recalled Davis.

Like fellow Mad alumnus Paul Coker, Jr., Davis also contributed to Rankin-Bass productions; his character designs are featured in Mad Monster Party, The Coneheads and the cartoon series The King Kong Show, The Jackson 5ive and The Osmonds. For Raid insecticide, Davis created the animated bug that screamed "Raid?!" Phil Kimmelman Associates created several commercials designed by Davis and animated in his style.

Davis produced the artwork for the poster for the 1963 comedy chase film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Two years later, he parodied his own Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World image for the cover of the Mad paperback It's a World, World, World, World Mad, his first work for the magazine following an almost seven-year hiatus. Having returned, Davis would remain a regular freelancer for more than thirty years.

In 1966, Davis created the cover art for the Johnny Cash album Everybody Loves a Nut. Davis also created album artwork for such musicians as The Guess Who, Tito Puente, Sailcat, and The Cowsills, as well as for such comedians as Bob and Ray, Archie Campbell, Don Imus and Myron Cohen. He also provided the artwork for several of Sheb Wooley's comic albums as his character Ben Colder.

Davis was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2003. He also received the National Cartoonists Society's Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. A finalist for inclusion in the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990, 1991 and 1992, he received the National Cartoonists Society's Advertising Award for 1980 and their Reuben Award for 2000. He was award the Inkpot Award in 1985.

In 1989, Davis was commissioned by the United States Postal Service to design the 25-cent Letter Carriers stamp. There was some concern that the cartoon would offend some letter carriers as being too informal and not respectful of their position. However, the president of the Letter Carriers Union gave his blessing, and the stamp was well received. Although postal policy does not allow artists to portray living persons on stamps, one of the carriers in the stamp is an unmistakable self-portrait of Davis.

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