It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad (Sports) World
A look at the sporting art of legendary illustrator Jack Davis
If you happened to grow up in America in the 1960s, 70s or 80s, you’ve no doubt seen the work of artist Jack Davis. Best known for his work on MAD Magazine, Davis’ art permeated American pop culture in so many ways, it’s arguable that he was at one point the country’s most well-known artist. Over the course of a more than 60 year career, Davis’ illustrations appeared on or in countless magazines, comic books, movie posters, ads - even on the backs of baseball cards.
Davis grew up drawing, contributing illustrations to his high school newspaper and yearbook. Following 3 years in the US Navy, Davis attended the University of Georgia on the GI Bill, becoming a Bulldog for life. After working briefly in Atlanta, Davis set his sights on New York City, moving there in 1949.
EC Comics and MAD Magazine
In New York, Davis’ work caught the attention of editors at EC Comics, then publishers of a large roster of horror comic books, with titles such as Tales From the Crypt, The Vault of Horror and The Haunt of Fear. Davis’ style fit perfectly in the horror comics and the artist’s unusual speed made him a go-to for EC editors. Throughout the early 1950s Davis contributed artwork to virtually the entire line of horror comics, including the classic “Foul Play”,
a story depicting a baseball game played with a human head as a ball and arms and legs used as bats.Following public backlash and Senate hearings on comics’ role in juvenile delinquency, the comic book industry instituted strict publishing guidelines that ended EC’s line of profitable comics. The only book left was a relatively new comic that parodied all aspects of American life - MAD.
Davis had worked on every issue of MAD since its inception, using a looser, more caricature-like artwork style for parodies of movies, tv shows and even Ernest Thayer’s famous poem, “Casey at the Bat”. In 1955, after 23 issues, the comic book was converted to a full sized magazine. The move gave its contributors more room for artwork and placed its content outside the strict guidelines of the Comics Code Authority. The result was soaring readership as MAD Magazine became a rite of passage for postwar American youth. Davis remained a regular contributor, known affectionately as “the usual gang of idiots”, for most of the next 5 decades.
Topps Baseball and Football Cards
With the increased popularity of MAD Magazine, Davis’ work caught the eye of Woody Gelman, art director at Brooklyn-based Topps Chewing Gum. Over the next several years, Gelman would assign Davis work on several sets of non-sports cards distributed with Topps gum. Needing illustrations for some 500 cards in each years’ baseball and football card sets, Gelman also tapped Davis to contribute artwork used on the backs of sports cards. In the late 1950s and early ‘60s countless kids unwittingly viewed Davis illustrations while chewing gum and reading statistics of their diamond and gridiron heroes.
Magazines and Movie Posters
By the mid-1960s, as early fans of MAD had started joining the professional ranks, art directors began assigning Davis freelance work illustrating everything from magazine and album covers to movie posters and advertising campaigns. Two of his biggest regular magazine clients were TV Guide, then the most popular publication in America, and TIME, for which he contributed covers for several sports stories.
In the early 1970s Davis and fellow MAD contributor Nick Meglin created SuperFan, a comic strip that ran in Pro Quarterback magazine for several years. The comic gave Davis and Meglin a platform to parody the world of professional football, both on and off the field, at a time when the NFL was beginning to overtake MLB as America’s most popular spectator sport. The strip was later compiled into two paperback publications, with a forward by legendary sportscaster Howard Cosell.
Beginning in the 1960s Davis did artwork for several movie posters, including It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, Kelly’s Heroes and The Long Goodbye. But perhaps his greatest accomplishment in the world of cinema was his poster for the 1976 Walter Matthau film The Bad News Bears. Davis’ depiction of Morris Buttermaker and his chaotic band of batsmen is the perfect visual representation of the film.
Ads and Book Covers
Davis also had a prolific career in advertising, contributing artwork to ad campaigns for everything from RAID insect spray to Slim Jim beef snacks. Davis had a long relationship with sporting goods manufacturer Spalding, illustrating ads for several of their sports equipment lines.
