Harvey Kurtzman – Greg Goldstein's Comic Art Gallery

John Severin — The Bloody Flag

May 22, 2021 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Our Army At War #272, September 1974

The single greatest compliment I ever heard abut John Severin’s art — and there were many others — came from Jack Kirby, via Mark Evanier:

“Jack used to say that when he had to research some historical costume or weapon for a story, it was just as good to use a John Severin drawing as it was to find a photo of the real thing.”

Severin’s lavish attention to detail caught my eye early. The line-work was so precise and polished. It was amazing stuff, especially considering that those details needed to reproduce on cheap, pulpy newsprint running on industrial web presses.

As a kid, especially remember his pitch-perfect inking on Herb Trimpe’s pencils for The Incredible Hulk. I also loved John’s pairing with sister Marie Severin on some of the earliest issues of Kull. John’s had one weakness was that occasionally his realistic line work could come off as stiff and inking Marie’s more dynamic layouts solved that issue.

Severin was best known for three non-superhero genres: Westerns, humor, and war. He was a pro at all three, and everything else he touched as well.

As Evanier wrote, “They don’t make ’em like that anymore.”

Indeed they don’t.

(These two pages, along with others, were especially selected for the exhibit “War No More” at the Words & Pictures Museum in Northampton, Mass. in 1993.)

*John Severin’s first published war story appeared in EC’s Two Fisted Tales; inks by Will Elder and layouts by Harvey Kurtzman.*

*Early issues of Kull The Conqueror featured pencils (& colors) by Marie Severin and inks by brother John.*

Jack Davis — Casualty Of War

March 21, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Frontline Combat #5, March 1952

Concluding (for now) our 60th anniversary celebration of the legendary EC “New Trend” comics with another classic piece of great art from the legendary Jack Davis.

“We got into the Civil War thing. It was a favorite project of mine. We were hot to do the story of the Civil War from front to back.”
— Harvey Kurtzman, 1972 EC fan convention panel.

War stories were among EC’s many strengths, and many of those, thanks to Harvey Kurtzman’s obsessive editorial attention, were accurately based on historical events.

“Stonewall Jackson!” is a perfect example. Jackson, a brilliant Confederate military tactician, was accidentally shot by his own men in a nighttime battle. This Kurtzman story retells that tale through the voice of the supposed soldier who shot him.

Lighting is an illusion created by a creative combination of black ink and negative space. On this splash, one of my personal favorites, Davis indeed creates a beautiful illusion of campfire light. There is no actual illumination here of course, but thanks to the well-crafted art, our mind’s eye sees it.

The storytelling is equally effective. The camera work closes in on one figure through multiple panels — we instinctively know that this is our narrator and his story, even without reading the dialogue.

Kurtzman and Davis were a terrific team.

All our stories really protested war. I don’t think we thought war was very nice generally. The whole mood of our stories was that war isn’t a good thing. You get killed. That’s the way war is; you get killed suddenly for no reason. — Harvey Kurtzman, 1972 EC fan convention panel.

*The splash makes the cover of Fantagraphics collection of Kurtzman / Davis collaborations.*

*EC’s creators discuss the legendary Jack Davis for his profile in the 1972 EC fan convention.*

In 2011, Davis told The Wall Street Journal about his early career and his breakthrough with EC:

I was about ready to give up, go home to Georgia and be either a forest ranger or a farmer. But I went down to Lafayette St., up in an old rickety elevator and through a glass door to Entertaining Comics where Al Feldstein and Bill Gaines were putting out horror comic books. They looked at my work and it was horrible and they gave me a job right away!

Every time you went in to see Bill Gaines, he would write you a check when you brought in a story. You didn’t have to put in a bill or anything. I was very, very hungry and I was thinking about getting married. So I kept the road pretty hot between home and Canal Street. I would go in for that almighty check, go home and do the work, bring it in and get another check and pick up another story. [Edit: the actual cross street to Lafayette was Spring Street, not Canal.]

Jack Davis — Kurtzman’s Obsession

March 19, 2020 Greg Goldstein Original Art and The Artists

Two-Fisted Tales #21, May 1951

Continuing our 60th anniversary celebration of the legendary EC “New Trend” comics with another classic piece of great art from the legendary Jack Davis.

This is actually the fourth issue of EC’s Two-Fisted Tales. William Gaines — and other publishers — used a variety of title and numbering gimmicks to ensure they didn’t lose a slot in the challenging newsstand system.

It’s a Korean War story — ongoing at the time of publication — and one of many published prior to the “ceasefire” that ended the war.

Davis, in one of his early war stories, does a fantastic job following — and enhancing — Harvey Kurtzman’s very specific layouts.

Very specific layouts? Kurtzman was obsessive about the storytelling and the detail. If he couldn’t draw the story himself, e wanted to ensure that the finished result would be as close to his own material as possible. Again, because this is an early Davis war story, even the art style itself is mimics Kurtzman’s in places.

Davis and Kurtzman (and others) discussed Kurtzman’s methodology at the 1972 EC fan convention, and took a question from the audience…

QUESTION: I’d like to know how the individual artists felt working with the very strict layouts.

KURTZMAN: I’d like to hear that, too.

DAVIS: I don’t know. I think the end product came out pretty good – the detail and all. There are a lot of people that appreciate detail and there are a lot of people that don’t. Once you do something you like it to be authentic. Where doing the horror books you didn’t have to be authentic, this was something that you’d like for it to come across as true, and Harvey felt very strongly about truth – the way the weapons worked and everything. We did the best we could, and I enjoyed it. It wasn’t that bad. I’d hate to do it all the time.