159-468: Goodman Beaver is a fictional character who appears in comics created by American cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman . Goodman is a naive and optimistic Candide -like character, oblivious to the corruption and degeneration around him, and whose stories were vehicles for social satire and pop culture parody. Except for the character's first appearance, which Kurtzman did alone, the stories were written by Kurtzman and drawn by Will Elder . Goodman first appeared in
318-534: A civil war rather than a rebellion. One reason that the revolt was largely limited to the Kikuyu people was, in part, that they had suffered the most as a result of the negative aspects of British colonialism. Wunyabari O. Maloba regards the rise of the Mau Mau movement as "without doubt, one of the most important events in recent African history". David Anderson, however, considers Maloba's and similar work to be
477-460: A milliner . Several months later, Edith remarried to Russian-Jewish immigrant Abraham Perkes, who worked in the printing industry as a brass engraver. The Kurtzman boys kept their surname, while their mother took that of Perkes. The couple had a son Daniel on February 17, 1931. In 1934, the family moved to the more upscale Bronx , where the family lived at 2166 Clinton Avenue. Perkes was not wealthy, but managed to provide for his family during
636-655: A tenement building on 428 East Ninety-Eighth Street in Brooklyn in New York City. David joined the Christian Science church, and when he suffered a bleeding ulcer he turned to prayer to cure it; he died from it on November 29, 1928, at age 36. The family was in such desperate financial straits that their mother placed the Kurtzman brothers in an orphanage for three months until she secured work as
795-477: A beard and moccasins . He no longer has the desire to help a society he has lost faith in, and which criticizes him for his good deeds. Goodman takes him back to the city to prove that society is still full of good people. While in the city, Goodman encounters an old woman being attacked by a knife-wielding maniac. Goodman flees in terror, but is stopped by S*perm*n who reveals himself as the old woman in disguise—he had been testing Goodman's selflessness. S*perm*n
954-409: A butchery. If the H. of C. gets hold of it, all our plans in E.A.P. will be under a cloud. Surely it cannot be necessary to go on killing these defenceless people on such an enormous scale." You may travel through the length and breadth of Kitui Reserve and you will fail to find in it any enterprise, building, or structure of any sort which Government has provided at the cost of more than
1113-537: A cartooning contest for which he received a dollar and had his cartoon published in Tip Top Comics # 36 (April 1939). Future collaborator Jack Davis had won the same contest a few issues earlier. After winning the annual John Wanamaker Art Contest, Kurtzman received a scholarship to attend high school at The High School of Music & Art . Future colleagues Will Elder , Al Feldstein , Al Jaffee , John Severin , and Charles Stern also attended
1272-771: A collection called Goodman Beaver , which reprinted four Kurtzman–Elder stories from Help! —all the Elder-drawn stories except for "Goodman Goes Playboy", which appeared only in short excerpts permitted by fair use exemptions under US copyright law . The book reprinted the elongated versions of those strips that had appeared in Executive's Comic Book . Original artwork for 38 of the 139 reproduced panels were lost; according to Kurtzman, several pages were sent to French magazine Charlie Hebdo for translation and never returned. Kitchen Sink used proofs, photostats, or original magazine appearances for sources from which to reproduce
1431-493: A comic book Kurtzman describes as reading with "the same excitement ... that [he] felt about the underground comic books of twenty years later". These stories presented a view of reality quite different from the escapist entertainment typical of comics of the day, and was to influence the war and social drama work Kurtzman was soon to do at EC Comics . Kurtzman continued to shop his work around, and produced work for Ace/Periodical, Quality, Aviation Press , Timely, and
1590-596: A comic book in the vein of Roy Crane 's popular comic strip, Captain Easy . The comic book differed in offering realistic stories in place of Crane's idealism, a degree of realism not yet seen in American comics. The war stories of Frontline Combat followed in mid-1951. The stories were not only about modern war, but also derived from deep in history, such as the Roman legions and Napoleonic campaigns . Kurtzman rejected
1749-516: A countrywide political party began on 1 October 1944. This fledgling organisation was called the Kenya African Study Union. Harry Thuku was the first chairman, but he soon resigned. There is dispute over Thuku's reason for leaving KASU: Bethwell Ogot says Thuku "found the responsibility too heavy"; David Anderson states that "he walked out in disgust" as the militant section of KASU took the initiative. KASU changed its name to
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#17327985998091908-459: A female abdomen. Archer leads Goodman to a Roman-style orgy and has him change into a toga . The party is Archer's last, as he reveals he has signed a pact with the Devil , and the debt (Archer's soul) was due that night. "Goodman Goes Playboy" appeared in altered form in the book collection Executive's Comic Book in 1962: in the orgy scene the exposed nipples were covered with white ink and
2067-449: A few sovereigns for the direct benefit of the natives. The place was little better than a wilderness when I first knew it 25 years ago, and it remains a wilderness to-day as far as our efforts are concerned. If we left that district to-morrow the only permanent evidence of our occupation would be the buildings we have erected for the use of our tax-collecting staff. —Chief Native Commissioner of Kenya, 1925 Settler societies during
2226-481: A freelance contributor to magazines such as Playboy , Esquire , Madison Avenue , The Saturday Evening Post , TV Guide , and Pageant . With Elliot Caplin he produced a poorly received comic strip, Kermit the Hermit , among other miscellaneous work. In 1958 Kurtzman proposed a strip to TV Guide parodying adult Western TV shows; its rejection particularly disappointed him. In 1959, Ballantine Books
2385-494: A herd. In addition to physical warfare, the Mau Mau rebellion also generated a propaganda war, where both the British and Mau Mau fighters battled for the hearts and minds of Kenya's population. Mau Mau propaganda represented the apex of an 'information war' that had been fought since 1945, between colonial information staff and African intellectuals and newspaper editors. The Mau Mau had learned much from - and built upon -
2544-476: A humor magazine which featured work by future Monty Python member and film director Terry Gilliam and the earliest work of underground cartoonists such as Robert Crumb and Gilbert Shelton . He brought Help! to an end after the success of the risqué Playboy feature Little Annie Fanny began to take up his time. While Annie Fanny provided much of his income for the rest of his career, he continued to produce an eclectic body of work, including screenwriting
2703-539: A large mouth, and small jaw and chin. Kurtzman and Elder desired to have a more "lovable" Goodman, so Elder reworked Goodman's appearance in later stories, redrawing Goodman's features to conform with this new look for later reprintings of the "Goodman Meets T*rz*n" story. Help! ' s most famous story was "Goodman Goes Playboy", first published in the February 1962 issue of Help! The story satirized Hugh Hefner and his lifestyle while parodying Archie comics in
2862-463: A legal challenge against the expropriation of their land, but a Kenya High Court decision of 1921 reaffirmed its legality. In terms of lost acreage, the Masai and Nandi people were the biggest losers of land. The colonial government and white farmers also wanted cheap labour which, for a period, the government acquired from native Kenyans through force. Confiscating the land itself helped to create
3021-437: A magazine format in 1955, and Kurtzman left it in 1956 over a dispute with EC's owner William Gaines over financial control. Following his departure, he did a variety of cartooning work, including editing the short-lived Trump and the self-published Humbug . In 1959, he produced the first book-length work of original comics, the adult-oriented, satirical Jungle Book . He edited the low-budget Help! from 1960 to 1965,
3180-506: A much more outlandish way than Kurtzman's parody "Starchie" in Mad a decade earlier. Kurtzman called this his favorite Goodman Beaver story, and said that Hefner would point people to it when he wanted to explain to people what Kurtzman's work was about. Goodman has returned to his hometown, and the Archie characters, home from college, are drinking, partying, skirt-chasing hedonists . Jughead
