Will Elder self-portrait

William Elder (aka Bill Elder) (born September 22, 1921 in the Bronx, New York) is an American illustrator and comic book artist who worked in numerous areas of commercial art yet is best known for a zany cartoon s tyle that helped launch Harvey Kurtzman's Mad comic book in 1952. He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003. Image File history File linksMetadata Willelder. ... Image File history File linksMetadata Willelder. ... September 22 is the 265th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (266th in leap years). ... 1921 (MCMXXI) was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar). ... The Bronx is one of the five boroughs of United States. ... Official language(s) None, English de facto Capital Albany Largest city New York City Area  - Total  - Width  - Length  - % water  - Latitude  - Longitude Ranked 27th 141,205 km² 455 km 530 km 13. ... An illustrator is a graphic artist who specializes in enhancing written text by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text. ... A comic book is a magazine or book containing the art form of comics. ... Harvey Kurtzman (October 3, 1924 - February 21, 1993) was a U.S. cartoonist and magazine editor. ... Harvey Kurtzmans cover for the first issue of the comic book Mad Mad is an American humor magazine founded by publisher William Gaines and editor Harvey Kurtzman in 1952. ... An Eisner Award is given for creative achievement in comic books, one of the most prestigious such awards in North America. ...

Kurtzman and Elder met when they were students at Manhattan's High School of Music and Art. In the late 1940s, the two teamed with Charles Stern to form the Charles William Harvey Studio, creating comics between 1948 and 1951 for Prize Comics and other publishers. At EC Comics, he inked John Severin's pencils on stories for Weird Fantasy, Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat and other titles. Manhattan Borough,highlighted in yellow, lies between the East River and the Hudson River. ... The Fiorello H. LaGuardia High School of Music & Art and Performing Arts is located near the Juilliard School in the Lincoln Center district of Manhattan, on Amsterdam Avenue between 65th Street and 64th Street. ... Entertaining Comics was headed by William Gaines but is better known by its publishing name of EC Comics. ... John Severin is an American comic book artist most noted for working on the EC Comics line of comic books -- primarily on Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat, the companys war comics. ... Weird Fantasy was part of the EC Comics line in the early 1950s. ... Entertaining Comics was headed by William Gaines but is better known by its publishing name of EC Comics. ... Entertaining Comics was headed by William Gaines but is better known by its publishing name of EC Comics. ...

When Kurtzman created Mad in 1952, Elder was one of the comic book's original team of five artists (Kurtzman, Elder, Severin, Jack Davis and Wally Wood). and his wacky panels, filled with background gags, immediately attracted attention, first with "Ganefs!" in Mad's debut issue but especially in the second issue with "Mole!" The story depicted the successive efforts of prisoner Melvin Mole to tunnel away from the prison, first with a spoon, then with a toothpick and finally with a nostril hair. The wild exaggeration in this story left such a strong impression that it was often quoted ("Dig! Dig!") and even referenced years later in a Psychology Today illustration. Wallace Wally Wood (born June 17, 1927, Menahga, Minnesota, United States; died November 2, 1981), was an American writer-artist best known for his work in EC Comics and Mad. ... Psychology Today is a monthly magazine published in the United States. ...

Whatever humorous slant Kurtzman devised in his layouts received a heightened hilarity and amplification when Elder sat down to draw the finished art, and Elder's insertion of background gags set the tone for the entire comic book, quickly spreading throughout into the panels of the other Mad artists and other comic books imitating Mad. Elder's device of separate foreground and background actions was referenced by Louis Malle in his film Zazie dans le métro (1960). Louis Malle (October 30, 1932 - November 23, 1995) was a French film director. ...

He collaborated frequently with Kurtzman. After leaving Mad, the two worked together on a string of short-lived humor magazines: Trump, Humbug and Help!. For Help!, Elder parodied Archie Comics with his "Goodman Beaver" strip, considered by many to be Elder and Kurtzman's greatest collaboration. The series was reprinted by Kitchen Sink Press with each panel expanded to page size so the readers could see all the little gags. Trump was a glossy magazine of satire and erotic humor, mostly in the forms of comic-strip features and short stories. ... Help! Harvey Kurtzmans longest-running magazine project after leaving Mad Magazine and EC Publications, Help! (1960-1965) was a chronically underfunded but innovative magazine published by James Warren, who was also publishing successful monster-movie and horror comics magazines simultaneously. ... Archie Comics is an American comic book publisher known for its many series featuring the fictional teenagers Archie Andrews, Betty Cooper, Veronica Lodge, Reggie Mantle, and Forsythe Jughead Jones. ... Kitchen Sink Press was a comic book publisher in from the late 1960s until the late 1990s when it went out of business. ...

In the 1960s, Elder and Kurtzman worked for Playboy magazine on the cartoon parody feature "Little Annie Fanny", a color comic a few pages long that stared a naively chaste, busty blond. In 2001, Dark Horse Comics published the trade paperback collections Playboy's Little Annie Fanny, Volume 1" (ISBN 156971519X) and Playboy's Little Annie Fanny, Volume 2: 1970-1988 (ISBN 1569715203). Classic Playboy logo. ... Little Annie Fanny is a long running comic strip created by Harvey Kurtzman and Will Elder for Playboy that parodied the comic strip, Little Orphan Annie. ... Dark Horse Comics is an American comic book publisher, one of the largest independent publishers behind dominant publishers Marvel Comics and DC Comics. ... A trade paperback can refer to any book that is bound with a heavy paper cover that is generally cheaper than the hardcover but more expensive than the regular paperback version. ...

As well, Elder's advertising art, caricatures, cartoons, illustrations and stories were collected in the 392-page career retrospective, Will Elder: The Mad Playboy of Art (Fantagraphics, 2003; ISBN 1560976039). Fantagraphics Books is an American publisher of alternative comics, underground comics, classic comic strip anthologies, magazines, and graphic novels located in the Maple Leaf neighborhood of Seattle, Washington. ...

External link

• Mad Mumblings Feature story on the MAD legend.

• "A Conversation With Willy" (Will Elder) 2005 exclusive Interview by Dr. Keith E. Tubbs

• Gary Groth interviews Will Elder