postcard of the 31st Diamond Pepper Festival
- NEWS
- Sat, 9 Sep 2023 13:54:20 +0330
Artist
Biography
John Burton Davis, Jr. (December 2, 1924 – July 27, 2016) was an American cartoonist and illustrator, known for his advertising art, magazine covers, film posters, record album art and numerous comic book stories. He was one of the founding cartoonists for Mad in 1952. His cartoon characters are characterized by extremely distorted anatomy, including big heads, skinny legs and large feet.
Davis was born December 2, 1924, in Atlanta, Georgia.As a child, he adored listening to Bob Hope on the radio and tried to draw him, despite not knowing what Hope looked like.
Davis was inducted into the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2003. He also received the National Cartoonists Society's Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996. A finalist for inclusion in the Jack Kirby Hall of Fame in 1990, 1991 and 1992, he received the National Cartoonists Society's Advertising Award for 1980 and their Reuben Award for 2000.
In June 2002, Davis had a retrospective exhibition of his work at the Society of Illustrators in New York. He was inducted into the Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame in 2005.
In 1989, Davis was commissioned by the United States Postal Service to design the 25-cent Letter Carriers stamp. There was some concern that the cartoon would offend some letter carriers as being too informal and not respectful of their position. However, the president of the Letter Carriers Union gave his blessing, and the stamp was well received. Although postal policy does not allow artists to portray living persons on stamps, one of the carriers in the stamp is an unmistakable self-portrait of Davis.
In 2019, Davis was posthumously awarded the Inkwell Awards Stacey Aragon Special Recognition Award for his lifetime of work in the inking field.