3339-482: A number of publishers in 1962, including The Saturday Evening Post , but again it was rejected. In 1960, Harvey teamed up with publisher James Warren to co-publish Help! . Warren Publishing ran the business end, while co-ownership of the magazine allowed Kurtzman the control that he wanted, though its tight budget restricted that control. The magazine made frequent use of fumetti photographic comics, which sometimes starred celebrities such as Woody Allen and
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#17327985998093498-462: A page redone by Jack Davis in case publishers' rejections were due to Kurtzman's drawing style. The ambitious project did not find a willing publisher, as comics were still seen as too low-brow for such lavish treatment. Since the 1940s, crime and horror comics had been drawing fire from those worried about a rise in juvenile delinquency. The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency brought pressure on such comic books in 1954, and EC, one of
3657-624: A parody of Mad in 1971 that included "Citizen Gaines", a piece critical of Gaines' handling of Mad and treatment of Kurtzman. Kurtzman turned the offer down, as he felt out of step with the younger cartoonists' approach. He turned down an offer from René Goscinny in 1973 to act as the US agent for the French comics magazine Pilote . In 1973, New York's School of Visual Arts asked Kurtzman and Will Eisner to take teaching positions there in cartooning. Kurtzman had no earlier teaching experience and found
3816-672: A peaceful resolution to native Kenyan land-hunger was ended. Through a series of expropriations , the government seized about 7,000,000 acres (28,000 km ; 11,000 sq mi) of land, most of it in the fertile hilly regions of Central and Rift Valley Provinces , later known as the White Highlands due to the exclusively European-owned farmland there. In Nyanza the Commission restricted 1,029,422 native Kenyans to 7,114 square miles (18,430 km ), while granting 16,700 square miles (43,000 km ) to 17,000 Europeans. By
3975-558: A pool of wage labourers, but the colony introduced measures that forced more native Kenyans to submit to wage labour: the introduction of the Hut and Poll Taxes (1901 and 1910 respectively); the establishment of reserves for each ethnic group, which isolated ethnic groups and often exacerbated overcrowding; the discouragement of native Kenyans' growing cash crops ; the Masters and Servants Ordinance (1906) and an identification pass known as
4134-574: A pre- Monty Python John Cleese . The first issue was cover-dated August 1960. Gloria Steinem and Terry Gilliam were among those the magazine employed. By the end of its run, Help! had introduced a number of young cartoonists who were to play a major part in the underground comix movement, including Robert Crumb , Jay Lynch , Gilbert Shelton , Spain Rodriguez , and Skip Williamson . Help! ' s most famous story starred Kurtzman's character Goodman Beaver in "Goodman Goes Playboy " in
4293-434: A prejudiced legal-system. The vast majority of Kenyan employees' violations of labour legislation were settled with "rough justice" meted out by their employers. Most colonial magistrates appear to have been unconcerned by the illegal practice of settler-administered flogging; indeed, during the 1920s, flogging was the magisterial punishment-of-choice for native Kenyan convicts. The principle of punitive sanctions against workers
4452-515: A proclamation on 1 July 1895, in which Kenya was claimed as a British protectorate . Even before 1895, however, Britain's presence in Kenya was marked by dispossession and violence . In 1894, British MP Sir Charles Dilke had observed in the House of Commons , "The only person who has up to the present time benefited from our enterprise in the heart of Africa has been Mr. Hiram Maxim " (inventor of
4611-405: A publishing venture of their own: Humbug . The publication was financed and run by the artists who created it, though none of the group had business experience. Only artist Jack Davis became an equal shareholder and the only salaried employee despite declining to financially back the project; his participation was considered vital to its success. The others would joke in years to come that Davis
4770-536: A quote in Martin Sheridan's Classic Comics and their Creators where Andriola offered help to aspiring cartoonists. Kurtzman made an appointment, but Andriola's response to his work was discouraging—he told Kurtzman to give up on cartooning. Kurtzman called this meeting "one of the worst days of [his] life", though he ignored Andriola's advice and continued to peddle his portfolio. Kurtzman continued to do odd jobs in 1942 until he got his first break in
4929-557: A respected and well-read Christian teacher in his local Kikuyu community. He was known to meticulously record his attacks in a series of five notebooks, which when executed were often swift and strategic, targeting loyalist community leaders he had previously known as a teacher. The Mau Mau military strategy was mainly guerrilla attacks launched under the cover of darkness. They used improvised and stolen weapons such as guns, as well as weapons such as machetes and bows and arrows in their attacks. They maimed cattle and, in one case, poisoned
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5088-429: A senior position at Marvel Comics, and proposed another Mad -like magazine; Kurtzman turned these opportunities down, as he felt unprepared to return to the comic book industry after being out of it for so long since leaving EC. Marvel launched Crazy Magazine without him in 1973. Michael C. Gross asked him to contribute to National Lampoon around this time. The magazine's staff revered Kurtzman and had published
5247-631: A story in Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book in 1959; the best-remembered were the five strips the Kurtzman–Elder team produced in 1961–62 for the Kurtzman-edited magazine Help! They tend to be in the parodic style Kurtzman developed when he wrote and edited Mad in the 1950s, but with more pointed, adult-oriented satire and much more refined and detailed artwork on Elder's part, filled with numerous visual gags . The best-known of
5406-582: A success, Kurtzman intended to continue with more books in the same vein. Kurtzman had "The Grasshopper and the Ant" printed in Esquire magazine in 1960. The strip was a social allegory of a hipster grasshopper and a hard-working ant with opposing worldviews, both of whom lose out in the end. It was a rarity for Kurtzman in that he created it in full color, rather in black-and-white lineart with color added afterward. Kurtzman once more proposed Marley's Ghost to
5565-471: A two-fisted cowboy story with an educational health message about syphilis . With the doors to EC open to him Kurtzman started getting regular work from the publisher in 1950. That spring, EC's "New Trend" line of horror, fantasy, and science fiction comics began, and Kurtzman contributed stories in these genres. His income doubled over the previous year's. In late 1950, he began writing and editing an adventure title, Two-Fisted Tales , which he proposed as
5724-505: A wedge between Mau Mau and the Kikuyu generally, these propaganda efforts essentially played no role, though they could apparently claim an important contribution to the isolation of Mau Mau from the non-Kikuyu sections of the population. By the mid-1960s, the view of Mau Mau as simply irrational activists was being challenged by memoirs of former members and leaders that portrayed Mau Mau as an essential, if radical, component of African nationalism in Kenya and by academic studies that analysed
5883-582: A wide variety of strips, including Hamlin's Alley Oop , Caniff's Terry and the Pirates , Gould's Dick Tracy , Foster's Prince Valiant , Raymond's Flash Gordon , and Capp's Li'l Abner . He found Will Eisner 's comic book The Spirit a "standard by which other comic books would be measured", and called Eisner " the greatest ... a virtuoso cartoonist of a kind who had never been seen before". Eisner's page layouts had considerable influence on Kurtzman's work. At 14 Kurtzman won
6042-402: Is a beatnik , and the others are leading glamorous lifestyles. Archie Andrews parody Archer explains to a behind-the-times Goodman, "You've been away too long. Nowadays, the gang is interested mainly in hip -ness—awareness", rather than keeping up with how the football team is doing. Archer shows Goodman to his place, which must be entered through a staircase built into an enormous statue of
6201-539: Is a naïve and optimistic character, oblivious to the degeneration around him. According to Kurtzman, the character was partially inspired by Voltaire 's Candide and Harold Gray 's comic strip character Little Orphan Annie , who, like Goodman, was drawn with blank circles for eyes. Art critic Greil Marcus compares Goodman to Young Goodman Brown in Nathaniel Hawthorne 's tale of the same name—both are pure-souled characters who become disillusioned by
6360-492: Is horrified and disappointed by the degeneration and corruption he sees in the city, and abandons society again. First published in Help! #15 (August 1962), Elder described "Goodman Meets S*perm*n" and its detailed splash page as " Marx Brothers on paper. You never knew what to expect", referring to the busy wealth of gags it was filled with. With artwork by Wally Wood , Kurtzman first parodied Superman in " Superduperman " in
