page_title: Harvey Kurtzman
section_title: Early career (1942–49)
hierarchical_section_title: Harvey Kurtzman / Personal and professional history / Early career (1942–49)
caption_attribution_description: Cover scan of a Classics Comics book
context_page_description: Harvey Kurtzman was an American cartoonist and editor. His best-known work includes writing and editing the parodic comic book Mad from 1952 until 1956, and illustrating the Little Annie Fanny strips in Playboy from 1962 until 1988. His work is noted for its satire and parody of popular culture, social critique, and attention to detail. Kurtzman's working method has been likened to that of an auteur, and he expected those who illustrated his stories to follow his layouts strictly.
  Kurtzman began to work on the New Trend line of comic books at EC Comics in 1950. He wrote and edited the Two-Fisted Tales and Frontline Combat war comic books, where he also drew many of the carefully researched stories, before he created his most-remembered comic book, Mad, in 1952. Kurtzman scripted the stories and had them drawn by top EC cartoonists, most frequently Will Elder, Wally Wood, and Jack Davis; the early Mad was noted for its social critique and parodies of pop culture. The comic book switched to a magazine format in 1955, and Kurtzman left it in 1956 over a dispute with EC's owner William Gaines over financial control.
context_section_description: Kurtzman met Alfred Andriola in 1942, encouraged by a quote in Martin Sheridan's Classic Comics and their Creators where Andriola offered help to aspiring cartoonists.  Kurtzman made an appointment, but Andriola's response to his work was discouraging—he told Kurtzman to give up on cartooning.  Kurtzman called this meeting "one of the worst days of [his] life", though he ignored Andriola's advice and continued to peddle his portfolio.
  Kurtzman continued to do odd jobs in 1942 until he got his first break in the comics industry at Louis Ferstadt's studio, which produced comics for Quality, Ace, Gilberton, and the Daily Worker.  His first published work there was assisting on issue #5 (September 1942) of Gilberton's Classic Comics, which features an adaptation of Moby Dick.  His first pencil job appeared in Four Favorites #8 (December 1942).  He produced a large amount of undistinguished work in 1942 and 1943, which he later called "very crude, very ugly stuff", before he was drafted in 1943 for service in World War II.
  Kurtzman trained for the infantry, but was never sent overseas.  He was stationed in Louisiana, North Carolina, South Carolina, and Texas.  He illustrated instruction manuals, posters, and flyers, and contributed cartoons to camp newspapers, and newsletters.  While there, he was invited by publisher and cartoonist L. B. Cole to draw the "Black Venus" superheroine, packaged for publisher Rae Herman's Orbit Publications.  In 1944, he did work for several local publications while stationed in North Carolina, and had several gag cartoons in Yank by the end of October 1945.  The quantity of work allowed Kurtzman to hone his style, which became more refined and distinct.
  After his discharge following the war, Kurtzman found competition fierce in the comics industry, as freelancing replaced the system of packaging shops.  He applied to the newspaper PM, but his portfolio was rejected by cartoon editor Walt Kelly.  After a series of short-lived assignments and partnerships, Kurtzman got together with former Music and Art alumni Will Elder and Charles Stern.  They opened Charles William Harvey Studio in 1947, but had difficulty getting work.  The three had little business sense.  Kurtzman managed the bills.  In their Broadway studio, which Kurtzman kept open until the end of 1951, they sublet space to cartoonists such as John Severin, Dave Berg, and René Goscinny.
  Kurtzman had been doing crossword puzzles for publisher Martin Goodman since early in his career.  A distant relative of Goodman's, Stan Lee, worked as an editor for Goodman's Timely Comics (a precursor to Marvel Comics).  He offered Kurtzman work doing one-page fillers, work that paid little.  Lee named the strip Hey Look!, and Kurtzman produced 150 episodes of it from 1946 until 1949.
  At an Art and Music reunion in early 1946 Kurtzman met Adele Hasan, who was one of the staff members at Timely and was dating Will Elder.  She fell for Kurtzman, confiding to Al Jaffee that he "was the kind of kind [she would] like to marry".  Later in the year, Timely ran a "Now You Can Be the Editor!" contest whose ballots Hasan was assigned to sort through.  She was disappointed that readers did not enjoy Kurtzman's Hey Look! as much as she did.  She "stuffed the ballot box" in Kurtzman's favor, which prompted an astonished Stan Lee to assign Kurtzman more work.  Kurtzman was given the funny animal feature Pigtales at regular freelance rates, as well as miscellaneous other assignments.  As Harvey stopped by the Timely offices more frequently, he and Adele would flirt, and eventually started dating.  She left Timely for college that autumn, and corresponded frequently with Kurtzman; soon she dropped out of college and the two married that September.
  In 1948 Kurtzman produced a Sunday comic strip, Silver Linings, which ran infrequently in the New York Herald Tribune between March and June.  Lee had Hey Look! brought to an end in 1949 so Kurtzman could concentrate on longer features for Timely's family-oriented line.  Kurtzman was assigned artwork duties for the Lee-scripte
caption: Kurtzman assisted on the Classics Illustrated version of Moby Dick in 1942 as his first assignment at Louis Ferstadt's studio.
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