EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 18 © 2017 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

5 All images from MAD Magazine © E.C. Publications, Inc. books, magazines and comic books; co-created a nationally syndicated comic strip and drew commercial illustrations for some of the top corporations in the world. Seven of his Time magazine covers are in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution’s National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC. He won virtually every award his profession could bestow and, when they ran out of awards, the National Cartoonists Society invented a new one, the ‘Medal of Honor for Lifetime Achievement’, which it awarded to Drucker in 2015. Drucker proudly reports that he achieved this success the old-fashioned way: “I do everything by hand, using just a pencil, an ink pen and a brush. I don’t use a computer or a ballopticon or a lightbox.” Despite his traditional working methods, Drucker won the recognition and esteemofmany of the superstars of today’s high tech media. George Lucas said, “Mort Drucker’s caricatures are the best,” and he personally made a pilgrimage to Drucker’s home to persuade him to illustrate the poster for the Lucas movie, American Graffiti . Steven Spielberg said, “Mort’s irreverent and historical caricatures have never been nor will they ever be equalled.” J.J. Abrams called Drucker “One of the greatest comic artists of all time.” Drucker was born in New York on March 22, 1929, the son of immigrants. He loved to draw but had almost no formal art education. “School didn’t do much for me,” he recalls. He says that, with the exception of few scattered classes, “I had no schooling. I didn’t know the first thing about drawing and had to learn it all by myself.” When he graduated from high school in 1947, he landed a six month apprenticeship on the comic strip Debby Dean, Career Girl. Drucker helped with backgrounds and lettering and gradually developed LEFT: Another panel from 'Put On'. There is a lively spontaneity to Mort's linework, which results from his lifelong passion for drawing and an innate desire to keep improving. His layouts often had to be designed to accomodate large quantities of text balloons.