Mort Drucker

Mort Drucker
Mort Drucker
Born	March 22, 1929 (1929-03-22) (age 83) Brooklyn, New York City, USA
Nationality	American
Area(s)	Cartoonist, Artist
Notable works	Mad
Official website

Mort Drucker (b. March 22, 1929) is an American caricaturist and comics artist best known as a decades-long contributor to Mad, where he specialized in satires on the leading feature films. Some sources list his birth date as the March 22nd and others as March 29th. ^[1]

Biography

Early life and career

Born in Brooklyn, New York City,^[2] Drucker attended Brooklyn's Erasmus Hall High School. There he met his future wife Barbara, whom he married shortly after her graduation. The couple moved to Long Island, where they brought up two daughters, Laurie and Melanie; their family eventually expanded with three grandchildren.^[3]

Drucker entered the comics field by assisting Bert Whitman on Debbie Dean in 1947 when he was 18. He moved on to do a syndicated newspaper gag panel, The Mountain Boys.^[3] He then joined the staff of National Periodical Publications (DC Comics), where he worked as a retoucher. Early in the 1950s, Drucker began doing freelance work.

Mad

In the fall of 1956, shortly after the departure of Mad's founding editor Harvey Kurtzman, Drucker found his way to Mad. His first visit to the magazine's offices coincided with a World Series broadcast, and publisher Bill Gaines told Drucker that if the Brooklyn Dodgers won the game, he would be hired. The Dodgers did win. Capricious though Drucker's alleged audition process may have been, it made for a good anecdote. Years later, Gaines unsurprisingly confessed, "We would have hired him anyway." More than a half century later, Drucker held the longest uninterrupted tenure of any Mad artist.

Drucker had arrived at the Mad offices with drawings of the Lone Ranger and Hopalong Cassidy; while unlike the continuities he would become best known for, the Mad staff reacted favorably. The first to review Drucker's portfolio was Mad associate editor Nick Meglin, who admitted, "I didn't spot how great he was at caricatures. Not at first. But then, he wasn't that great then." Drucker himself says that he "just wanted to be an artist... to get paid for drawing anything," and only started focusing on caricature work because he started getting more and more of those assignments. "That's when I realized I'd found my calling," said Drucker.^[4] At the time of Drucker's arrival, Mad did not regularly feature TV and movie satires; editor Al Feldstein credited Drucker's style and ability for the decision to start featuring them in every issue.

Meglin called Drucker "number one in a field of one." Charles Schulz wrote, "Frankly, I don't know how he does it, and I stand in a long list of admirers... I think he draws everything the way we would all like to draw."

During the same period, Drucker pursued assignments in television animation, movie poster art and magazine illustration, including covers for Time, some of which are in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institute. His album covers include art for the pop band Bears^[5] and the Anthrax album State of Euphoria. In addition to books collecting his own work, he has provided illustrations for numerous books by others, including children's books, humor books and satire. He drew the prop cartoons used in the 1957 Broadway musical comedy, Rumple, starring Gretchen Wyler, Elliott Gould and Eddie Foy, Jr.^[3]

Comic books

He also remained active for DC, illustrating War Stories, among other titles. Beginning in 1959, he spent four years drawing DC's The Adventures of Bob Hope comic book.^[3]

In 1962, Drucker teamed with the prolific humor writer Paul Laikin on the highly successful JFK Coloring Book (Kanrom Publishers), which sold 2,500,000 copies, prompting follow-up coloring books on Ollie North and Ronald Reagan.^[3][6] His film posters include Universal's American Graffiti (1973).^[2]

Comic strip

Between 1984 and 1986, Drucker collaborated with Jerry Dumas on the syndicated daily comic strip Benchley. Set in the White House, it followed the adventures of presidential aide Benchley. Dumas commented, "Nobody ever did a strip about the government. It's a wonderful place to set a strip. There's so much room for humor in the White House."^[7]

In 1990, Drucker designed the Supercup for Target. The following year, for the United Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Association, Drucker and executive Mitchell Erick created the Frugies (pronounced fru-jees) to promote June as National Fresh Fruit and Vegetable Month. The campaign included such characters as Lord Mushroom, Pepe L'Pepper, Penelope Pear and Adam Apple.^[8]

Awards

Mort Drucker's Time covers are in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. He was recognized for his work with the National Cartoonists Society Special Features Award (1985, 1986, 1987, 1988) and its Reuben Award (1987).^[9] Drucker was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Fine Arts degree from the Art Institute of Boston.

Bibliography

• Draw 50 Famous Caricatures by Mort Drucker and Lee J. Ames. Doubleday, 1990.
• The Ollie North Coloring Book by Mort Drucker and Paul Laikin. Andrews McMeel, 1987.

Illustrations for books by others

• A Book of Jean's Own, Maria Schneider writing as Jean Teasdale. St. Martin's Griffin, 2010.
• Christopher Lee's Treasury of Terror, edited by Russ Jones. Pyramid, 1966.

References

External links

• Mort Drucker official site
• List of Drucker's Mad contributions
• Tom Richmond: "The Mort Drucker Caricature Story"