MAD Magazine, George Lucas’s film American Graffiti and the heavy metal band Anthrax have little in common on the surface, but there was one person who served as the unlikely bond between all three. That was cartoonist Mort Drucker, who died on Thursday at the age of 91. Drucker was a longtime contributor to MAD, frequently drawing parodies of movies and television shows for the magazine. He also created poster artwork for Lucas’s 1973 film, and was behind the artwork for Anthrax’s album State of Euphoria.
George Lucas commissioned Mort Drucker to do this poster, and once compared Mort to Leonardo Da Vinci. pic.twitter.com/w9Xfzozmzk
— Chris Ryall (@chris_ryall) April 9, 2020
Drucker was born in Brooklyn in 1929, and began drawing professionally at the age of 18. He began contributing to MAD in 1956; in 1959, his skill at drawing parodies of film and television became apparent — and helped earn him a reputation that extended far beyond the pages of the aforementioned publication. As J. Hoberman wrote at The New York Times:
Mr. Drucker not only satirized popular culture; he also became a part of it. Appearing on “The Tonight Show” in 1985, the actor Michael J. Fox told Johnny Carson that he knew he had made it in show business “when Mort Drucker drew my head.”
An article at Newsweek collected some of Drucker’s best-known comics — and featured reactions to his death from numerous figures from the worlds of comics and journalism. He also had a penchant for drawing the exploits of wrestlers. “Drucker’s exaggerated and larger-than-life style was all too fitting to spoof the already massive wrestling icons like Hulk Hogan and Stone Cold Steve Austin, which he did for a number of Mad covers,” wrote James Crowley.
One last note on Mort Drucker, who died last night. I recently bought an original from a 1961 MAD and sent it to Mort’s friend John Reiner to show him. Mort shared some of the research material he used — you can see the expressions on the woman's face in the first three panels. pic.twitter.com/O6W7xDjjOn
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 10, 2020
Several of Drucker’s illustrations are also in the collection of the National Portrait Gallery. There aren’t a lot of artists whose work overlaps between MAD and the Smithsonian; Drucker offered a master class in how it could be done.
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