Jack Davis obit

 

Jack Davis, ‘MAD’ Magazine Cartoonist, Dies at 91

The veteran illustrator also provided covers for 'TV Guide' and poster artwork for 'The Long Goodbye' and 'It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.'

He was not on the list.

Jack Davis, a cartoonist and illustrator best known for being one of the founders of MAD Magazine, has died, the humor publication confirmed Wednesday. He was 91.

The artist — whose work also appeared in numerous editions of TV Guide and Time magazines, in addition to posters for the movies It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Kelly’s Heroes and The Long Goodbye — went from a career in the U.S. Navy to illustration with early jobs including a Coca-Cola training manual and a short-lived humor strip for newspapers called Beauregard.

In the early 1950s, Davis found regular work on William Gaines’ infamous EC Comics line, with his art appearing in titles including Crime Suspenstories, Frontline Combat and the original Tales From the Crypt, with one of his shorts for the publisher — “Four Play,” which appeared in 1953’s Haunt of Fear No. 19 — being specifically referenced in Dr. Frederic Wertham’s controversial anti-comic book Seduction of the Innocent.

As part of the EC Comics stable, Davis produced artwork for MAD for two years following its 1952 launch, as well as a number of similar magazines from MAD creator Harvey Kurtzman. After a break for a number of projects that included writing, drawing and editing his own comic title Yak Yak as well as illustrating children’s books for Random House, he returned to MAD in the mid-1960s, where he remained for the rest of his career, juggling that commitment with additional endeavors.

One such additional project demonstrated Davis’ gleefully subversive sense of humor: When asked to design a stamp for the USPS in 1989, he broke official postal policy by sneaking a self-portrait into the image, despite the fact that stamps aren’t supposed to include images of living people.

Davis received the National Cartoonist Society’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996, the NCA’s Reuben Award in 2000 and was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2003. Despite a publicized “retirement” in 2014, he continued to work right up to his death.

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 United States Navy during World War II, 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.

In 1949, Davis 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's 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.

 He died in Athens, Georgia

Animation Department

Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, and Laraine Newman in The Coneheads (1983)

The Coneheads

5.5

TV Movie

character designer

1983

 

Michael Jackson, Donald Fullilove, Jackie Jackson, Jermaine Jackson, Marlon Jackson, Tito Jackson, Mike Martinez, Joel Cooper, Craig Grandy, Edmund Sylvers, and Jackson 5 in Jackson 5ive (1971)

Jackson 5ive

6.6

TV Series

character designer

1971

1 episode

 

Boris Karloff, Phyllis Diller, Gale Garnett, and Allen Swift in Mad Monster Party? (1967)

Mad Monster Party?

6.6

character designer

1967

 

The King Kong Show (1966)

The King Kong Show

6.4

TV Series

character designer

1966

1 episode

 

Art Department

Creepy (2012)

Creepy

Video

design

2012

 

Walter Matthau and Tatum O'Neal in The Bad News Bears (1976)

The Bad News Bears

7.3

poster artist (uncredited)

1976

 

Elliott Gould in The Long Goodbye (1973)

The Long Goodbye

7.5

poster artist (uncredited)

1973

 

Spencer Tracy, Peter Falk, Jim Backus, Milton Berle, Norman Fell, Mickey Rooney, Jimmy Durante, Buddy Hackett, Jonathan Winters, Edie Adams, Eddie 'Rochester' Anderson, Ben Blue, Joe E. Brown, Sid Caesar, Alan Carney, Chick Chandler, Barrie Chase, Lloyd Corrigan, William Demarest, Andy Devine, Selma Diamond, Paul Ford, Stan Freberg, Ethel Merman, Dorothy Provine, Phil Silvers, and Terry-Thomas in It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World (1963)

It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World

7.5

poster artist (uncredited)

1963

 

Writer

Creepy (2012)

Creepy

Video

based on uncle creepy created by

2012

 

The Mad Magazine TV Special (1974)

The Mad Magazine TV Special

6.0

TV Movie

inspired by: The Usual Gang of Idiots

1974

 

The Vault of Horror (1973)

The Vault of Horror

6.6

story "Bargain in Death" & "Drawn and Quartered" illustrated by (uncredited)

1973

 

Production Designer

Dan Aykroyd, Jane Curtin, and Laraine Newman in The Coneheads (1983)

The Coneheads

5.5

TV Movie

Production Designer

1983

 

Additional Crew

Bill Davis, Clark Gesner, Bryan Joseph, Joe Raposo, Norman Stiles, Jim Thurman, Tom Whedon, Christopher Cerf, Tom Dunsmuir, and Norton Wright in Out to Lunch (1974)

Out to Lunch

7.6

TV Movie

logo designer: character

1974

 

Thanks

Bird of Steel!

special thanks

Completed

 

Self

Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television (2004)

Tales from the Crypt: From Comic Books to Television

7.3

TV Movie

Self

2004

 

The Comic Book Greats: Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis (1992)

The Comic Book Greats: Harvey Kurtzman and Jack Davis

Video

Self - Guest

1992

 

Archive Footage

When We Went MAD! (2025)

When We Went MAD!

7.1

Self - Artist (archive footage)

2025