Happy 100th Birthday, Comics MADman Harvey Kurtzman

When, in 1942, an 18-year-old Harvey Kurtzman showed his drawings to a professional cartoonist and asked for career advice, the would-be mentor’s answer was simple and to the point: Give up.

Thank goodness he didn’t listen. Kurtzman, who was born 100 years ago this month, went on to become one of the busiest and most influential creators in American comics history. He did war comics, horror comics, and adaptations of classic literature, but his bread and butter was humor. He started his career producing gag strips with names like Hey Look! and Silver Linings. Later in his career he was a driving creative force in critically admired, if commercially doomed, humor publications like Humbug, Help!, and Trump, and a contributor to more venerable titles like Esquire and Playboy.

But it was in the years in-between that Kurtzman established himself as the patron saint of every sassy, snarky, sarcastic kid in school detentions across America, when he created Mad magazine and wrote the entirety of the first 23 issues. He was even responsible for eventually giving Mad a globally recognizable face in its witless cover mascot Alfred E. Neuman.

The moral of the story is: if you’re a young person who keeps getting in trouble at school for drawing funny pictures instead of doing your homework? Keep it up. You may become a legend.