Jack Davis, one of the most prolific, well recognized artists of our time, passed away. He was 91 years old.

Known for his art in MAD, Tales from the Crypt, movie posters and covers of Time and TV Guide, Davis had etired in December 2014, a few weeks after his 90th birthday.

His work has been an integral part of the American pop culture landscape through a career that spans eight decades. The cartoonist and illustrator has a dynamic body of work in MAD magazine, advertising art, magazine covers, album covers, comics, and movie posters.

Born in Atlanta, Georgia in 1924, Davis took an early interest in cartoons. He read the Sunday comics voraciously and spent plenty of time trying to copy the art he found on newsprint. While his family listened to comedic radio shows like The Jack Benny Program and Lum and Abner, Davis would listen to the comedic routines and draw Mickey Mouse cartoons trying to produce something funny out of still drawings. His interest in comics was nurtured by the work of Hal Foster, who had been drawing Tarzan strips. Already successfully honing his sense of humor, Davis was published for the first time in Tip Top Comics #9 in 1936, after he submitted a four-panel cartoon to the reader’s page. Around that time he also had cartoons published in Georgia Tech’s humor magazine The Yellow Jacket.He was just 12 years old at the time.

After serving in the Navy, he attended the University of Georgia where his career began to take off. He simultaneously drew for the campus newspaper, The Red and Black, and helped launch The Bull Sheet, an off-campus humor magazine filled with cartoons and risqué jokes. He served as a cartoonist intern at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution and during one summer he inked Ed Dodd’s Mark Trail comic strip which he parodied later in MAD as Mark Trade. Through Dodd’s encouragement, Davis continued studying at the Art Student’s League in New York and worked on the Herald Tribune as an inker on The Saint comic strip.

Davis started freelancing for EC Comics in 1950 on their iconic titles Tales from the Crypt, The Haunt of Fear, Two-Fisted Tales, The Vault of Horror, Crime SuspenStories, Shock SuspenStories, and Terror Illustrated. He was well known for the way he depicted the Crypt-Keeper, evolving the character from the simplistic version by Al Feldstein to a craggy, decrepit man with lank hair and warts. Davis also worked on Harvey Kurtzman’s war comics, creating covers for Two-Fisted Tales, Frontline Combat, and Incredible Science Fiction. The style of scratchy lines and multi-layered layouts that Davis perfected, developed a following in the ’50s with artists from rival companies attempting to copy his style.

His comically exaggerated characters made him a perfect choice to be one of the founding cartoonists for MAD in 1952. It presented the opportunity to spoof some of the more grotesque imagery he had worked on at EC. Davis started spoofing sports figures and stars of Westerns as one of the early pop culture satirists. His work was featured in the first 30 issues of MAD, which led to his work on covers for albums, books, and Time and TV Guide, as well as movie posters. In 1961 he wrote, drew, and edited Yak Yak his own book for Dell Comics. He returned to MAD in the mid-1960s and his work appeared in almost every issue for decades.

In 1963 he was commissioned to create the movie poster art for the screwball comedy It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. The poster shows a litany of characters fighting like buffoons, climbing over one another to get to the case full of money. Over 50 years later, when the Criterion Collection made plans to release the movie on DVD and Blu-ray, he was sought to provide artwork for the accompanying booklet. The successful completion of the poster proved a turning point in his career.

The poster he produced for Kelly’s Heroes was particularly impressive during this time period. Davis’ artwork portrays the four lead characters in a cheesy grin parade carrying bundles of gold and a flag made from the one dollar bill. At this time Clint Eastwood had already developed an intimidating reputation for the hardened men he often played. For Davis to capture a look of silly-stupid happiness on the face of the man who usually glared from under a cowboy hat was comedic genius.

Another of his beloved, and imitated, poster designs was for the Walter Matthau comedy The Bad News Bears. His work on this poster fit the tone of the movie perfectly, showing the team as a collection of preteen miscreants with a slob for a coach.

For almost 80 years he entertained everyone in comics to magazines, books, and movies. From fans of EC Comics to the MAD readers, TV Guide subscribers, comic strip collectors, and movie buffs, it’d be difficult to find a home in America without art by Davis.

“Jack Davis transcended the comic book market in many ways, but it never transcended him. He succeeded in bringing popular culture to a wider audience through his incredible work on magazine covers and movie posters, but I’ll always cherish his humor and horror comic book work for E.C. I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. To a person, every creator or fan I ever met who had known him had kind things to say. That’s a rarity in any business. What a wonderful legacy he has left us. My sympathies go out to his family, friends, and a true legion of fans,” said Steve Geppi, President & CEO of Diamond Comic Distributors.

“Ever since I first noticed his work as a 9-year-old comics and MAD reader in the early 1960s, Jack Davis has remained one of my favorite illustrators. His artwork was uniquely original. No artist who has ever worked in comics created images more recognizable as his or her own than Jack Davis did. He was also uniquely prolific yet consistently great to the point of genius – a hero to many of the artists I know. He will be missed, but his enormous body of work lives on, as appealing and fresh as ever,” said James Halperin, Co-Chairman of the Board of Heritage Auctions.

“Jack Davis was an artist with a unique style all his own,” said longtine E.C. historian and publisher Russ Cochran. “When you'd see one of his drawings, you would know, ‘That's Jack Davis.’ He was a seminal member of the EC art staff, best known for drawing the Crypt Keeper stories in all the E.C. horror comics, and after that he worked for MAD magazine and did countless advertising illustrations. And, most of all, he was a true southern gentleman. I knew him and loved him.”

“The comic industry lost one of its top illustrators with the death of Jack Davis. I was introduced to his art in 1952 when, at 14 years old, I began collecting E.C. comics which appeared on the newsstand. His loose style and strong brush strokes created an impressive style which complimented the roster of artists working at E.C. Although he worked on all the issues of MAD and the early issues of MAD magazine, his style was perfect for the horror comics. He created the definitive image of the Crypt-Keeper and produced every cover for Tales From The Crypt from #29 through #46, which was the last issue,” said Robert M. Overstreet, author and publisher of The Overstreet Comic Book Price Guide.

Davis drew exaggerated hands and large feet and could put his characters in motion reminiscent of Jack Kirby’s art of the 1940s and beyond. He is also remembered for his dynamic E.C. war stories in Frontline Combat and Two-Fisted Tales, especially the Civil War issues.

Overstreet said many of his stories became classics, including “Chicamauga” from Frontline Combat #8 (September-October, 1952), “Bum Steer” from Haunt of Fear #10 (November-December, 1952), “While the Cat’s Away” from Vault Of Horror #34 (December-January, 1953-54), and “Blind Alleys” Tales From the Crypt #46 (February-March, 1955).

His most famous EC story was “Foul Play,” which appeared in Haunt of Fear #19, was cited by Dr. Fredric Wertham in his book Seduction of the Innocent.

“I remember buying this issue off the stands and was worried that E.C. horror comics were becoming too bloody and extreme, but I stayed with E.C. to the bitter end. Davis was unequalled in drawing the ‘rotted corpses’ (the original Walking Dead) in all the E.C. horror comics,” he said. “Each E.C. artist was assigned covers and stories that fit their style best. Craig – horror, Ingels – horror, Feldstein – science fiction and horror, Kurtzman – science fiction, humor and war, Wood – science fiction, shock, and humor. But Davis was excellent producing covers and stories for most of the entire line,” Overstreet said. “He will be missed by all of us E.C. fans who loved his work.”