Mad Playboy of Art, The

Will Elder is widely regarded as one of the most influential cartoonists of the second half of the 20th century. And one of the funniest. He is best known for his artistic partnership with Harvey Kurtzman on all their most highly visible collaborations throughout their careers: Mad magazine, Humbug, Goodman Beaver, Trump, and Little Annie Fanny. At long last, Elder is getting the book he so richly deserves: The Mad Playboy of Art, a gigantic coffee table book collecting his best work from more than a half a century of drawing and painting.

The book will reprint a representative sampling of the work well-known to aficionados, including stories from the original Mad comic, independent efforts from Humbug, Help!, and Trump magazines, and Little Annie Fanny pages reproduced from the original, painted artwork. Above and beyond the known is the relatively unknown, obscure, or unpublished work, such as pages and spreads from a variety of magazines in the '50s and '60s that Elder contributed to (such as Pageant and Saturday Evening Post), the infamous Norman Rockwell painting parody slated for the 3rd, unreleased issue of Trump, hysterical gag sketches, celebrity caricatures, oil paintings done for his family, and more.

The book includes commentary by Hugh Hefner, Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, Terry Gilliam, William Stout, and Jerry Garcia, who describe the impact that Elder's work had on satire and comic at in the second half of 20th century America. Elder himself comments on individual pieces, and Daniel Clowes, the author of Ghost World, supplies the introduction.