Sunday, April 12, 2009

Jazzbo


Here we have one of my favorite Wally Wood pieces of all time. It's just so detailed you could easily spend ten-twenty minutes savoring it. From MAD # 31 in late 1956, this is a portrait of Al "Jazzbo" Collins, a now mostly forgotten name in pop culture history. Collins had been a popular "hip" disc jockey in the early days of radio dj's. He was popular enough that he also appeared as himself in a very good episode of the sci-fi radio series, X MINUS ONE. In 1957, he even briefly became a host of the TONIGHT SHOW in its flop incarnation as TONIGHT! AMERICA AFTER DARK. I remember hearing him on Public radio as late as the early 1980's but for the most part his star faded rapidly. MAD, however, in these early Feldstein issues, was often getting popular topical folks such as Ernie Kovacs, Stan Freberg and Tom Lehrer to either do pieces for them or let them illustrate already existing bits. Al "Jazzbo" Collins' piece in this issue wasn't really that funny but it featured some nice illustrations as always during this period from Woody...including this masterpiece!

5 comments:

  1. It's glorious. I haven't seen this one before. Wood was just so...GREAT at these detailed scenarios, with all the funny little rugrats and critters. Back when I was a kid I just didn't appreciate this kind of work like I do now.

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  2. I just went back and looked again. I mean look at his tie! It's an INFINITY tie! Long live Woody!

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  3. One of those images that tell you you're dealing with a genius. Every time I come back to this, I pick up on some little wrinkle I hadn't noticed before. Today, it was the BMW logo. I guess swinging cats like Al like their status symbols, as opposed to the "squares" he's talking to, drawn in sharp angles, with one even smoking a square pipe! (While Al smokes two cigarettes through a tuning fork!)

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  4. Also one of my all time favorites. Woody we miss you!!

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