Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.15: Harvey Kurtzman

No.15: Harvey Kurtzman

In terms of broader pop culture Harvey Kurtzman will always be the overlooked, unsung catalyst, but in the industry he was the man who brought conscience, social issues and above all satire to comics. His genius, intense creativity and dedication to the form made him a pivotal presence in the medium in terms of humour, becoming the link between the Marx Brothers and Monty Python. He was also the lynchpin for all humour and satire comics that followed, effectively becoming the godfather of underground comics due to the title he created that would become an institution, Mad. Words: Andrew Colman…

From the moment he learned to draw, Kurtzman knew he wanted to write and illustrate comic books. Having discovered the Golden Age masters (Gould, Canniff, Foster, Raymond and of course key influence Eisner) in his teens, Kurtzman won a scholarship to a high school of music and art that was also attended by several of his future EC stablemates. Kurtzman spent the first half of the 1940s attempting to develop his style, which only really began to gel when he arrived at Timely Comics, doing single gag pages in the company’s humour titles in his series Hey Look. He continued to work at Timely and the odd Sunday strip, but grew tired of such work due to lack of inspiration. However emerging genres in the medium and the arrival of E.C. Comics would change everything.

Beginning his time at EC at the birth of the publisher’s New Trend era, Kurtzman was just one of a phenomenal group of talented and individualist artists, with competition and head honcho Bill Gaines’s desire to lift the art form turning the company into a hothouse of creativity. Kurtzman needless to say thrived in this ideal context, initially working on EC’s horror and science-fiction books before spearheading both the company’s war titles, Two Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat. Kurtzman, who wrote the stories for both, also provided layouts to be finished by other members of the bullpen. Although he didn’t originate the war comic as a going concern, he certainly made it his own, his art and stories rapidly developing into stark, uncompromising diatribes about the futility and bleakness of the battlefield. Regardless of the hard-hitting framing and subject matter, Kurtzman’s anti-war stories were an artistic tour de force, with some of the most iconic covers in the history of the medium. Kurtzman’s intent was to provide a corrective to the prevailing jingoism and glorification of warfare in the 1950s, and set the standard for all future American war books –  his evocative chiaroscuro style providing the immediacy and horror of combat and inevitable carnage.

Not long into his tenure at EC Gaines offered Kurtzman a humour title over which he would have complete artistic control – Mad. The title, with Kurtzman providing layouts throughout, quickly became a flagship book for the publisher, bringing an ersatz, hyper, screwball and above all subversive brand of humour, underpinned by a very Jewish New York sensibility. His satires were a leap forward, providing a cutting edge, irreverent take on all aspects of pop culture – classics such as Wild One (Wild ½), Superduperman, Flesh Garden and Prince Violent all scathingly iconoclastic. And Kurtzman’s parody of the Daily News (The Daily Poop) was a hysterical shredding of exploitation rags that, despite being 60 years old remains highly relevant. Inevitably the success of Mad led to copycat publications such as Crazy, Get Lost, Wild, Riot and many others.

Kurtzman remained at EC after Gaines shut down his comics’ line and the conversion of Mad into a magazine, but due to falling out with the publisher over financial control of said title, he moved on, working on various short-lived but essential projects like Trump and Humbug (both in a similar vein to Mad) and Harvey Kurtzman’s Jungle Book, a comic in paperback format featuring adult material.

In 1960 he co-published Help! with James Warren, a hugely important magazine which featured far more risqué parodies than Mad, and saw Kurtzman collaborate with a pre-Python Terry Gilliam and John Cleese (the latter on a surreal fumetti strip) as well as with Woody Allen. Of equal significance were some of the young cartoonists showcased in its run – Robert Crumb (who had already been inspired to draw due to Mad a decade earlier), Gilbert Shelton, Spain and Jay Lynch. All these artists would be lynchpins in the San Francisco underground comics scene a few years later. After Help! ended, Kurtzman worked full time with partner Will Elder on Playboy’s Little Annie Fanny, a sexualised female version of his wide-eyed innocent character Goodman Beaver.

Despite entreaties by various publishers to re-enter the industry in the 1970s, Kurtzman took up teaching at New York’s School of Visual Arts with colleague and friend Will Eisner. By this point his stock had grown, with Kurtzman reaching an emeritus position as the icon of satirical cartooning, with students, acolytes (such as Crumb) and the industry in general hailing his genius and humanistic approach. Despite being barely known outside fandom, there is no question that his impact on the medium and numerous artists that followed was immense, his reach as a humourist as significant as any screen comedy legend.

 

Here’s links through to the other entries in our 101 Greatest so far as well

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.16: Walter Simonson

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.17: Russ Heath

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.18: Bill Sienkiewicz

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.19: Jack Cole

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.20: Bernie Krigstein

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.21: Graham Ingels

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.22: Al Williamson

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.23: Barry Windsor-Smith

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.24: Alex Ross

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.25: John Byrne

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.26: Mike Mignola

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.27: Basil Wolverton

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.28: Howard Chaykin

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.29: Moebius

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.30: Dave Gibbons

 

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.31: Creig Flessel

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.32: Milt Caniff

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.34: Burne Hogarth

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.35: LB Cole

 

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.37: Bill Everett

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.38: Robert Crumb

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.39: Mac Raboy

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.41: Jim Starlin

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.42: Mike Zeck

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.43: Adam Hughes

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.44: Daniel Clowes

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.45: Gene Colan

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.46: George Perez

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.47: Michael William Kaluta

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.48: Cary Nord

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.49: Frank Quitely

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.50: Mike Ploog

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.51: Johnny Craig

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.52: Darwyn Cooke

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.53: Steve Dillon

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.54: Gil Kane

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.55: Michael Zulli

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.56: John Romita

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.57: Joe Maneely

 

 

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.58: Marshall Rogers

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.59: John Severin

 

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.60: Alex Toth

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.61: Brian Bolland

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.62: David Mazzuchelli

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.63 Reed Crandall

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.64 Harry Anderson

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.65 Nick Cardy

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.66 Matt Wagner

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.67 Bryan Hitch

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.68 Shawn Martinbrough

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.69 Al Feldstein

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.70 Nestor Redondo

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.71 Tarpe Mills

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.72 Eduardo Risso

 

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.73 JH Williams III

 

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.74 Irv Novick

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.75 Dan Zolnerowich

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.76 Gilbert Shelton

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.77 Tommy Lee Edwards

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.78: Sean Phillips

 

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.79: Jose Luis Garcia-Lopez

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.80: Dan DeCarlo

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.81: Marie Severin

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.82: John Paul Leon

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.83: Jim Lee

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.84: Denys Cowan

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.85: Ross Andru

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.86: Paul Gustavson

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.87: George Evans

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.88: Michael Golden

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.89: Matt Baker

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.90: Todd McFarlane

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.91: Fiona Staples

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.92: Carl Barks

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.93: Carmine Infantino

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.94: Alan Davis

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.95: CC Beck

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.96: Syd Shores

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.97: Bob Fujitani

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.98: Tim Sale

Tripwire’s 101 Greatest Comic Artists Of All Time: No.99: Jim Aparo

https://tripwiremagazine.co.uk/headlines/tripwires-101-greatest-comic-artists-of-all-time-no-100/

https://tripwiremagazine.co.uk/headlines/tripwires-101-greatest-comic-artists-of-all-time-no-101/