6519-418: Is in an expressive, handwriting-like style. Kurtzman blends the verbal and visual aspects of the work—for example, when an enraged Goodman Beaver confronts his diminutive boss Mr. Schlock, Goodman is graphically overwhelmed by Schlock's word balloons , which demonstrates Goodman's helpless subservience and Schlock's effortless psychological dominance over his employees. "Goodman Meets T*rz*n" first appeared in
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6678-609: The Little Annie Fanny strips in Playboy from 1962 until 1988. His work is noted for its satire and parody of popular culture, social critique, and attention to detail. Kurtzman's working method has been likened to that of an auteur , and he expected those who illustrated his stories to follow his layouts strictly. Kurtzman began to work on the New Trend line of comic books at EC Comics in 1950. He wrote and edited
6837-498: The Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat war comic books, where he also drew many of the carefully researched stories, before he created his most-remembered comic book, Mad , in 1952. Kurtzman scripted the stories and had them drawn by top EC cartoonists, most frequently Will Elder , Wally Wood , and Jack Davis ; the early Mad was noted for its social critique and parodies of pop culture. The comic book switched to
6996-501: The Comics Magazine Association of America . Help! publisher Jim Warren received a letter on 6 December 1961 accusing the magazine of copyright infringement and demanding removal of the offending issue from newsstands. Warren's lawyer believed they could succeed if they fought the suit, but the legal costs would make it a " Pyrrhic victory ", and thus recommended settling out of court. Warren could not have
7155-537: The Faustian theme of "Goodman Goes Playboy". In June 1983 Denis Kitchen requested the right to reprint the story as part of a planned Goodman Beaver collection. Archie Enterprises chairman Michael J. Silberkleit responded that publishing a story that included the likenesses of the Archie characters would be "a serious breach of copyright and trademark law". When the company learned that Kitchen planned to publish
7314-695: The Giriama Uprising led by Mekatilili wa Menza of 1913–1914; the women's revolt against forced labour in Murang'a in 1947; and the Kolloa Affray of 1950. None of the armed uprisings during the beginning of British colonialism in Kenya were successful. The nature of fighting in Kenya led Winston Churchill to express concern about the scale of the fighting: "No doubt the clans should have been punished. 160 have now been killed outright without any further casualties on our side .… It looks like
7473-692: The Giriama tribe [from the coastal regions] was very bad. This tribe was moved backwards and forwards so as to secure for the Crown areas which could be granted to Europeans." The Kikuyu, who lived in the Kiambu , Nyeri and Murang'a areas of what became Central Province, were one of the ethnic groups most affected by the colonial government's land expropriation and European settlement; by 1933, they had had over 109.5 square miles (284 km ) of their potentially highly valuable land alienated. The Kikuyu mounted
7632-534: The Great Depression of the 1930s. He was a trade unionist, and the couple read the communist newspaper Daily Worker . Perkes brought young Kurtzman to work, and encouraged him to help with design and drawing and to think of himself as a professional artist. Though he was a shy boy his teachers recognized Kurtzman's intelligence in grade school and allowed him to skip a grade . He displayed artistic talent early and his sidewalk chalk drawings drew
7791-741: The Kenya African Union (KAU) in 1946. Author Wangari Maathai writes that many of the organizers were ex-soldiers who fought for the British in Ceylon, Somalia, and Burma during the Second World War. When they returned to Kenya, they were never paid and did not receive recognition for their service, whereas their British counterparts were awarded medals and received land, sometimes from the Kenyan veterans. The failure of KAU to attain any significant reforms or redress of grievances from
7950-556: The Maxim gun , the first automatic machine gun). During the period in which Kenya's interior was being forcibly opened up for British settlement, there was a great deal of conflict and British troops carried out atrocities against the native population. Opposition to British imperialism had existed from the start of British occupation. The most notable include the Nandi Resistance led by Koitalel Arap Samoei of 1895–1905;
8109-675: The Will Eisner Comic Book Hall of Fame in 1989, and his work earned five positions on The Comics Journal ' s Top 100 Comics of the 20th Century. Harvey Kurtzman spoke little of his parents in interviews, and not much is known of their pre-American lives. David Kurtzman and Edith née Sherman grew up in Ukraine in Odesa , and were literate urbanites. They belonged to the city's large Jewish community, one that suffered generations of antisemitic oppression, and
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#17327985998098268-504: The chauvinism of war comics which he believed he worked hard against in his own work. Remembering Kurtzman's humor work from the 1940s, Gaines proposed a humor magazine to increase Kurtzman's income, as he believed it would take far less time and effort to research. Mad debuted in August 1952, and Kurtzman scripted every story in the first twenty-three issues. The stories in Mad targeted what Kurtzman saw as fundamental untruths in
8427-424: The kipande (1918) to control the movement of labour and to curb desertion; and the exemption of wage labourers from forced labour and other detested obligations such as conscription. Native Kenyan labourers were of three categories: squatter , contract , or casual . By the end of World War I, squatters had become well established on European farms and plantations in Kenya, with Kikuyu squatters constituting
8586-439: The 1930s, and for the Kikuyu in particular, land had become the number one grievance concerning colonial rule, the situation so acute by 1948 that 1,250,000 Kikuyu had ownership of 2,000 square miles (5,200 km ), while 30,000 British settlers owned 12,000 square miles (31,000 km ), albeit most of it not on traditional Kikuyu land. "In particular", the British government's 1925 East Africa Commission noted, "the treatment of
8745-543: The Association for Mentally Ill Children of Westchester, which Adele continued to oversee following her husband's death. Mau Mau Uprising British victory [REDACTED] United Kingdom Mau Mau rebels 3,000 native Kenyan police and soldiers killed 1953 1954 1956 1959 The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising , Mau Mau revolt , or Kenya Emergency ,
8904-682: The British presence in Kenya. His assassination gave Evelyn Baring the final impetus to request permission from the Colonial Office to declare a State of Emergency. The Mau Mau attacks were mostly well organised and planned. ...the insurgents' lack of heavy weaponry and the heavily entrenched police and Home Guard positions meant that Mau Mau attacks were restricted to nighttime and where loyalist positions were weak. When attacks did commence they were fast and brutal, as insurgents were easily able to identify loyalists because they were often local to those communities themselves. The Lari massacre
9063-540: The Century" in 1999, along with four other works with which Kurtzman was involved. Late-1990s talk of a Goodman Beaver feature film or television series circulated, but the Kurtzman estate was uninterested. After Comics Journal co-owner Gary Groth discovered that Archie Comics had let the copyright on "Goodman Goes Playboy" expire, he had the story reprinted in The Comics Journal #262 (September 2004). It
9222-546: The Comics , which was published in 1991, though it was shorter than the more complete history Kurtzman had planned. Kurtzman, who had suffered from Parkinson's disease and colon cancer in later life, died at Mount Vernon, New York on February 21, 1993, of complications from liver cancer , nine months after Bill Gaines' death. The New Yorker commissioned a commemorative cartoon by Will Elder and ran an elegy by writer Adam Gopnik . Cartoonist Jules Feiffer remarked at
9381-926: The European Academy of Comic Book Art awarded him its Lifetime Achievement Award for 1972. A series of reprint projects and one-shot efforts appeared in the 1970s and 1980s, including Kurtzman Komix , published in 1976 by Kitchen Sink Press . In his later years, Kurtzman continued to work on anthologies and various other projects, including editing two volumes of a YA original anthology series, Nuts , packaged by Byron Preiss and published by Bantam Books in 1985. He oversaw reprints of his work in deluxe editions from Russ Cochran , who did The Complete EC Library , and Kitchen Sink Press , who did collections of Goodman Beaver (1984), Hey Look! (1992), and others, and reprinted Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book (1988). Lengthy interviews were conducted with The Comics Journal and Squa Tront . The comics industry's Harvey Award
