BILL SCHELLY'S HARVEY KURTZMAN - THE MAN WHO CREATED MAD - GUEST POST BY BARRY PEARL...

Okay, Criv-ites, do we have a treat for you!  Celebrated Comicbook collector and historian BARRY PEARL has kindly consented to allow CRIVENS! to publish this guest post of his review on the above book.  Take it away, Barry.  (But don't forget to bring it back!)

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Bill Schelly's book, 'Harvey Kurtzman - The Man Who Created Mad And Revolutionized Humour In America', is a delightful, easy to read and compelling look at an immense talent, Harvey Kurtzman, most famously noted for being the creator of Mad Magazine.  It reads like a novel - a five-star novel.

Schelly doesn't get bogged down in telling Kurtzman's family history and early life, like so many authors do.  Here, Schelly uses Kurtz- man's history to show us how his character and personality developed.  In fact, throughout the book, many of Kurtzman's friends refer to these times and why he was the way he was.  Of great interest is the time he spent in the High School of Music And Art developing his talent and his friendships with such people as Bill Elder.

After the war, Kurtzman worked at Timely Comics (now known as Marvel).  We see many sides of Stan Lee, a positive one first from Harvey, but a cloudier side emerges from others who were there. Most important, we begin to see the relationship Kurtzman would have with publishers, beginning here with Martin Goodman.  This becomes an important theme that is developed throughout the book.

The next stop, of course, was EC, where he developed incredible war books and created Mad magazine. Again, his relationship with the publisher is paramount to the storytelling. Without taking sides, Schelly successfully brings out the publisher’s point of view. William Gaines and his mother financed Mad, investing a large amount of money. As the businessman, Gaines arranged for the production, publication and distribution, something Kurtzman would have trouble doing when attempting to publish his own work later.

Kurtzman saw Mad, and his other works, as primarily a creative process, a view at odds with a publisher concerned, he felt, only about money.  Kurtzman’s micro-managing, insisting on doing the scripts and artistic layouts, would cause huge problems and haunt him throughout his career in regard to deadlines and hiring the best talent.  It’s an interesting tug of war, often between ownership, Kurtzman and his artists.

As Mad Comic transforms into a magazine, Schelly could have, as so many do, become bogged down with a huge section on the creation and implementation of the Comics Code.  He doesn't, thank gosh.  Instead, he shows how the code directly affected the industry, EC, Gaines, Kurtzman and Mad.

This leads to Kurtzman leaving EC and creating Trump for Hugh Hefner of Playboy fame.  It lasted only two issues and Schelly examines from all sides, even using current interviews, why it failed.  Later, Kurtzman turns out not to be that good a businessman.  His creation of Humbug and his relationship with the men who ran Charlton and their distributors are another fascinating part of the book.  Also, his relationship with Jim Warren putting out Help! is interesting, as is the 'guest appearance' of one of Kurtzman’s assistants, Gloria Steinem.

For some time I had read that his character of Goodman Beaver just got a 'sex change' and became Little Annie Fanny for Hefner’s Playboy.  I never quite saw it.  Here, Schelly shows how Goodman was a forerunner of the project, but the character was so altered for Playboy that it’s hard to call them clones, although there was an evolution.  And we see how Kurtzman’s micro-managing collided with that of Hefner’s.

The last part of the book shows how much Kurtzman influenced a new generation of comic book talent, especially those involved in what we call the Underground Comics.  His relationship with Robert Crumb is described, but then it gets sad.  He is being recognized and celebrated; his EC output is being reprinted in Russ Cochran’s archive editions.  Yet, Kurtzman’s brief return to Mad is a gloomy experience as is the end of Little Annie Fanny with his now distant relationship with Hefner.  All this goes on while he is fighting Parkinson’s disease and Cancer.

The only problem with this book, which contains some great black and white (and a few colour) images, is that you want to pull out all those Mads, Humbugs, Helps! and Annie Fannys and re-read them as you go through this wonderful volume.

Barry's collection of books by Bill Schelly

Once again, thanks to Barry for his informative review.  Jump in and let him know just how much you appreciate his time and trouble, frantic ones.  You remember where the comments section is, don't you?