Jack Davis, American comic book, sport and stamp artist, Died at 91

  Artists

John Burton “Jack” Davis, Jr. was born on December 2, 1924, and died on July 27, 2016.

He was an American cartoonist and illustrator.

Jack was known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art, and numerous comic book stories.

Davis was one of the founding cartoonists for Mad in 1952.

Jack Davis cartoon characters are characterized by extremely distorted anatomy, including big heads, skinny legs, and extremely large feet.

Jack illustrated a Coca-Cola training manual, a job that gave him enough money to buy a car and drive to New York, in 1949.

Following his time at the Art Students League of New York, he found work with the Herald Tribune Syndicate as an inker on Leslie Charteris’s The Saint comic strip, drawn by Mike Roy in 1949–50.

Davis own humor strip, Beauregard, with gags in a Civil War setting, was carried briefly by the McClure Syndicate.

He received rejections from several comic book publishers, Jack began freelancing for William Gaines’ EC Comics in 1950, contributing to Tales from the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, Frontline Combat, Two-Fisted Tales, The Vault of Horror, Piracy, Incredible Science Fiction, Crime Suspenstories, Shock Suspenstories, and Terror Illustrated.

Jack Davis also had a regular comic strip feature in Pro Quarterback magazine in the early 1970s entitled Superfan, which was written by his Mad cohort, Nick Meglin.

Since May 2014, he was the only surviving artist of the EC horror comics.

Davis won many honors and awards, he was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2003.

Jack Davis passed away at 91 years old.