Will Elder, 1921--2008

Phil Nugent — Mon, 19 May 2008 15:00:00 GMT

Will Elder has died at the age of 87, after a battle with Parkinson's. A commercial artist and cartoonist, he spent much of his life all but joined at the hip to the great Harvey Kurtzman, who created Mad for EC Comics in 1952. Elder, who had been a classmate and collaborator of Kurtzman's from years before, became the defining artistic voice of Mad in its comic book period; he and Kurtzman had similar senses of humor, and when Elder illustrated Kurtzman's scripts eviscerating such cultural touchstones as Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes, and Archie and Jughead. After Kurtzman left Mad in 1957, Elder followed him loyally through a string of short-lived humor magazines: Trump (a Garden of Eden for print humor of the period, and one that lasted all of two issues), Humbug (which is set to be republished in its entirety later this year by Fantagraphics), and Help! Though it was the most uneven of all these publications, it was for Help! that Kurtzman and Elder created the doomed all-American careerist boy Goodman Beaver, star of their masterpiece, "Goodman Goes Playboy," featuring characters from their earlier "Archie" parody. That story was kept out of circulation by years due to threat of legal action from the publishers of "Archie" comics, who were unamused to learn that their red-headed cash cow was throwing orgies in his vast hipster crash pad after selling his soul to the devil. Which is ironic, since everyone who participated in suppressing the story has, of course, gone to Hell for it.

After Help! went bust, Kurtzman (who died in 1993) and Elder mainly kept their hand in with irregular installments of the Playboy feature "Little Annie Fanny", which boasted eye-popping, gorgeous painted artwork by Elder. In his later years, Elder busied himself by jovially witnessing his belated transformation into a living legend, a process helped along by the publication (in two volumes) of all the "Little Annie Fanny" stories as well as the gratifyingly thick tribute volumes Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art and Chicken Fat. Although he never actually worked for the movies, to a great degree, movie comedy of the second half of the twentieth century is unimaginable without Elder's influence. His propensity for packing gags upon gags is there in the work of such directors as Richard Lester and the Louis Malle of Zazie dans le Metro, not to mention Airplane!, and the self-conscious analysis of pop culture that he and Kurtzman developed in their work planted the seeds for much of what sprouted in movies in the 1960s and 1970s, from the use of old gangster and private eyes movies as the basis for something new and self-critical in Bonnie & Clyde and The Long Goodbye to George Lucas reviving old Saturday matinee serials with a more or less straight face. Portzebie, and out.

“Pinocchio in Outer Space” and Other Forgotten Cartoons

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 20 Mar 2008 16:00:00 GMT

Have you seen Mad Monster Party lately? “Featuring the final screen ‘appearance’ of horror icon Boris Karloff, Mad Monster Party was co-written by comics legend Harvey Kurtzman, creator of the original Mad comic books, and featured character designs by cartoonist Jack Davis of Mad Magazine and EC comics — a genius at combining humor and grotesquerie.” Or how about Down and Dirty Duck? “Likely assembled as a quick cash-in on the underground success of Ralph Bakshi's Fritz the Cat, Down and Dirty Duck was put together with the assistance of erstwhile Turtles (and Mothers of Invention) Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan (nee Flo and Eddie), who contributed voice, music and plot elements. (The duo’s former employer, Frank Zappa, makes a cameo appearance during a particularly bizarre segment in which his head rises, sunlike, in the sky over the main characters.)”

These are but two entries in Bullz-Eye.com’s eye-opening Animated and Forgotten: Feature Length Cartoons You May Not Remember. (The key words there being “may not.” It’s a fun list, but how could we ever forget The Incredible Mr. Limpet and The Iron Giant?) You can read the whole thing here, but if you want to see video clips from some of these obscurities, you’ve come to the right place:

PINOCCHIO IN OUTER SPACE (1965)

One advantage to being a wooden boy: when you travel to other planets, no space helmets are necessary. But why is that goofy turtle trying to romance him?

MAD MONSTER PARTY (1969)

Little Tibia and the Fibias rock, but what could be more disturbing than a stop-motion Phyllis Diller unwrapping the poor Mummy while he’s trying to get his groove on?

THE POINT! (1971)

The animation in this acid-trip inspired Harry Nilsson musical is a little, how shall we say, crude by today’s standards, but you’re never going to hear a more charming ditty about decomposition than “Think About Your Troubles.”

ROCK AND RULE (1983)

Apparently Mick Jagger didn’t care much for Lou Reed’s performance as “Mok Swagger” in this “post-apocalyptic tale of satanic magic and the rock and roll lifestyle among mutated, extremely anthropomorphic, cats, dogs, and rats.”

LITTLE NEMO: ADVENTURES IN SLUMBERLAND (1989)

Not to be confused with Finding Nemo, this adaptation of the Winsor McKay comic strip is hard to find, but you can watch the whole thing on YouTube starting here:

The Screengrab : harvey kurtzman

Will Elder, 1921--2008

“Pinocchio in Outer Space” and Other Forgotten Cartoons