9540-542: The February 1962 issue. The story satirized Hefner and his lifestyle, while parodying Archie comics in a much more risqué way than the previous "Starchie" parody in Mad had. The Archie characters were drinking, partying skirt-chasers home from college. Archie ' s publishers sued, and Warren agreed to settle out of court rather than risk an expensive lawsuit. The actual target of the strip had however been Hefner, who loved it; Kurtzman began working for Hefner again soon after. Kurtzman approached Hefner in 1960 with
9699-502: The Feldstein-edited Panic . Kurtzman poured himself into Mad , putting as much effort into it as he had into his war books. This defeated the purpose of having an easy-to-produce third book, but with Frontline Combat ' s cancelation, Kurtzman focused on Mad . During the early 1950s, Kurtzman became one of the writers for Dan Barry's relaunched Flash Gordon daily comic strip. He scripted two sequences for
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#17327985998099858-630: The Flemish Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the Spanish Diego Velázquez as influences on this style. As an editor hired by Schlock Publications Inc., Goodman loses his youthful idealism when awash in the sea of avarice and selfishness he encounters in the publishing world. In this story Kurtzman used his own personal experiences to satirize the corrupting influence of capitalism and power. Goodman finds himself groping
10017-534: The Goodman Beaver stories "clinched his reputation as the cartoon Brueghel [ sic ] with his intricate portraits of a world cheerfully going mad". Elder considered the stories to be the funniest of his collaborations with Kurtzman, though he said that towards the end of the run he was getting tired of the painstaking work he put into the drawings. The stories placed sixty-fourth on The Comics Journal ' s "Top 100 English-Language Comics of
10176-505: The Goodman Beaver stories is "Goodman Goes Playboy" (1962), a satire on the hedonistic lifestyle of Hugh Hefner using parodies of Archie comics characters , whose publisher threatened a lawsuit. The issue was settled out of court, and the copyright for the story passed to Archie Comics . Hefner, the actual target of the strip, found it amusing. Kurtzman and Elder developed a female version of Goodman Beaver for Playboy magazine called Little Annie Fanny (1962–1988). Goodman Beaver
10335-895: The September 1961 issue of Help! , and was Elder's first take on Goodman Beaver. Set against the backdrop of the fall of European colonialism in the face of the rise of African nationalism , such as in the Kenyan Mau-Mau Uprising , and the spread of the Soviet sphere of influence, the story throws a modern 1960s spin on the romance of jungle adventure as exemplified by the Tarzan tales. Kurtzman sends up T*rz*n's attitude of superiority, as when T*rz*n (Tarzan) confronts an African tribe, or when J*ne ( Jane ) gives T*rz*n basic English lessons. Elder's first efforts had Goodman depicted with more monkey-like features—thick, black eyebrows,
10494-528: The Wood-drawn " Superduperman ", a parody of Superman and Captain Marvel , including the copyright infringement lawsuit that National Periodicals (now DC Comics ) had recently brought against Fawcett Comics . National, the owners of Superman's copyright, threatened to file another lawsuit over the parody. EC and National shared the same lawyer, who advised Gaines to quit publishing parodies. While Gaines
10653-516: The animated Mad Monster Party? in 1967 and directing, writing and designing several shorts for Sesame Street in 1969. From 1973, Kurtzman taught cartooning at the School of Visual Arts in New York. His work gained greater recognition toward the end of his life, and he oversaw deluxe reprintings of much of his work. The Harvey Award was named in Kurtzman's honor in 1988. He was inducted into
10812-578: The artwork of each panel to fit the page dimensions. Kurtzman approached Hugh Hefner in 1960 with the idea of a comic strip feature for Playboy that would star Goodman Beaver. Until then, Playboy had printed many cartoons, but not a comic strip. After exchanging ideas with Hefner the project was approved, but Goodman Beaver was required to be transformed into a voluptuous female. Kurtzman brought in Will Elder as his primary collaborator on Little Annie Fanny . In 1984 Kitchen Sink Press published
10971-454: The attention of Liz Taylbone and the crowd, but not for his Brando impression as he thinks—rather, they are impressed to learn that, as an off-duty police officer, Goodman is carrying a pistol . The group coaxes him into going with them to a night club known for its rough clientele. When the rough crowd arrives, Goodman's group expects the gun to serve as their protection—until Goodman lets them know his newfound self-confidence drove him to quit
11130-428: The attention of children and adults, who gathered around to watch him draw. He called these strips "Ikey and Mikey", inspired by Goldberg 's comic strip Mike and Ike . His stepfather also had an interest in art and took the boys to museums. His mother encouraged his artistic development and enrolled him in art lessons; on Saturdays, he took the subway to Manhattan for formal art instruction. His parents had him attend
11289-547: The bills. In their Broadway studio, which Kurtzman kept open until the end of 1951, they sublet space to cartoonists such as John Severin, Dave Berg , and René Goscinny . Kurtzman had been doing crossword puzzles for publisher Martin Goodman since early in his career. A distant relative of Goodman's, Stan Lee , worked as an editor for Goodman's Timely Comics (a precursor to Marvel Comics ). He offered Kurtzman work doing one-page fillers, work that paid little. Lee named
11448-407: The book collection Executive Comic Book in 1962, Elder modified the artwork to obscure the appearance of the Archie characters. Archie Comics found the characters' appearances still too close to their copyrighted properties and threatened another lawsuit. Kurtzman and Elder settled out of court by handing over the copyright to the story. Archie Comics held on to the copyright and refused to allow
11607-481: The city had fallen into economic hardship following the Russian Revolution . Shortly after World War I David emigrated to New York and Edith soon followed in what she called "a desperate journey" escaping the new Soviet Union. There the non-observant pair married in a civil ceremony. The first of their two sons, Zachary, was born April 8, 1923. Harvey Kurtzman was born on October 3, 1924, in
11766-593: The colonial authorities shifted the political initiative to younger and more militant figures within the native Kenyan trade union movement, among the squatters on the settler estates in the Rift Valley and in KAU branches in Nairobi and the Kikuyu districts of central province. Around 1943, residents of Olenguruone Settlement radicalised the traditional practice of oathing , and extended oathing to women and children. By
11925-551: The colonial period could own a disproportionate share of land. The first settlers arrived in 1902 as part of Governor Charles Eliot 's plan to have a settler economy pay for the Uganda Railway . The success of this settler economy would depend heavily on the availability of land, labour and capital, and so, over the next three decades, the colonial government and settlers consolidated their control over Kenyan land, and forced native Kenyans to become wage labourers . Until
12084-473: The colony's mineral resources. It seems to us that our major objective must clearly be the preservation and the wise use of this most important asset. —Deputy Governor to Secretary of State for the Colonies, 19 March 1945 The armed rebellion of the Mau Mau was the culminating response to colonial rule. Although there had been previous instances of violent resistance to colonialism, the Mau Mau revolt
12243-617: The comics industry at Louis Ferstadt 's studio, which produced comics for Quality , Ace , Gilberton , and the Daily Worker . His first published work there was assisting on issue #5 (September 1942) of Gilberton's Classic Comics , which features an adaptation of Moby Dick . His first pencil job appeared in Four Favorites #8 (December 1942). He produced a large amount of undistinguished work in 1942 and 1943, which he later called "very crude, very ugly stuff", before he
12402-483: The contributors to It Ain't Me, Babe , the first comic book produced entirely by women.) Kurtzman's work allowed him to be at home with his children during the day, and he gave them much of his attention. As Peter had low-functioning autism , the Kurtzmans volunteered locally for work with special needs children, and in 1986 began an annual charity auction, raising money by selling the artwork of cartoonists for
12561-626: The defeat of the Mau Mau, and essentially ended the British military campaign. However, the rebellion survived until after Kenya's independence from Britain, driven mainly by the Meru units led by Field Marshal Musa Mwariama . General Baimungi, one of the last Mau Mau leaders, was killed shortly after Kenya attained self-rule. The KLFA failed to capture wide public support. Frank Füredi , in The Mau Mau War in Perspective , suggests this
