The Ink Stained Wretch #127: 3/27/24
Here's Caricaturing You, Kid, Putting the Blunder In Wondercon, and Whence Alfred?
Here we go with yet another of the narcissistic, naughty, and noxious narratives that are these newsletters! This week we ask "of all the caricature joints in all the towns in the world, she walks into mine...", get ready for Wondercon, and look into the origins of Alfred E. Neuman...on with the 'Wretch!
Sketch o'the Week: Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman!
It's time to round up the usual suspects as we begin a new series for the "Sketch o'the Week"... famous movie scenes! This was inspired by this sketch, which was actually a commission ordered by a longtime customer who wanted Bogey and Bergman drawn in the classic ending scene from "Casablanca". After I did the sketch I thought a series of caricatures from classic moments in cinema history would be a lot of fun to do. So... HERE WE GO! Send me some suggestions!
Comic Conning
It's comic con time! I don't do a lot of comic cons but there are a few I try not to miss being part of. This weekend will be my first comic-con appearance of 2024, although I won't have my own booth. I'll be at the National Cartoonists Society booth (#2000) which is located right at the front of the exhibit floor as you enter from the lobby. Since I'll just same a little table space there I won't have my full compliment of crap to hawk, but I will have plenty of copies of CLAPTRAP, my Sketch o’the Week books, various prints and I will be doing commissions onsite.
My other conventions this year include C2E2 in Chicago April 26-28th, San Diego Comic Con July 24-28th, New York Comic Con (not confirmed quite yet) October 17-20th and Little Ol' Wisconsin Comic Con in Milwaukee Nov 1-3rd.
Speaking of Upcoming Appearances…
Desmond Devlin and I will be guests on David P. Levin’s “Pop Goes the Culture” live podcast on Monday April 1st at 8:00 PM CDT. We’ll be talking MAD, CLAPTRAP, telling stories, and answering questions! You can join in on the MADness is one of two ways. The free version is here, where you watch live via YouTube. The second is a paid version where you get a special link to watch in the show’s webinar space and have a chance to come into the live event and ask a question on the air. There are two tiers for that, one of which gets you one of the first nine spots that will guarantee you are part of the show. Follow this link for that.
Where'd This Idiot Come From?
Where did MAD's idiot boy mascot, the ageless Alfred E. Neuman, originate? That's a question I get a lot, and one that has no certain answer, but a lot of interesting history. The image seen above is from the earliest known (so far) appearance of a character that contains all the most recognizable characteristics of Alfred: the frontal portrait angle, the wide and squat head shape, the pointy chin, the grin with missing teeth and round cheeks, the big ears, the freckles and tossled mop of hair. This is from a promotional poster for the 1894 play "The New Boy", starring James T. Powers. It ran from Sept 17th to Dec 1st, 1894 in the Standard Theater on W 33rd St., New York City.
Pictures like the ones above have been cropping up since MAD first adopted the image of the smiling, idiotic boy who would eventually be known as Alfred E. Neuman. After the appearance of "The New Boy" ads, images of the smiling, gap toothed boy have been a part of American pictorial history throughout the late 1800's and all the first half of the 20th century. His image, in various depictions and by various artists, has been seen in advertisements for "painless dentistry" (often with the phrase "It Didn't Hurt a Bit") and medicines, political postcards belittling Roosevelt's run for a third term in 1941, logos for cafes and soda bottles, Broadway playbills, and assorted other places. All were obviously depictions of the same kid although done by different artists... freckles, goofy grin with a missing tooth, big ears, wide head and messy red/brown hair. His catch phrase "Me- worry?" (MAD would later add the "What...") began to appear with his image as early as 1914.
Legend has it that in 1954, MAD editor Harvey Kurtzman, while in the office of Ballantine Books editor Bernard Shir-Cliff, spotted a postcard with a picture of the "Me- Worry" kid on the bulletin board. That may or may not have been this image:
He had seen and was intrigued by the various versions of the image he'd come across over the years. He was convinced that the boy depicted on the postcard in Shir-Cliff's office was the original, or one of the earliest incarnations. Shir-Cliff gave Kurtzman the postcard, and Kurtzman used the image several times in the early MAD comic books.
The boy's first appearance was not in the comic but on the cover of the MAD Reader, the first MAD reprint anthology book. He first appeared in a regular issue of MAD on the cover of issue #21, which was a fake mail order catalog form, and the boy's image was a small part of one of the fake ads. When MAD became a magazine, the boy's face appeared in the center of a decorative border that was used in early issues, complete with his "What, Me Worry?" catch phrase. He also began to appear in cameos in various inside articles. Readers noticed, and letters began to arrive asking about the "What, Me Worry" kid. Obviously Kurtzman's fascination with the gap-toothed simpleton's mug was contagious. In issue #27, a full page picture of the kid was published in black and white on the inside back cover, and higher quality prints were made available for 15 cents... no word on whether they sold well or not.
So far the grinning boy had no official name. He'd been referred to as the "What, Me Worry?" kid, Melvin Coznowski and Mel Haney, but not Alfred E. Neuman. According to Kurtzman, that name was used in MAD and other E.C. comics as a gag name for various jokes unrelated to the kid's image... it was taken from the Henry Morgan radio show, which used it as a bit character's name. Morgan got it in turn from a Hollywood musical director named Alfred Newman. Kurtzman credits readers for putting the unrelated but mentioned name to the face. He was officially referred to as "Alfred E. Neuman" in MAD #29, in a one page ad parody.
Al Feldstein took over for Kurtzman as editor as of issue #29. Feldstein and Nick Meglin, a young associate editor, recognized in Alfred the kind of mascot potential that was seen in images like the Playboy Bunny. Feldstein advertised for an illustrator to do a definitive, color illustration of Alfred E. Neuman for a cover. He found mostly retired advertising illustrator and painter Norman Mingo. Mingo's rendition of Alfred appeared on issue #30, and Alfred has appeared on nearly every cover of MAD ever since. He quickly became the face of MAD, representing MAD's unique brand of irreverent humor and satire. Alfred has since become a bona-fide giant part of the American zeitgeist, referred to in all manner of media and pop-culture.
Unfortunately, MAD's runaway popularity made it and Alfred a target for lawsuits. MAD was sued several times by the late fifties by people claiming copyright infringement, saying they owned the rights to one of all those depictions of Alfred prior to MAD's adoption of him. In the mid sixties, one of those cases made it all the way to the Supreme court. Helen Pratt Stuff sued MAD for the use of the boy's image, claiming her late husband had created and copyrighted the image in 1914 as part of a postcard not seen in print since 1920. Stuff had renewed the copyright in 1941, and she had successfully sued several other people who she claimed infringed on the work. MAD was able to prove in Federal Appellate Court that Stuff had both failed to protect the copyright by not contesting every known use of the image, and that the image had been in use by others prior to the filing of the copyright in 1914. All previous copyrights were invalidated by the courts. The Supreme Court upheld the ruling. Alfred remained the face of MAD.
So, there you have it… a not very definitive but reasonably accurate Alfred origin story!
Excellent post. Making a classic cinematic suggestion for one of my all time favorites. Any scene out of Cool Hand Luke. Perhaps Paul eating the 50 eggs with George Kennedy 'egging him on'... Or a scene for the classic line "What we've got here is a failure to communicate". The movie is full of great scenes to illustrate.
Fascinating! Thanks for the history lesson!