Jack Davis - Illustration History

Biography

Regarded by publisher Bill Gaines as one of their fastest artists, Jack Davis—born John Burton Davis, Jr.— was also one of the most in-demand artists during his career. Alongside his designs for MAD, Davis also worked on movie posters, advertising art, record albums, and various other comics and magazines.

As a child, he sent in his own self-drawn work to Tip Top Comics, where two of them appeared in the readers’ section. In high school, Davis drew for the school’s newspaper and yearbook. In 1941, during World War II, Davis joined the Navy where he contributed to their newspaper, the Navy News. He was stationed in Guam as he fought against the Japanese army, and during the time he was stationed there, he continued to draw every week.

When Davis was discharged, he began studying art at the University of Georgia under painter and administrator Lamar Dodd. During his time in Georgia, he worked for the school’s paper The Red and the Black. There, he re-wrote his comic from the Navy, and helped found their own humor magazine titled Bullsheet—which circulated off-campus. Although Davis did not graduate from the University of Georgia, he was able to find work as an assistant for Ed Dodd (first cousin of Lamar Dodd) and his newspaper comic Mark Trail, which appeared in The New York Post. While in New York, Davis worked on various other projects alongside his work for Dodd. He later enrolled in the Art Students League in New York.

In 1951, Davis began his journey with EC when he walked into a newsstand, picked up one of their comics, and scribbled down their address. He applied for a job and was immediately accepted without having any idea of what comics the company produced. When Davis arrived at EC, he was tasked with illustrating one of Al Feldstein’s stories. After handing in his work the next day, Davis became a regular contributor. He worked on numerous titles including Tales from the Crypt, The Vault of Horror, Two-Fisted Tales, and The Haunt of Fear, among many others. While working for EC, he was regarded by Gaines, Feldstein, and Harvey Kurtzman as the fastest artist working at the time. However, during the mid-1950s, with the release of Frederick Wertham’s “Seduction of the Innocent,” all comics that were of a violent and criminal nature were brought to trial in front of the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency. The hearings eventually gave rise to the creation of the Comics Code Authority, which tamed and censored what comics could depict on their pages. Unfortunately for EC Comics, that meant most of their titles were forced to cease publication.

However, Kurtzman’s MAD was still operational, and it was a comic that Davis had already been a part of since its first publication in 1952. In fact, Davis illustrated the first story that appeared in their first issue. Since then, he contributed to the comic and magazine until issue #31 in 1957. When Kurtzman left in 1956 due to creative differences between him and Gaines, Davis left a year later.

Following his departure, Davis worked for various other publications, even working on some of Kurtzman’s later, short-lived publications like Trump and Humbug. In 1965, Davis soon returned to MAD where he stayed for most of his career, contributing to 242 issues of the magazine. Apart from returning to MAD, Davis also worked for other clients. He soon became inundated with work for various other publications. During his career, he illustrated more than one-hundred books, sixty-five record albums, and more than forty movie posters. In 2014 he retired at the age of 90, and in 2016 due to complications from a stroke, Davis died at the age of 91.

Illustrations by Jack Davis

Additional Resources

Bibliography

Kurtzman, Harvey, Al Feldstein and Jack Davis. MAD’s Original Idiots: Jack Davis. New York: Mad Books, 2015.

Davis, Jack and William Stout. Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture – A Career Retrospective. Seattle: Fantagraphics Books, 2011.

Harrison, Hank and Jack Davis. The Art of Jack Davis! Binary Publications, 2012.