Jack Davis 1924-2016

Our friend, Jack Davis...

A few years back, several Southeast Chapter members, along with NCS President Tom Richmond, gathered for a panel honoring our fabled chapter member, Jack Davis, in Saint Simon’s, Georgia, the artist’s hometown. The highlight of the event was Jack’s first gallery presentation in the area — a dazzling retrospective of over fifty years of work.

What struck each member of our group most about the occasion was the general lack of awareness by the community that a legend lived among them. From EC Comics to MAD Magazine to record albums to movie posters to Time and TV Guide covers, the local gentry seemed surprised as much as impressed. As a personal friend and collaborator for MAD and numerous freelance projects for over five decades, I was not surprised by their reaction. Since meeting Jack for the first time, I never saw a change in his personal nature despite his phenomenal rise to the top of the humorous illustration profession. Jack remained the warm, modest, decent man that all who met him knew him to be.

From his early beginnings as a comic book artist, this tall, distinguished “Southern gentleman” was the antithesis of everything he captured on paper. Always fighting an internal war with the EC horror stories that brought him his initial commercial success, Jack found his niche when MAD’s creator Harvey Kurtzman offered him the opportunity to illustrate one of his favorite subjects — a western. His rendition of “The Lone Stranger” is considered Jack’s launching pad into MAD’s “classic period,” as well as the start of the luminous career that followed.

As an artist, there is little to be said about Jack’s work that NCS members don’t already know. Indeed, his name is forever among a select number of dignitaries that appear atop any “favorite artist” list, as his prestigious Reuben and Lifetime Achievement Awards attest.

Often imitated, what overly influenced followers fail to grasp is that it wasn’t Davis’ fluid brushwork and pen-and-ink virtuosity that served as the core of his success and popularity. It was his inherent ability to create outrageously funny art effortlessly. Like the great athletes he famously portrayed throughout his career, Jack was a natural talent, and that can neither be learned nor taught.

As a person, there is little to be said about Jack that all who knew him don’t already know. Generous and encouraging to fellow cartoonists and students alike, and endowed with an endearing touch of rascal that delighted his cohorts, it was Jack’s devotion to his beloved Dena and children — Jack, Jr., Katie — and grandchildren that surpassed all he achieved as one of America’s most beloved humorous artists.

We will miss you, friend Jack ...