Number 2049: Mort Drucker was also “Crazy”

Mort Drucker, born in 1929 (and as of this writing, still with us at age 88), was freelancing in comic books before he became a star for Mad in the fifties. This particular tale is from Atlas Comics’ Crazy #6 (1954). I have read a lot funnier stories drawn by Drucker over the past 50+ years. “Tall in the Saddle” seems a bit hurried. Maybe a tight deadline. I am showing it because Drucker’s early pre-Mad work was not lacking in some of the sophistication he later showed in that magazine.

Five years later Drucker did a Perry Mason parody for Mad that caught my attention. (See the link below.) I had seen his artwork before, but it was the story that showed me how good he was. Caricatured likenesses became his trademark.

The National Cartoonist Society has an excellent 40-minute conversation with Drucker. You can see it here. I hope they will keep the video online forever, but if not and you find a black space instead of a video, well, you have missed out!

Go back to 2011 for “Perry Masonmint”...just click on the thumbnail.

Number 1008


Mort Drucker's Perry Mason


"The Night Perry Masonmint Lost A Case" is a favorite of mine, from Mad #48, 1959. Not only am I a fan of of artist Mort Drucker, but I also remember the Raymond Burr TV show with fondness. I watched it every week.

I downloaded the scans of the original art from Heritage Auctions. It went through some production phases in which it was cleaned up, where the bleed edges of the panel borders were covered up, giving it a neater appearance than it had in its primary state. Like many artists whose work was done for black line printing, Drucker used Craftint paper, "painting" with the chemical that brought out the ben day effects. That paper became known as Grafix, and is now no longer produced. (The end of an era.)

The first Perry Mason series lasted for nine seasons on CBS, and there was a time when he actually lost a case on television (CNN did some research at some point and found out he actually lost three of three hundred, not a bad track record). I remember the hoopla around that first "losing" episode. I wonder if this satire gave some Perry Mason producer or writer the idea.

Number 581


Case of the Counterfeit Cigs


Two things make this short story interesting: Madman Mort Drucker's artwork, and the subject matter, cigarettes.

Yes, folks, there was a time when cigarette smoking was not viewed with utter disdain and loathing. For my international readers, in America smoking is still a legal activity, up to a point. When I started smoking in 1967 I could go anywhere, walk into a retail establishment, store or restaurant, and be able to pull out a cigarette and start puffing away. That began to change, and by the time I quit in 1977 the road to pariahdom for smokers was being paved with clean air ordinances, health warnings, and the dirty looks of passersby.

When I see working folks taking a smoke break, outside under awnings or in doorways as it rains or snows, I cringe. I remember my own cigarette jones very well.

I have only one word for the miserable huddled masses, having to go outdoors to puff: QUIT. The writing on the wall, or should I say the smoke signals, tell you that society has decreed that in the social pecking order smokers are only slightly above criminals.

This story is from DC Comics' Gang Busters #51, a Comics Code-approved story from 1956. In "The Case of the Counterfeit Cigarettes" the fictional cigarette company is not the villain, but the innocent victim of counterfeiting.

By coincidence, the Vanity Fair magazine web site currently has an article on North Korea's government sanctioned program of counterfeiting, both U.S. currency (called supernotes) and cigarettes. You can read the article here.

Number 256


Underground comics


Here are variations on a theme: two stories about people who find utopian civilizations underground, with two different endings. "The Men In The Mole" was published in Atlas Comics' Journey Into Unknown Worlds #55, March 1957, and "The Spelunker" appeared in Atlas' Marvel Tales #141, December 1955.

"Mole" was illustrated by John Forte, and "Spelunker" by famous Mad-man, Mort Drucker.