Perhaps best remembered is his 1977 “Street Ball” ad for Spalding basketball, featuring Dr. J and Rick Barry, which ran on the backs of comic books for several years in the late ‘70s and early ’80s.
In the mid 1980’s, Davis illustrated the covers of the popular book series, The Baseball Hall of Shame.The series initially comprised 4 books, each with different cover art that is typical Davis. The “Hall of Shame” franchise eventually spun off to include other sports including football and basketball, with most volumes sporting Davis artwork. Almost 1,000,000 copies of the books were sold and in 2012 the authors returned with “The Baseball Hall of Shame 5”, once again with Davis providing the cover art.
In the late 1980’s, with merchandising revenues climbing for virtually all sports, Davis did a series of team “mascots” posters. However, these weren’t illustrations of the Phillie Phanatic or San Diego Chicken. Instead Davis illustrated a caricature, either at bat or on the pitching mound, for each team’s namesake, drawing an astronaut pitching for Houston, an actual angel with wings pitching for California and a pirate, clenching a sword in his teeth, taking a swing for Pittsburgh. The series was so successful that later versions were created with NFL, NBA and even college football teams.
UGA and Later Years
Through it all, no matter where he was or what he was working on, Davis was always a University of Georgia Bulldog at heart. He rarely missed Georgia - Florida college football games and was a faithful supporter of the school since his days on campus. Davis’ professional relationship with the university’s athletic department began in 1948 when he illustrated the front and back covers of that year’s football media guide.
Over the next 7 decades, Davis’ work graced countless programs, guides, posters, t-shirts, buttons and other items in support of a variety of UGA athletic programs.
In the 1990’s Davis and his wife moved from New York to St. Simon’s Island, GA. The move gave Davis a slower pace of life but was by no means a retirement. Thanks to his stature in the world of illustration Davis remained an in-demand artist, continuing to work in a wide variety of media.
During these years Davis began to receive awards and accolades befitting such a lengthy and diverse career. In 1996 he received the National Cartoonists Society’s Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2002 Davis had a career retrospective exhibit at New York’s Society of Illustrators and in 2005 was inducted into the Society’s Hall of Fame.
On July 27, 2016 Davis passed away at age 91 due to complications from a stroke. Americans had lost a friend who helped them laugh at themselves for over half a century. But sports fans had lost a fellow fan whose unique visual perspective captured and reflected a variety of sports throughout popular culture.
2024 Society of Illustrators Exhibit
In 2024, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of Jack Davis’ birth, the Society of Illustrators in New York City hosted “Jack Davis: A Centennial Celebration”. The retrospective featured original art from some of Davis’ most iconic works, from magazine covers to movie posters and book illustrations.
Although there were several pieces of sports themed work in the exhibit, two in particular caught my eye. The first was a preliminary pencil sketch for The Bad News Bears movie poster illustration. Featuring only the figures of Walter Matthau and Tatum O’Neal, the pencil sketch differs from the final painting in several ways.
The second piece that caught my attention was the original artwork for the cover of Mad #27. The illustration, an early example of Davis’ knack for amazingly detailed crowd scenes, depicts Baby New Year of 1956 walking among characters representing the outgoing 1955. In the lower we see a nod to the 1955 World Series Champion Brooklyn Dodgers (their lone win in Brooklyn) including Davis’ depiction of cartoonist Willard Mullin’s iconic Brooklyn Bum character.
Special Thanks to David Hillman & Andrew Jones for allowing me to share their photos from the 2024 exhibit.
For more than 60 years Jack Davis entertained America with illustrations that captured the humor and heart of popular culture. Thank you, Mr. Davis.
A version of this article previously appeared on Uni Watch. Thanks to UW Editor Phil Hecken for allowing me to republish it here in a slightly different form.