Attempted Bloggery: Jack Davis

Showing posts with label Jack Davis. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 17, 2025

Merry Christmas from Jack Davis

If you ever wondered what original Christmas card art by Mad legend Jack Davis looks like, today is your lucky day.

Jack Davis
AbeBooks listing accessed November 15, 2025

https://www.abebooks.com/signed/Original-Comical-Drawing-Santa-Claus-Signed/32343172430/bd?cm_ven=nl&cm_cat=trg&cm_pla=want_CM&ref_=pe_aep_AEP_wants_buyer-wants&cm_ite=viewbook

Jack Davis
AbeBooks item description

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Wednesday, August 17, 2022

Jack Davis: A First Driver's License

It seems unproductive for an auction house to take a minor illustration by a major cartoonist, in this case Jack Davis, and to give it a presale estimate—$50 to $1,000—that is so broad it's almost meaningless. The actual hammer price of $70 suggests, soundly, that the estimate should have been way down in the lower end of this range. Still there is much we don't know of this illustration of a boy or young man with his first driver's license. Knowledge of where it was published might give us more context, and that in turn could give the drawing greater value. Was it part of a larger story, perhaps from Mad magazine? Was it created for an advertisement? Is the driver's license, suspiciously issued to one Joe Smith, intended to be real or fake?

Jack Davis
Westport Auction
July 29, 2022, lot 110

https://www.invaluable.com/auction-lot/JACK-DAVIS-1924-2016-COMIC-ILLUSTRATION-CARTOON-110-c-BC643B3AD0?utm_source=alerts&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=keywordalerts&utm_content=solr

Note: This illustration by Jack Davis was almost certainly published, but exactly when and where? Perhaps you can help. Please share what you know.

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Saturday, July 2, 2022

Spy vs. Spy: Antonio Prohias et al.

If one were fortunate enough to obtain an original "layout for a published project" (so we are told) illustrated by Mad's Antonio Prohias of an agitated White Spy sitting in a movie theater, should one have other artists and luminaries of the magazine also sign—and draw on—the page? Perhaps not, but it's hard to argue that a "jam page" fitting this description didn't turn out extremely well. Sergio Aragonés put his contribution (including a sketch of Alfred E. Neuman) on the projected screen. Kelly Freas, Marie Severin, and Peter Kuper added other faces: respectively, of Freas himself, of William M. Gaines, and of one of the spies. That's quite a coup: having spies drawn by both Prohias and Kuper, his successor, on the same page. As a bonus, there are signatures by Jack Davis, Will Elder, Mort Drucker, Kyle Baker, Al Feldstein, Angelo Torres, Annie M. Gaines, Al Jaffee, and Paul Peter Porges. Is it any wonder the eBay seller is asking $1,600 for this?

The usual gang of idiots
eBay listing accessed July 1, 2022

https://www.ebay.com/itm/225043365202?hash=item3465a13d52:g:ezIAAOSw-YZip6TU

The usual gang of idiots
eBay item description

Note: I'd love to hear from anyone who can identify the published source of this Spy vs. Spy layout drawing.

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Tuesday, October 16, 2018

Paul H. Elliott-Smith's Copy of A Golden Trashery of MAD

Under what circumstances were Paul H. R. M. Elliott-Smith's copy of A Golden Trashery of MAD (1960) signed in 1981 by publisher William M. Gaines, Al Feldstein, Nick Meglin, and a clutch of "the usual gang of idiots?" Was this hard-to-find book brought to a signing event or simply to the New York offices of MAD? Elliott-Smith (1919-1999) was a marketing and economics consultant, according to the sales listings below. He would have been around 62 in 1981, certainly not the typical age for a MAD fanboy. But at that age he could well have been retiring from whatever sort of consulting he did for EC, and the drawing by Paul Peter Porges on the lower right has a "Good-By'" that suggests this may have been the case. In this context, the book might have been a presentation copy prepared in advance and given to Elliott-Smith, which would explain why Gaines wrote "Free Sample!" The unique book is being offered for $1,000 on AbeBooks, or you can have it for just $900 on eBay. Hey, it's your money.

A Golden Trashery of MAD
New York: Crown, 1960
Cover by Norman Mingo

Twelve signatures, eight sketches

George Woodbridge

Jack Rickard takes the real estate under the dust jacket flap and makes the most elaborate drawing.

