This last weekend was a rare event at the Savannah College of Art and Design. SCAD brought together several of the cartoonists from MAD Magazine: Jack Davis, Al Jaffee, Paul Coker, Jr., Nick Meglin, ?Duck? Edwing, Sergio Aragones, Sam Viviano and Tom Richmond. The AP did a story covering the event with the angle of the rarity for the forefathers of MAD Magaine Al Jaffee, Sergio Aragones and Jack Davis to be together at one event.
They’re among the cartoonists who put MAD on the map in the 1950s. Over the next six decades, they blended celebrity caricature, pop-culture parody and political satire in a way that would influence American comedy from Saturday Night Live to The Onion and more. And some of them are still churning out gags for MAD, in defiance of the ever-expanding generation gap with the magazine’s young audience.
This certainly would have ranked high as far as events to go to.
Actually, Alan, it was the Southeast Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society who organized the event. It took place on the campus of SCAD, and would not have been possible without their incredible generosity, but “It’s a MAD MAD SCAD Weekend” was the brainchild of Nick Meglin, Michael Jantze and Jack Pittman of the SECNCS, and was tied into our annual chapter meeting. SCAD’s participation (which, I must stress, went way beyond financial support) enabled us to turn Nick’s idea for a MAD reunion into a bonafide Event. And what an amazing couple of days it was! Based on conversations I had with each of them, our guests had as much fun in Savannah as those of us who came to see them and take part in the panels, workshops, meet-and-greets, signings and SCAD tour.
Unfortunately, one of our anticipated Idiots could not make it – Don “Duck” Edwing had to cancel at the last minute, and was sorely missed by attendees as well as his fellow MADmen.
It was just amazing! Nuff said!
The SECNCS hosted the cartoonists and SCAD sponsored the event like nobody’s business. They were incredibly generous to us. We had a great showing of Chapter members who made the long haul down to Savannah and we were honored to have not only our esteemed NCS President, Tom Richmond, join our business meeting but a group of SCAD students, as well. The entire event was fabulous. Sadly, Jeff Keane, Duck Edwing, Greg Cravens and a few other notables were not able to join us. Like John said, they were truly missed.
In looking at a photo of the MAD reunion, I was very pleased to see a group of older cartoonists could look so handsome! It gives me hope!