The Art of Harvey Kurtzman

Curated by Monte Beauchamp and Denis Kitchen

March 6th through May 11th
Tues 10 - 8 Wed - Fri 10 - 5 Sat 12 - 4

The Society of Illustrators
128 East 63rd Street
(between Park and Lexington Avenues)
New York, NY 10065

Tel: (212) 838-2560
Fax: (212) 838-2561
E-Mail: info@societyillustrators.org

boing boing: The Art of Harvey Kurtzman at the Museum of American Illustration: exclusive preview

 Harvey Kurtzman is a god! Back in 1973, during the 1950s nostalgia craze, MAD magazine began reprinting the twenty year old comics written, edited and covers often drawn by Harvey Kurtzman as a supplement in their "specials." Specials were like reruns. The issues were made up of work that appeared in the monthly magazine over the past year or so and always included an extra incetive for you to buy this recently recycled material (flexi-discs, stickers, posters etc). Anyway, this is where I first saw Harvey Kurtzman's work and I was hooked. So much so that even though my loyalty to MAD's brand of humor waned as I entered high school I would still pick up the Super Specials that republished comics from the Kurtman era. All these years later, Kutzman's gleeful anarchy is something I still return to again and again.
 Below are some books off of my shelves. Drawger is an illustration site so I figure it should have some ilustrations. If you want to learn more about the exhibit click on the excellent boing boing link above.

 There have been numerous MAD reprints over the years. No less an authority than art spiegelman swears by this series. They ran from the summer of 1997 to the winter of 1999 (eight issues). He claims these reproductions are closest to the original comic books. You can still find them from time to time on Ebay. It should be noted that among the artists who worked with Kurtzman on MAD were Will Elder, Wallace Wood, Bernard Krigstein and Basil Wolverton among others.

"This very special Artist’s Edition features more than 20 incredible stories and 15 classic covers—including the cover of MAD #!—and every issue of MAD from #1 to #18 is represented by either a cover or story (and often both!) and is scanned from the actual original art and printed same-size as drawn—A massive 15 x 22 inches! If you are a fan of MAD, or just great cartooning, this is the Artist’s Edition for you—192 gigantic pages of MAD goodness!"

But enough about me