The A.V. Club posted a chat with Jack Davis that's certainly worth a look. (Davis is pitching a new book.)
His name may not be spoken in the same breath as Harvey Kurtzman’s or Wally Wood’s, but few artists made as profound an impact in as many corners of the EC comics empire as Jack Davis. His supple style lent itself as well to the gritty battlefield stories of Two-Fisted Tales as to the gleeful grotesques of Tales From The Crypt, and when Kurtzman convinced EC head William Gaines to let him head the company’s new humor magazine, Davis left a formidable stamp on Mad as well. Unlike many of his peers, though, Davis spun off his comic-book work into a highly successful illustration career, doing covers for Time and TV Guide as well as iconic movie posters for the likes of It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, which, according to Fantagraphics’ new career-spanning collection Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture, netted him an annual salary that at its height stretched into seven figures. Now in his late 80s, Davis has naturally slowed down in recent years, but the book has provided the occasion for a well-earned victory lap, which brought him to New York’s Society Of Illustrators for a talk with The A.V. Club.Check it out!
7 comments:
"I’ve turned out a lot of junk. I mean, I’ve turned it out just like a machine. Evidently, it’s kind of caught on."
Good stuff.
I sooooo wish I had stolen one of Dave's well-adorned junior high Pee-Chees to post here. I'm sure there was a strong Jack MF Davis influence.
I'm not sure that a kid drawing boobs on the football player and basketball player are on a level with Jack MF Davis, but thanks anyway.
How sad is it that I had to Google Pee-Chees?
You probably didn't have them in the south. They were made of advanced materials like paper and glue.
LMFAO.
Oh give me a break, we had that stuff. It's what our shoes were made of.
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