Happy 85th Birthday Sergio!

The pages of MAD Magazine has been graced by the work of some of the greatest cartoonists in the history of the medium… and that is not hyperbole. Jack Davis, Wally Wood, Harvey Kurtzman, Al Jaffee, Will Elder, Mort Drucker, Paul Coker, Antonio Prohias, Don Martin… the list keeps going. Perhaps the greatest pure cartoonist of them all turns 85 today!

The incomparable Sergio Aragonés started with MAD in 1963 at age 26. He would go on to become one of the most prolific members of the Usual Gang of Idiots (second only to Jaffee, actually), appearing in (as of this writing) 501 issues (there have only been 577) contributing hundreds of different articles, his “A MAD Look At…” feature, and his “Drawn Out Dramas” aka “Marginals”… those tiny pantomime gag cartoons in the margins of the magazine.

Sergio once told me the origin of his “Drawn Out Dramas”. When he first started working for MAD editor Al Feldstein and publisher Bill Gaines loved his work but they didn’t know how many jobs they could give him. Sergio was desperate for as much work as he could get, being newly arrived in the US and not knowing anyone. Back in the early days of the magazine version of MAD, they used to put typed out jokes, gags, or goofy quotes in the margins of the magazine just to help fill the space, calling it “Marginal Thinking”. Sergio suggested to Feldstein and Gaines that he could draw little gag cartoons instead, designed to work horizontally, vertically or even around the corners for that space, and he did it by making a dummy copy of MAD and drawing them in to show them. They liked the idea and the work but didn’t think he could keep up doing 10-16 gags every issue like that. However they gave him the chance to submit marginal cartoons and if they liked them they’d buy and run them in the margins. 60 years later he’s done approximately 10,000 or so of them, only missing one issue (#111) since 1963 thanks to the post office losing his mailed submissions.

Sergio is not just MAD Magazine. His Groo the Wanderer comic book, created with collaborators Mark Evanier, Stan Sakai and Tom Luth, is one of the most successful creator-owner comic book series ever, and incidentally celebrated it’s 40th birthday this year. Sergio has also written and drawn for DC, Marvel, Dark Horse, Bongo, Fantagraphics, Malibu and probably a couple dozen other comic book publishers doing all kinds of different stories and comics. He’s also an incredibly versatile artist. His signature style may seem cartoony and simple, but that’s by design. He can do elaborate and realistic illustrations if called for, and do them very well.

So, Happy 85th Birthday, mi amigo. The world has been a much better place to live in since you picked up the pen!