Will Elder has died at the age of 87, after a battle with Parkinson's. A commercial artist and cartoonist, he spent much of his life all but joined at the hip to the great Harvey Kurtzman, who created Mad for EC Comics in 1952. Elder, who had been a classmate and collaborator of Kurtzman's from years before, became the defining artistic voice of Mad in its comic book period; he and Kurtzman had similar senses of humor, and when Elder illustrated Kurtzman's scripts eviscerating such cultural touchstones as Mickey Mouse, Sherlock Holmes, and Archie and Jughead. After Kurtzman left Mad in 1957, Elder followed him loyally through a string of short-lived humor magazines: Trump (a Garden of Eden for print humor of the period, and one that lasted all of two issues), Humbug (which is set to be republished in its entirety later this year by Fantagraphics), and Help!
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