12720-471: The deluded ideals of do-gooders while parodying the 1960s television series Sea Hunt , which starred Lloyd Bridges as Mike Nelson. The illustrations that bookend the story are from 19th-century French artist Gustave Doré 's Don Quixote illustrations. The story first appeared in Help! #14 (May 1962). In "Goodman Meets S*perm*n", Goodman stumbles across the superhero on a fishing trip. S*perm*n ( Superman ) has gone into hiding from society, sporting
12879-582: The depravity they confront in the world. Kurtzman wrote five Goodman Beaver stories for his long-time collaborator Will Elder. Most of the stories were in the parodic style Kurtzman had developed as the creator, editor, and writer of Mad , but dealt with more significant issues concerning modernity . Published in the Kurtzman-edited Help! in the early 1960s, they were drawn in Elder's "chickenfat" style, in which he crammed every panel with humorous detail and throwaway gags . Elder cited
13038-512: The discovery that he did not own the rights to the strip. Harvey Kurtzman's Strange Adventures assembled a wide cast of cartoonists in 1990 to illustrate stories from Kurtzman's layouts, though the book was not a success, nor was a revival of Two-Fisted Tales . He had long planned to write a comics history, but other work had taken priority. Towards the end of his life, he agreed to collaborate with comics historian Michael Barrier to complete From Aargh! to Zap! Harvey Kurtzman's Visual History of
13197-404: The doubling of Nairobi 's population between 1938 and 1952. At the same time, there was a small, but growing, class of Kikuyu landowners who consolidated Kikuyu landholdings and forged ties with the colonial administration, leading to an economic rift within the Kikuyu. Mau Mau were the militant wing of a growing clamour for political representation and freedom in Kenya. The first attempt to form
13356-440: The editor of his sole remaining publication, Gaines offered a 10% share. As this would not give Kurtzman the control he wanted, Kurtzman countered with a demand for 51%. Gaines refused, and the two parted ways. Kurtzman contacted Hefner and Gaines hired Al Feldstein to edit Mad . ... we all somehow talked ourselves into a very foolish thing, which was an artists' magazine ... All of us chipped in money, and we went into
13515-664: The end of October 1945. The quantity of work allowed Kurtzman to hone his style, which became more refined and distinct. After his discharge following the war, Kurtzman found competition fierce in the comics industry, as freelancing replaced the system of packaging shops. He applied to the newspaper PM , but his portfolio was rejected by cartoon editor Walt Kelly . After a series of short-lived assignments and partnerships, Kurtzman got together with former Music and Art alumni Will Elder and Charles Stern. They opened Charles William Harvey Studio in 1947, but had difficulty getting work. The three had little business sense. Kurtzman managed
13674-478: The experience and advice of newspaper editors since 1945. In some cases, the editors of various publications in the colony were directly involved in producing Mau Mau propaganda. British Officials struggled to compete with the 'hybrid, porous, and responsive character' during the rebellion, and faced the same challenges in responding to Mau Mau propaganda, particularly in instances where the Mau Mau would use creative ways such as hymns to win and maintain followers. This
13833-505: The first two decades of European settlement was noted by the East Africa Commission. The resentment of colonial rule would not have been decreased by the wanting provision of medical services for native Kenyans, nor by the fact that in 1923, for example, "the maximum amount that could be considered to have been spent on services provided exclusively for the benefit of the native population was slightly over one-quarter of
13992-435: The fourth issue of Mad in 1953. Goodman attends a pool party in his hometown Riverdale, fresh from joining the police force. He spots the popular Liz Taylbone, with whom he had been smitten since high school, but he is too passive and timid to draw her attention. After watching a Marlon Brando movie on TV in the lounge he is infused with courage and returns to the party imitating Brando's attitude and mannerisms. He draws
14151-414: The group desirable office space at an inexpensive rate, out of guilt for canceling Trump so quickly. Humbug ran into snags right away due to its small format, which made it difficult for consumers to find it on the newsstands. It also suffered distribution problems. For its last two issues, Humbug was printed in a standard magazine size, and the price was raised from fifteen cents to twenty-five. At
14310-530: The hospital where his third child, Elizabeth, was being born. Adele said it was the only time she had seen her husband cry. Kurtzman later said that Trump was the closest he ever came to producing "the perfect humor magazine". While the Trump artists were mulling over the situation in the Playboy offices, Roth approached with a bottle of scotch. By the time they left the office, the group had agreed to embark on
14469-504: The idea of a comic strip feature for Playboy that would star Goodman Beaver. Playboy ran a lot of cartoons, but a comic strip was something new to the magazine. After discussing ideas, Kurtzman's proposal was accepted under the condition that Goodman Beaver be transformed into a voluptuous female. Little Annie Fanny was Playboy 's first comic strip and the first multi-page comics feature in an American slick magazine . As his primary collaborator, Kurtzman had Will Elder provide
14628-557: The idealization of war that had swept the US since World War II. He spent hours in the New York Public Library in search of the detailed truth behind the stories he was writing, sometimes taking days or weeks to research a story. His research included interviewing and corresponding with GIs taking a ride aboard a rescue plane, and sending his assistant Jerry DeFuccio for a ride in a submarine to gather sound effects. (DeFuccio's first field report from this assignment
14787-613: The insights of agrarian and agricultural experts, of economists and historians, or even of Europeans who had spent a long period living amongst the Kikuyu such as Louis Leakey . Not for the first time, the British instead relied on the purported insights of the ethnopsychiatrist; with Mau Mau, it fell to John Colin Carothers to perform the desired analysis. This ethnopsychiatric analysis guided British psychological warfare, which painted Mau Mau as "an irrational force of evil, dominated by bestial impulses and influenced by world communism", and
14946-412: The last minute, the page count of the eleventh issue was increased from thirty-two pages to forty-eight, reprinting material from Trump . This last issue included a self-deprecating message from Kurtzman which summarized the artists' careers and announced Humbug ' s farewell. The group followed divergent career paths following the breakup. After the demise of Humbug , Kurtzman spent a few years as
15105-525: The late 1970s, Kurtzman's stature began to grow. His protégés such as Crumb, Spiegelman and Gilliam sang his praises, his reputation grew with the spread of comics fandom, and collector Glenn Bray published The Illustrated Harvey Kurtzman Index in 1976. He also found he had a following in Europe; his work appeared there for the first time in the French magazine Charlie Mensuel in October 1970, and in 1973
15264-466: The later official study of the uprising, the Corfield Report. The psychological war became of critical importance to military and civilian leaders who tried to "emphasise that there was in effect a civil war, and that the struggle was not black versus white", attempting to isolate Mau Mau from the Kikuyu, and the Kikuyu from the rest of the colony's population and the world outside. In driving
15423-514: The left-leaning Jewish Camp Kinderland , but he did not enjoy its dogmatic atmosphere. Though not ashamed of their Jewish heritage, neither of the Kurtzman brothers agreed to have a Bar Mitzvah . Kurtzman fell in love with comic strips and the newly emerging comic books in the late 1930s. Unsatisfied with what he found in his parents' newspapers, he searched through garbage cans for the Sunday comics sections of his neighbors' newspapers. He admired
15582-411: The magazine recalled , but he agreed to pay Archie Comics $ 1000 and ran a note of apology in a subsequent issue of Help! —the August 1962 issue, in which appeared another character franchise parody, "Goodman Meets S*perm*n". Warren's action disappointed Kurtzman, who felt that giving in to such censorship set a "terrible precedent", and amounted to a kind of prostitution. When the story was reprinted in
15741-667: The magazines Varsity and Parents . He did a number of children's books, four of which were collaborations with René Goscinny. He brought some samples of educational comics into the EC Comics offices—"EC" had originally stood for "Educational Comics" when it was run by Max Gaines , but his son Bill changed the company's focus and name to "Entertaining Comics" when he inherited the business. Gaines liked Kurtzman's Hey Look! samples but had no immediate use for his particular skills. Gaines directed Kurtzman to his brother, David, who gave him some low-paying work on Lucky Fights it Through ,
