Will Elder
Will Elder was not only a brilliant artist and humorist, he was also an ingenious inventor of practical jokes. For example (and an account of this story and others is more eloquently told in Steve Duin and Mike Richardson's "Comics Between the Panels"), as a kid Elder and a gang of his friends found an open refrigerator car at a rail yard in the Bronx. Elder led his friends in gathering meat from the cooler and children's clothing, and spread them both as "remains" across the railroad tracks. Minutes later, they were shouting to startled onlookers "Schlomie fell on the tracks!" from an overpass above. It's only fitting that this young creative mind would be accepted into New York's High School of Music and Art, and fate that while attending he would meet and befriend his future longtime writing partner, Harvey Kurtzman. Their lengthy collaborative partnership went on to flower at E.C. Comics, and then help to bring about the birth of MAD. They would also become well known for their work on Two Fisted Tales, Humbug, and of course, Playboy's Little Annie Fanny. Elder had a knack for bringing out the best in Kurtzman's stories, and became known for the unscripted site gags and side jokes he would insert in the background of these comics. So pioneering and influential was Elder in drawing early subversive humor, underground artists Robert Crumb and Art Spiegelman have both cited him as a big influence on their own works.Source: Comics Between The Panels
Source: www.lambiek.net
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