The legendary Will Elder passed away last week at age 86. He had a long, glorious career as a founding artist for MAD Magazine, TRUMP, Humbug and Little Annie Fanny. Working from these platforms, he made a deep impact on the youth of America (especially teen age boys).
For me, Elder's great contribution to humanity was not an original style or a sensitive line or brilliant designs. His work offered no profound insights into human comedy or tragedy. Instead, his strength was slapstick. Note how Elder equipped the menacing space creature with a glass cutter to get access to the space cutie:
Look closely and you will see that her helmet is also a gum ball machine. Elder's unruly imagination wouldn't have been effective without the technical skill to draw so convincingly. Yet he never gets bogged down in the detail; his gags never interfere with the fluidity of the picture.
Here you can see Elder's craftsmanship close up:
In order to keep a consistent value on the girl's thigh, he painted out and redrew individual dots. Was it worth the effort? All I can tell you is that those legs were extremely important to boys all across America who would have noticed if even a single dot was out of place.
Many of those boys were motivated to become artists just so they could draw girls the way Elder did.
I speak from experience.
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