Mort Drucker
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Mort Drucker (born 1929) is a cartoonist and caricaturist born in Brooklyn, New York. Drucker entered the comics field by assisting Bert Whitman on "Debbie Dean" in 1947. He then joined the staff of National Periodical Publications (DC Comics), where he worked as a retoucher. About 1950, he began freelancing. In 1956, upon the departure of Harvey Kurtzman, he found his way to Mad magazine. There, he specialized in drawing movie and television satires and parodies.
At the same time, Drucker pursued assignments in commercial art, television animation, movie posters and covers and illustrations for magazines. He also remained active for DC, illustrating "Sgt. Rock," among others. In 1962, he teamed up with Paul Laiken and made the highly successful "JFK Coloring Book" for Kanrom Publishers. Between 1984 and 1986, he made the syndicated daily "Benchley" in cooperation with Jerry Dumas. In addition, he was active as an illustrator of children's books.
Drucker is a genius caricaturist who was a centerpiece artist at Mad for decades. His ability to capture a likeness from many different angles and with a variety of expressions bordered on the supernatural. But even though he practiced his art on the pages of Mad for almost 50 years, he remained below the radar of most people over the age of 18. He managed to combine a comic strip style with consistent photographic likenesses of film and TV stars, panel after panel. Drucker also has contributed to Time magazine covers.
He was recognized for his work with the National Cartoonist Society's Special Features Award in 1985, 1986, 1987 and 1988, and its Reuben Award for 1987.
[edit] External links
- Drucker's entry at "Rita Marie Represents" (his agent's website)
- NCS Awards
| Contributors to Mad "The Usual Gang of Idiots" |
| Editors |
|---|
| Jerry DeFuccio | Al Feldstein | John Ficarra | Harvey Kurtzman | Nick Meglin |
| Writers |
| Anthony Barbieri | Dick DeBartolo | Desmond Devlin | Stan Hart | Frank Jacobs | Tom Koch | Arnie Kogen | Barry Leibmann | Jay Lynch | Andrew J. Schwartzberg | Larry Siegel | Lou Silverstone | Mike Snider |
| Writer-Artists |
| Sergio Aragonés | Dave Berg | John Caldwell | Don Edwing | Al Jaffee | Don Martin | Paul Peter Porges | Antonio Prohías |
| Artists |
| Tom Bunk | Bob Clarke | Paul Coker, Jr. | Jack Davis | Mort Drucker | Will Elder | Drew Friedman | Bernard Krigstein | Peter Kuper | Hermann Mejia | Norman Mingo | Tom Richmond | Jack Rickard | John Severin | Angelo Torres | Rick Tulka | Sam Viviano | Basil Wolverton | Monte Wolverton | Wally Wood | George Woodbridge | Bill Wray |
| Photographers |
| Irving Schild |
| Related articles |
| Mad Magazine | William M. Gaines |
