Satiric Cartoonist Will Elder Dies

Will Elder, the illustrator whose anarchic and surreal drawings helped define the identity of Mad magazine, died Wednesday of Parkinson's Disease at the age of 86, the New York Times reports.

Born in the Bronx, Elder's comic eye was developed at an early age when, as he was rather small in stature, he sat on the sidelines and began drawing cartoons of the boys who bullied him. Elder reportedly recalled, "My chalk was mightier than their sticks."

After attending the High School of Music and Art, he studied for a year at the National Academy of Design in Manhattan. Later drafted into the army, he put his artistic abilities to practical use, drawing maps for the Normandy landing on D-Day.

Returning to the states, he struggled to make his way as an illustrator until, in 1952, he joined the newly emerging magazine, Mad, where he would be a main fixture until 1956. His drawings often contained busy and absurd backgrounds, which the artist called "chicken fat." He saw them as "the part of the strip that gave it some flavor but did little to advance the story line."

John Ficarra, editor of Mad, had a more generous assessment of the artist's limitless, imaginative drawings: "That approach to humor seeped into the rest of the magazine and the DNA of its contributors. . . . It set the tone for the entire magazine and created a look that endures to this day."

Elder's distinct drawings, which also helped to create the Playboy serial, "Little Annie Fanny," can also be credited with influencing movies like Airplane and Naked Gun, as well as the cartoons of R. Crumb.

The cartoonist is survived by brother, Irving Eisenberg; daughter, Nancy Elder VandenBergh; son, Martin Elder, and two grandchildren. His wife, Jean, whom he married in 1948, passed away in 2005.