15900-586: The major purveyors of such fare, found their wares being refused by their distributor. Gaines brought those titles to an end and tried to replace them with the New Direction line, but by autumn 1955 the only remaining EC title was Mad . Gaines had just allowed Kurtzman to change Mad ' s format to a magazine in July, in order to keep him at EC after Kurtzman had received an offer of employment from Pageant magazine. Kurtzman had long dreamed of joining
16059-540: The majority of agricultural workers on settler plantations . An unintended consequence of colonial rule, the squatters were targeted from 1918 onwards by a series of Resident Native Labourers Ordinances—criticised by at least some MPs —which progressively curtailed squatter rights and subordinated native Kenyan farming to that of the settlers. The Ordinance of 1939 finally eliminated squatters' remaining tenancy rights, and permitted settlers to demand 270 days' labour from any squatters on their land. and, after World War II,
16218-492: The measures brought in as part of its land expropriation and labour 'encouragement' efforts to craft the third plank of its growth strategy for its settler economy: subordinating African farming to that of the Europeans. Nairobi also assisted the settlers with rail and road networks, subsidies on freight charges, agricultural and veterinary services, and credit and loan facilities. The near-total neglect of native farming during
16377-620: The mid-1930s, the two primary complaints were low native Kenyan wages and the requirement to carry an identity document, the kipande . From the early 1930s, however, two others began to come to prominence: effective and elected African-political-representation, and land. The British response to this clamour for agrarian reform came in the early 1930s when they set up the Carter Land Commission. The Commission reported in 1934, but its conclusions, recommendations and concessions to Kenyans were so conservative that any chance of
16536-452: The mid-1950s, 90% of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru were oathed. On 3 October 1952, Mau Mau claimed their first European victim when they stabbed a woman to death near her home in Thika. Six days later, on 9 October, Senior Chief Waruhiu was shot dead in broad daylight in his car, which was an important blow against the colonial government. Waruhiu had been one of the strongest supporters of
16695-416: The missing panels. Kurtzman had avoided drawing legal fire from the litigious DC Comics and Edgar Rice Burroughs, Inc. when he parodied their copyrighted properties, but the bawdy and risque depictions of the Archie characters in "Goodman Goes Playboy" provoked legal action from Archie publisher John L. Goldwater , who had earlier played a role in founding the comics industry's self- censorship body,
16854-422: The most interesting story of the origin of the name is the Kikuyu phrase for the beginning of a list. When beginning a list in Kikuyu, one says, " maũndũ ni mau " , "the main issues are...", and holds up three fingers to introduce them. Maathai says the three issues for the Mau Mau were land, freedom, and self-governance. The principal item in the natural resources of Kenya is the land, and in this term we include
17013-401: The movement as a modern and nationalist response to the unfairness and oppression of colonial domination. There continues to be vigorous debate within Kenyan society and among the academic community within and outside Kenya regarding the nature of Mau Mau and its aims, as well as the response to and effects of the uprising. Nevertheless, partly because as many Kikuyu fought against Mau Mau on
17172-488: The one-time cartoonist Hugh Hefner had become a media mogul by the mid-1950s with his Playboy magazine. He had admired Kurtzman's Mad , and met Kurtzman in New York to express his appreciation. He told Kurtzman that if he were ever to leave Mad , a place would be waiting for him in the Hefner empire. With this promise to back him, Kurtzman demanded legal control of Mad from Gaines in the form of stocks. Reluctant to lose
17331-434: The overeager Nelson sees crime where there is none, interrupting swimmers and boaters at play. The pair set out to find a Russian submarine—and find one, but Nelson mistakes it for a monster to be subdued with his speargun . Goodman realizes Nelson's insanity, abandons the adventurer, and returns to his book. Framed within the story of Don Quixote , "Goodman, Underwater" satirizes Cold War tensions and sets out to deflate
17490-400: The parody Archie characters were altered to obscure the resemblance to characters they were based on in a failed attempt to escape legal action from Archie ' s publishers. While trying to enjoy a book as he floats in a swim ring off a crowded beach, Goodman is interrupted by undersea adventurer Hammer Nelson, who invites Goodman to help him fight underwater crime. Don Quixote -like,
17649-509: The police force two hours earlier. The group abandons Goodman to a thrashing by the thugs. "Goodman Gets a Gun" appeared first in Help! #16 (November 1962). It was the only Elder-drawn story not to appear in the Executive's Comic Book collection of 1962. Goodman Beaver made his first appearance in Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book in 1959, in "The Organization Man in the Gray Flannel Executive Suit". Jungle Book
17808-426: The product of "swallowing too readily the propaganda of the Mau Mau war", noting the similarity between such analysis and the "simplistic" earlier studies of Mau Mau. This earlier work cast the Mau Mau war in strictly bipolar terms, "as conflicts between anti-colonial nationalists and colonial collaborators". Caroline Elkins ' 2005 study, Imperial Reckoning , awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction ,
17967-574: The prospect daunting, but Eisner convinced him to take the job. Eisner's class was called "Sequential Art" and Kurtzman's was "Satirical Cartooning", which focused on single-panel gag cartooning . Kurtzman had a soft touch with his students, and was well respected and well liked. He frequently had professional cartoonists appear as guest lecturers. When the school refused to publish his students' work, Kurtzman had them published in an ad-supported, student-produced anthology that came to be called Kar-Tünz . Kar-Tünz ran for fifteen years. Beginning in
18126-723: The publishing business, which artists should never, never do, for the simple reason that they lose sight of the practical considerations of business survival. Art becomes everything and the marketplace becomes secondary. Hefner employed Kurtzman from April 1956. The slick, full-color Trump appeared on newsstands in January 1957. Cartoonists who contributed to Trump included Mad regulars such as Elder, Wood, Davis, and Jaffee, as well as Russ Heath and newer artists such as Irving Geis , Arnold Roth , and R. O. Blechman . Writers Mel Brooks , Roger Price , Doodles Weaver , and Max Shulman also made contributions. The fifty-cent magazine
18285-428: The purpose of protection", Professor David Anderson (amongst others) regards the "compulsory resettlement" of "1,007,500 Kikuyu" inside what, for the "most" part, were "little more than concentration camps" as "punitive ... to punish Mau Mau sympathisers". It is often assumed that in a conflict there are two sides in opposition to one another, and that a person who is not actively committed to one side must be supporting
18444-446: The school. His ambitions were apparent even then; at a 2016 New York Comic Con panel, Jaffee recounted how a 15-year-old Kurtzman told his fellow students Jaffee and Elder "Someday I'm going to have a magazine, and I'm going to hire you guys." Kurtzman graduated at 16 in 1941 and went on to Cooper Union on a scholarship. Kurtzman left after a year to focus on making comic books. Kurtzman met Alfred Andriola in 1942, encouraged by
18603-405: The secretaries, just as the other cynical executives at Schlock do, and ends up stealing from the company. Goodman was a semi-autobiographical character, reflecting Kurtzman's disillusioning experiences in the publishing industry. Kurtzman's artwork is in an exaggerated cartoon style with round, fluid, elongated characters rendered with loose, fluid, and sketchy brushwork and gray wash . Dialogue
18762-428: The side of the colonial government as joined them in rebellion, the conflict is now often regarded in academic circles as an intra-Kikuyu civil war, a characterisation that remains extremely unpopular in Kenya. In August 1952, Kenyatta told a Kikuyu audience "Mau Mau has spoiled the country...Let Mau Mau perish forever. All people should search for Mau Mau and kill it". Kenyatta described the conflict in his memoirs as
18921-460: The situation for squatters deteriorated rapidly, a situation the squatters resisted fiercely. In the early 1920s, though, despite the presence of 100,000 squatters and tens of thousands more wage labourers, there was still not enough native Kenyan labour available to satisfy the settlers' needs. The colonial government duly tightened the measures to force more Kenyans to become low-paid wage-labourers on settler farms. The colonial government used