Inscribed "Free Sample!
Bill Gaines"

Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, Al Feldstein

Lou Silverstone, Dick DeBartolo, Paul Peter Porges

Sergio Aragonés

Bob Clarke, Nick Meglin

Introduction by Sid Caesar

A Golden Trashery of MAD
eBay Listing Retrieved October 16, 2018

https://www.ebay.com/itm/A-GOLDEN-TRASHERY-OF-MAD-signed-with-sketches-autographs-by-12-MAD-Men-1st-dj/372443318384

A Golden Trashery of MAD
AbeBooks Listing Retrieved October 16, 2018

https://www.abebooks.com/servlet/BookDetailsPL?bi=22895479821&searchurl=bi%3D0%26ds%3D20%26bx%3Doff%26sortby%3D1%26kn%3DSergio%2BAragones%26recentlyadded%3Dall%26sgnd%3Don&cm_sp=snippet-_-srp1-_-image1

Note: It should come as no surprise that this is the first and only copy of A Golden Trashery of MAD to appear on this blog. I am, of course, open to showing other MAD books here, particularly if they have interesting inscriptions or original drawings.

Today I broke with my internalized style book and capitalized all three letters of MAD even though I know better. For some reason it felt right. Shouldn't I stick with the lower-key Mad?

Quick Links to the Attempted Bloggery Archives:

Sergio Aragonés

Jack Davis

William M. Gaines

Al Jaffee

Norman Mingo

MAD Magazine

Signed Books with Original Drawings

Attempted Bloggery's Retiring Index

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Thursday, October 30, 2014

Jack Davis: Creepy's Loathsome Lore

Some ghoulish original Jack Davis art for Creepy was on display at MoCCA Fest 2014.

Jack Davis, Original artwork for "Creepy's Loathsome Lore," Creepy #3, June 1965

Jack Davis, "Creepy's Loathsome Lore," Creepy #3, June 1965

https://www.flickr.com/photos/tom1231/3670478902/

Note: I have a little more Jack Davis art on the blog. Don't miss it.

There are quite a few more MoCCA Fest posts as well. Don't miss them either.

If you haven't lost your lunch yet, why not check out all the haunting Halloween posts that have made their way onto this blog over the years?

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Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Jack Davis and the Circle of Blame

Jack Davis supplied the artwork for numerous Time magazine covers. Here is one with a lot of finger-pointing. The April 30, 1973 cover refers to the great Watergate scandal in the Nixon White House. At the time, I thought it was a fantastic magazine cover. It has held up remarkably well.

President Nixon is surrounded by his aides, who are entangled in wiretapping material used during the break-ins at the Democratic National Committee's headquarters in the Watergate Hotel. (The tapes shown here are not the Nixon White House tapes of Presidential conversations recorded in the Oval Office, the existence of which had not yet been disclosed.) Clockwise from top right: Jeb Magruder, Deputy Director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President; White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman; White House Counsel John Dean; former Attorney General John Mitchell; former Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans, subsequently the finance chair of the Committee to Re-Elect the President; and James McCord, a security coordinator for the Committee to Re-Elect the President who was arrested during the second break-in at the Watergate Hotel. Those were the days, my friend!

Jack Davis, "Watergate Breaks Wide Open," Time, April 30, 1973

Jack Davis, Original Artwork for "Watergate Breaks Wide Open," Time, April 30, 1973

http://www.flickr.com/photos/nostri-imago/5022979999/?reg=1&src=fave

Note: Say, does anyone remember a similar illustration published after the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster? It depicts a circle of finger-pointers, one of them labelled Thiokol, and was entitled "The O-Ring." It may or may not be by Jack Davis. If you have a scan of it, I'd love to see it for purposes of comparison and to refresh my memory. If it is indeed by Jack Davis, I might even like to include it in this post. Anybody?

You're in luck! I have another post on Jack Davis here.

Or there's another post on the Watergate Affair here.

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Sunday, May 26, 2013

Jack Davis: Moms and Dads

Just listed on eBay is this original illustration artwork by Jack Davis entitled Moms and Dads. It was published in Mad Magazine. Bid successfully and this piece can be yours by Father's Day!