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JACK DAVIS
Jack Davis (b. December 2, 1924) is a prolific 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.
Born in Atlanta, Georgia, Davis saw comic book publication at the age of 12 when he contributed a cartoon to the reader's page of Tip Top Comics #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, and he worked one summer inking Ed Dodd's Mark Trail comic strip, a strip which he later parodied in Mad as Mark Trade.[1]
In 1949, he illustrated a Coca-Cola training manual, a job that gave him enough cash 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 1949-50. 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 Haunt of Fear, Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales, Panic, The Vault of Horror, Piracy, Incredible Science-Fiction, Crime Suspenstories, Shock Suspenstories and Terror Illustrated . He was particularly noted for his depiction of the Crypt-Keeper in the horror comics, revamping the character's appearance from the more simplistic Al Feldstein version to a tougher, craggier, mangier man with hairy warts, salivating mouth and oversized hands and feet, who usually didn't wear shoes. Among the classic horror tales he illustrated were "Foul Play" which was sited in Dr. Fredric Wertham's book 'Seduction Of The Innocent' for its depiction of "a comic book baseball game". Others, like "Tain't The Meat, It's The Humanity", "Death Of Some Salesman", "Fare Tonight Followed By Increasing Clottiness", "Tight Grip" and "Lower Berth" were Crypt-Keeper classics. He did the covers for every issue of Crypt from issue #29-46. In his work for Harvey Kurtzman's war books he tackled a variety of subjects, and had a particular affinity for depicting American Civil War stories. He also did many covers for Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales and Incredible Science-Fiction as well. The editors, William M. Gaines, Albert B. Feldstein and Harvey Kurtzman have said he was the fastest artist they had in those days, completely penciling and inking 3 pages a day at times, or more. His use of the brush ro create depth and mood was unique and memorable. His wrinkled clothing, scratchy lines, and multi-layered layouts were so popular in the 50s, that other artists at rival companies began copying the style, doing 'swipes' of actual Davis panels, or, like Howard Nostrand in Harvey's horror comics, who did the best imitation; often with slicker brushwork or a mixture of Wally Wood and/or Bill Elder thrown in, he could out-Davis...Davis at times. In the late 1950s, Davis drew Western stories for Atlas Comics. His 1963 work on the Rawhide Kid (#33-35) was his last for non-humor comic books.
MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Davis_(cartoonist)
MORE: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/the-ec-archives-jack-davis/1020861006
MORE: http://fantasy-ink.blogspot.com/2010/04/jack-davis-war-art.html
FROM MAD:
Impact was a short-lived comic book series published by EC Comics in 1955 as part of its New Direction line. The bi-monthly comic, published by Bill Gaines and edited by Al Feldstein, began with an issue cover-dated March-April, 1955. It ran for five issues, ending with the November-December, 1955 issue. The subtitle "Tales Designed to Carry an" ran above the title Impact. The book was dedicated to stories with shock endings, and was seen as a toned down, Comics Code Era version of EC's earlier Shock SuspenStories. Front covers were by Jack Davis, and the stories were illustrated by Davis, George Evans, Jack Kamen, Graham Ingels, Joe Orlando, Reed Crandall and Bernard Krigstein.
The other New Direction titles were Aces High, Extra!, M.D., Psychoanalysis and Valor. The entire New Direction line was reprinted by publisher Russ Cochran in 1988 in slipcased hardbacks with all pages shot from the original art.
MORE: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impact_(EC_Comics)
Jack Davis was a cartoonist from a very early age. His first published work appeared in Tip Top Comics in 1936. He was twelve years old at the time. In 1949, he packed up and moved from Atlanta to New York City, where he was hired by EC Comics to draw for The Vault of Horror and Two-Fisted Tales. At EC, Davis met Harvey Kurtzman, who liked his work and used him in Mad magazine. Kurtzman and Davis also worked together on Little Annie Fanny in Playboy. (See the links below for some examples of this terrific series...)
MORE: http://www.rankinbass.com/jackdavishome.html
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