19080-430: The slick magazine publishing world, and had been trying to convince Gaines to publish Mad in a larger, more adult format. The August issue of Pageant featured an article "Now Comics Have Gone Mad ", and Pageant ' s publisher Alex Hillman offered Kurtzman a job. With the prospect of losing his lone editor and writer, Gaines gave in to Kurtzman's demands. The magazine-format twenty-fourth issue of Mad (July 1955)
19239-572: The spoof included six separate picket signs, posters and other notices proclaiming that "Batboy and Rubin" was a comedic imitation, e.g.: "Not a spittoon, not a cartoon, not a harpoon, but a LAMPOON!" Parodying specific targets became a staple of Mad . Beginning April 1954, the bimonthly Mad went monthly after the cancelation of Frontline Combat , whose sales had flagged when the Korean War ended. Soon, large numbers of Mad imitators sprang up from other publishers, as well as from EC itself with
19398-420: The story to be republished. The actual target of "Goodman Goes Playboy" had been Hefner, who loved it. Kurtzman began working for Hefner again soon afterwards. The strip Kurtzman produced, Little Annie Fanny , is often thought of as a compromise—virtuosic in its visuals, but lacking in content in comparison to the Goodman Beaver stories. R. Fiore and other commentators have considered this ironic in light of
19557-410: The story with the pages reduced in size and the characters' faces blacked out, Archie Enterprises threatened another lawsuit, and Kitchen dropped the story from the collection, which appeared in 1984. Kitchen went as far as to have the book's cover redone, as the planned one had incorporated a "Goodman Goes Playboy" panel in the background. Publisher and critic Gary Groth wrote that Elder's artwork in
19716-483: The strip Hey Look! , and Kurtzman produced 150 episodes of it from 1946 until 1949. At a Music and Art reunion in early 1946 Kurtzman met Adele Hasan, who was one of the staff members at Timely and was dating Will Elder. She fell for Kurtzman, confiding to Al Jaffee that he "was the kind of kind [she would] like to marry". Later in the year, Timely ran a "Now You Can Be the Editor!" contest whose ballots Hasan
19875-490: The strip's labor-intensive, fully painted full-color final rendering. Little Annie Fanny began appearing in Playboy in 1962. Kurtzman and Warren disagreed on Kurtzman's editorial decisions on Help! , and Kurtzman found himself unsatisfied with the partnership. Help! ' s sales were declining, and the magazine quietly came to an end with its twenty-sixth issue, cover-dated September 1965. This allowed Kurtzman and Elder to focus full-time on Little Annie Fanny . Hefner
20034-521: The strip, with portions pencilled by Frank Frazetta . The strip soon became one of Mad ' s targets in "Flesh Garden!", drawn by Wood, who had earlier assisted Barry on the Flash Gordon strip. In 1954, Kurtzman dreamed up a full-color, 100-page adaptation of Dickens ' A Christmas Carol called Marley's Ghost , and proposed the project to Simon & Schuster and other publishers. The proposal included seven finished pages, as well as
20193-568: The struggle tore through the African communities themselves, an internecine war waged between rebels and 'loyalists' – Africans who took the side of the government and opposed Mau Mau." Suppressing the Mau Mau Uprising in the Kenyan colony cost Britain £55 million and caused at least 11,000 deaths among the Mau Mau and other forces, with some estimates considerably higher. This included 1,090 executions by hanging. The origin of
20352-435: The subjects parodied, inspired by the irreverent humor found in college humor magazines . They were developed in the same incremental way Kurtzman had developed for the war stories, and his layouts were followed faithfully by the artists who drew them—most frequently, Will Elder, Jack Davis and Wally Wood. Mad did not have instant success, but found its audience by the fourth issue, which quickly sold out. The issue featured
20511-551: The taxes paid by them". The tax burden on Europeans in the early 1920s, meanwhile, was very light relative to their income. Interwar infrastructure-development was also largely paid for by the indigenous population. Kenyan employees were often poorly treated by their European employers, with some settlers arguing that native Kenyans "were as children and should be treated as such". Some settlers flogged their servants for petty offences. To make matters even worse, native Kenyan workers were poorly served by colonial labour-legislation and
20670-438: The term Mau Mau is uncertain. According to some members of Mau Mau, they never referred to themselves as such, instead preferring the military title Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA). Some publications, such as Fred Majdalany's State of Emergency: The Full Story of Mau Mau , claim it was an anagram of Uma Uma (which means "Get out! Get out!") and was a military codeword based on a secret language game Kikuyu boys used to play at
20829-467: The time of their circumcision. Majdalany also says the British simply used the name as a label for the Kikuyu ethnic community without assigning any specific definition. However, there was a Maji Maji rebellion in German East Africa /Tanzania in 1905/6, ('Maji' meaning 'water' after a 'water-medicine') so this may be the origin of Mau Mau. As the movement progressed, a Swahili backronym
20988-717: The time that cartooning had lost its Orson Welles . Kurtzman stood 5 feet 6 inches (168 cm) and was of slight build. He had an unassuming demeanor; humorist Roger Price likened him to "a beagle who is too polite to mention that someone is standing on his tail". Rolf Malcolm described him as someone who smiles little and speaks slowly. Al Jaffee said he "was not an easy person to get too close to". Kurtzman and wife Adele (née Hasan ) were married in September 1948. They had three daughters and one son: Meredith, born July 28, 1950; Peter, born June 29, 1954; Elizabeth, born January 21, 1957; and Cornelia "Nellie", born April 15, 1969. (Meredith in 1970 went on to become one of
21147-583: The two married that September. In 1948 Kurtzman produced a Sunday comic strip, Silver Linings , which ran infrequently in the New York Herald Tribune between March and June. Lee had Hey Look! brought to an end in 1949 so Kurtzman could concentrate on longer features for Timely's family-oriented line. Kurtzman was assigned artwork duties for the Lee-scripted Rusty , an imitation of Chic Young 's comic strip Blondie , but
21306-412: The war, with the most high-ranking being Field Marshal Muthoni . The British and international view was that Mau Mau was a savage, violent, and depraved tribal cult, an expression of unrestrained emotion rather than reason. Mau Mau was "perverted tribalism" that sought to take the Kikuyu people back to "the bad old days" before British rule. The official British explanation of the revolt did not include
21465-847: Was drafted in 1943 for service in World War II . Kurtzman trained for the infantry, but was never sent overseas. He was stationed in Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas. He illustrated instruction manuals, posters, and flyers, and contributed cartoons to camp newspapers, and newsletters. While there, he was invited by publisher and cartoonist L. B. Cole to draw the "Black Venus" superheroine, packaged for publisher Rae Herman 's Orbit Publications . In 1944, he did work for several local publications while stationed in North Carolina, and had several gag cartoons in Yank by
21624-430: Was a 10-word telegram to Kurtzman reading "MANY BRAVE HEARTS ARE ASLEEP IN THE DEEP GLUB GLUB.") The stories gave a sympathetic look to both sides of a conflict, regardless of nationality or ethnicity. He sought to tell what he saw as the objective truth about war, deglamorizing it and showing its futility, though the stories were not explicitly anti-war. Kurtzman was given a great deal of artistic freedom by Gaines, but
21783-498: Was a demanding editor and delivered critiques to Kurtzman that could reach twenty pages. Kurtzman participated in a number of film projects beginning in the late 1960s. He co-scripted the stop-motion animated film Mad Monster Party? (1967), a job he got through the recommendation of Jack Davis, who had been doing character designs for the film's production company Rankin/Bass . Kurtzman wrote, co-directed, and designed several short animated pieces for Sesame Street in 1969; he
21942-403: Was a luxurious, more risqué version of Mad , and sold well. Unfortunately, Hefner began to have financial problems, and canceled Trump after its second issue. The magazine had been a success in the market, but had already accrued $ 100,000 in expenses, about which Hefner quipped, "I gave Harvey Kurtzman an unlimited budget, and he exceeded it." Hefner delivered the news in person to Kurtzman—in
22101-813: Was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the British authorities. Dominated by Kikuyu , Meru and Embu fighters, the KLFA also comprised units of Kamba and Maasai who fought against the European colonists in Kenya - the British Army , and the local Kenya Regiment (British colonists, local auxiliary militia, and pro-British Kikuyu). The capture of Field Marshal Dedan Kimathi on 21 October 1956 signalled
