Happy 90th Birthday Mort Drucker!

Happy 90th birthday to one of the greatest cartoonists and caricaturists who ever lived… the legendary Mort Drucker.

While the early MAD Magazine had a number of film and TV parodies pre-1960, It is no exaggeration (pun intended) to say that without Mort’s very unique and incredible set of caricature and storytelling skills, MAD Magazine would never have had movie and TV parodies as one of the staples of the publication for 60 years. When Mort came on board they recognized his skill set and very shortly put him to work on jobs requiring the drawing of likenesses (like the “Bob and Ray” features) and then on to film and television spoofs (i.e. “continuities”). Mort quickly defined the film/TV genre with his combination of startling caricature likenesses and realistic yet funny and exaggerated figures and environments. He was able to straddle the fence between realistic illustration and cartooning in a way that allowed him to capture the visual feel of the films and shows he was spoofing and still make the art funny. Too heavy of a cartoon style takes the reader out of the film/TV show you are spoofing and you are simple reading a cartoon version of the show. Mort’s art satirized the visuals of the subject as much as the words satirized the plots and dialogue.

I’ve been lucky to be able to call Mort a friend for over 20 years now. If you want to read the incredible story of how we met and how I got that caricature of myself by him at the top of this post, have a read… but I warn you if you read that you’ll be jealous you are not married to my wife. Frankly I owe him a great deal for my career. He sponsored me for membership in the National Cartoonists Society, encouraged me to send my work to MAD, and of course has been a great inspiration to me and many thousands of artists for well over half a century.

Happy 90th Birthday, Mort!!