22260-539: Was adopted: " Mzungu Aende Ulaya, Mwafrika Apate Uhuru", meaning "Let the foreigner go back abroad, let the African regain independence". J. M. Kariuki, a member of Mau Mau who was detained during the conflict, suggests the British preferred to use the term Mau Mau instead of KLFA to deny the Mau Mau rebellion international legitimacy. Kariuki also wrote that the term Mau Mau was adopted by the rebellion in order to counter what they regarded as colonial propaganda. Author and activist Wangari Maathai indicates that, to her,
22419-431: Was also controversial in that she was accused of presenting an equally binary portrayal of the conflict and of drawing questionable conclusions from limited census data, in particular her assertion that the victims of British punitive measures against the Kikuyu amounted to as many as 300,000 dead. While Elstein regards the "requirement" for the "great majority of Kikuyu" to live inside 800 "fortified villages" as "serv[ing]
22578-441: Was also made available as a PDF file on the magazine's website. The story has yet to appear in any reprint collection since the lapse of copyright. Harvey Kurtzman Harvey Kurtzman ( / ˈ k ɜːr t s m ə n / ; October 3, 1924 – February 21, 1993) was an American cartoonist and editor. His best-known work includes writing and editing the parodic comic book Mad from 1952 until 1956, and writing
22737-657: Was assigned to sort through. She was disappointed that readers did not enjoy Kurtzman's Hey Look! as much as she did. She "stuffed the ballot box" in Kurtzman's favor, which prompted an astonished Stan Lee to assign Kurtzman more work. Kurtzman was given the talking animal feature Pigtales at regular freelance rates, as well as miscellaneous other assignments. As Harvey stopped by the Timely offices more frequently, he and Adele would flirt, and eventually started dating. She left Timely for college that autumn, and corresponded frequently with Kurtzman; soon she dropped out of college and
22896-508: Was by comparison rather outstanding and in contrast to regular Mau Mau strikes which more often than not targeted only loyalists without such massive civilian casualties. "Even the attack upon Lari, in the view of the rebel commanders was strategic and specific." The Mau Mau command, contrary to the Home Guard who were stigmatised as "the running dogs of British Imperialism", were relatively well educated. General Gatunga had previously been
23055-456: Was disappointed with this type of work and began looking for other employment. He sold episodes of the one-pagers Egghead Doodle and Genius to Timely and Al Capp's Toby Press on a freelance basis. He also sold longer pieces to Toby, including episodes of his Western parody Pot Shot Pete , a short-lived series that hinted at the pop-culture satire Kurtzman was to become known for. Kurtzman came across Charles Biro 's Crime Does Not Pay ,
23214-525: Was due to a British divide and rule strategy, which they had developed in suppressing the Malayan Emergency (1948–60). The Mau Mau movement remained internally divided, despite attempts to unify the factions. On the colonial side, the uprising created a rift between the European colonial community in Kenya and the metropole , as well as violent divisions within the Kikuyu community: "Much of
23373-654: Was far more effective than government newspapers; however, once colonial officials brought the insurgency under control by late 1954, information officials gained an uncontested arena through which they won the propaganda war. Women formed a core part of the Mau Mau, especially in maintaining supply lines. Initially able to avoid the suspicion, they moved through colonial spaces and between Mau Mau hideouts and strongholds, to deliver vital supplies and services to guerrilla fighters including food, ammunition, medical care, and of course, information. Women such as Wamuyu Gakuru , exemplified this key role. An unknown number also fought in
23532-413: Was himself a strict taskmaster. He insisted that the artists who drew his stories not deviate from his layouts. The artists generally respected Kurtzman's wishes out of respect for his creative authority, but some, like Bernie Krigstein and Dan Barry , felt their own artistic autonomy impinged upon. Those who worked for EC received payment based on output. Kurtzman's laborious working methods meant he
23691-414: Was less prolific than fellow EC writer and editor Al Feldstein, and Kurtzman felt financially underappreciated for the amount of effort he poured into his work. He was financially burdened with a mortgage and a family. He also detested the horror content of the books Feldstein was producing, and which consistently outsold his own work. He believed these stories had the same sort of influence on children that
23850-453: Was looking for something to replace its successful line of Mad mass-market paperback reprints after Gaines had taken it to another publisher. Ballantine had earlier published The Humbug Digest in the same format, though it fared poorly in the market. Kurtzman proposed a book of original material designed for the format, which Ian Ballantine , with reservations, accepted on faith out of respect for Kurtzman. Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book
24009-475: Was more successful than anticipated, and had to be reprinted, an unusual occurrence in magazine publishing. The new presentation was ambitious, and included meticulously rendered advertisement parodies and text pieces by humorists such as Ernie Kovacs , Stan Freberg , and Steve Allen . It was around this time that Kurtzman introduced Mad ' s gap-toothed mascot and his slogan, "What, me worry?", whom Feldstein later named Alfred E. Neuman . Elsewhere,
24168-418: Was named in his honor in 1988. Kurtzman toured and gave speeches frequently to fans in the 1980s. Kurtzman had reconciled with Gaines by the mid-1980s, and in collaboration with Elder, illustrated 19 pieces and covers for Mad from 1986 to 1989. Kurtzman brought Little Annie Fanny to an end in 1988, amid failing health, a poor relationship with Playboy cartoon editor Michelle Urry , and resentment over
24327-445: Was not removed from the Kenyan labour statutes until the 1950s. The greater part of the wealth of the country is at present in our hands. ... This land we have made is our land by right—by right of achievement. —Speech by Deputy Colonial Governor 30 November 1946 As a result of the situation in the highlands and growing job opportunities in the cities, thousands of Kikuyu migrated into cities in search of work, contributing to
24486-492: Was particularly proud of the Phil Kimmelman-animated Boat , in which a left prosthetic-legged sea captain voiced by Hal Smith orders a series of increasingly larger numerals to load into a boat, eventually sinking it. In 1972, he appeared in a television advertisement for Scripto pens. Kurtzman turned down a number of well-paying opportunities in the 1970s. In early 1972, Stan Lee offered Kurtzman
24645-631: Was the first American book of original comics, a mass-market paperback that was the first in a planned series. The book sold poorly, but has been a favorite among Kurtzman fans. The first Elder-drawn Goodman story appeared in Help! #12 in 1961 and was followed in 1962 with four more stories in Help! #13–16. A Goodman Beaver collection called Executive's Comic Book appeared in 1962 from Macfadden Books. In this paperback collection of four stories—"Goodman Meets T*rz*n", "Goodman Goes Playboy", "Goodman, Underwater", and "Goodman Meets S*perm*n"—the strips were reformatted to one panel per page. Elder extended
24804-486: Was the first mass-market paperback of original comics content in the United States, and to Kurtzman biographer Denis Kitchen was a precursor to the graphic novel . Whereas his Mad stories had been aimed at an adolescent audience, Kurtzman made Jungle Book for adults, which was unusual in American comics. Jungle Book sold poorly, but remained a favorite among its small number of devoted fans. If it had been
24963-480: Was the most prolonged and violent anti-colonial warfare in the British Kenya colony. From the start, the land was the primary British interest in Kenya, which had "some of the richest agricultural soils in the world, mostly in districts where the elevation and climate make it possible for Europeans to reside permanently". Though declared a colony in 1920, the formal British colonial presence in Kenya began with
25122-424: Was the only one to make any money from Humbug . With Kurtzman in the lead the reinvigorated, close-knit group set out to produce a classy publication in the vein of college humor magazines , but aimed at a general readership. Along with the pop-cultural satire that had been the staple of Mad and Trump , Humbug included more topical and political satire, mostly from writers other than Kurtzman. Hefner provided
25281-443: Was weighing this advice, Kurtzman discovered a legal precedent that backed Mad ' s right to parody. Gaines hired the author of that precedent to write a brief substantiating EC's position, but the lawyer sided with National. Gaines consulted a third lawyer, who advised Gaines to ignore the threat and continue publishing parodies. National never filed suit. When Kurtzman parodied National's Batman character just four issues later,
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