
Mort Drucker has died - jdhzzz
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/09/arts/mort-drucker-dead.html
======
JKCalhoun
Man, and Sy Mead ... my childhood heroes are disappearing.

I would pick up the odd Mad magazine from the grocery store (or Rexall Drug)
if I had enough allowance money. I had been drawing since I was a small kid
(like everyone else) but as I got to be about 11 or 12 I started seriously
trying to draw people: the hardest thing for me to draw well.

One style of art stood out for me in Mad magazine. The artist drew people in a
realistic way. They were caricatures to a degree, but not off the scale like
Don Martin. The poses and facial expressions were natural, the lines minimal
but enough to convey a degree of realism.

I looked at how Mort Drucker drew the clavicle on a woman, as an example —
just a little serif, a small arc with a long tail — and I started drawing
clavicles like that.

And on and on.

I've come to believe that an artist's "style" is a result of all the little
tells they've stolen from other artists (perhaps tempered by their own
artistic shortcomings?).

I often wonder where Mort Drucker and other contemporary artists got their
style from. Use of line weight from Winsor McCay? Crosshatching from John
Tenniel?

No doubt Mort Drucker has influenced thousands and thousands of artists. He
will be missed but his art will always still be here.

That's an actual legacy.

~~~
egypturnash
_I 've come to believe that an artist's "style" is a result of all the little
tells they've stolen from other artists (perhaps tempered by their own
artistic shortcomings?)._

Pro artist, you are pretty much spot on, except for not including a certain
number of stylizations invented while working from life. I like to say that
when you can rip off eight people in the course of one drawing, you have your
own style.

I learnt recently that the creator of Lupin III was influenced by Drucker and
Aragones and the way that manga/anime looks makes _so much sense_ now.

~~~
rhizome
Style is how you stitch the thefts together.

~~~
dhimes
This is an amazing line- I think it transcends fields.

------
canada_dry
The guy had a genius for simple yet superb art.

An example off pinterest...

[https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e1/ee/70/e1ee708d9a72bb8b8c52c8aa9...](https://i.pinimg.com/736x/e1/ee/70/e1ee708d9a72bb8b8c52c8aa91d424a8
--drucker-mad-magazine.jpg)

------
KingFelix
I drove to Microcenter with my son yesterday, picking up parts for new
workstations. Brought my son to get out of the house, he brought a Mad
magazine (Christmas book special edition) and read it the entire way. RIP
Mort!

------
ChrisArchitect
In a 1985 MAD issue there was a 'special computer section' with numerous tech
jokes, oddities and a giant chunk of BASIC code

Here's a thread of scans posted recently:
[https://twitter.com/harrymccracken/status/124937498518697984...](https://twitter.com/harrymccracken/status/1249374985186979840)

([https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1249374985186979840.html](https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1249374985186979840.html))

------
jcl
I've always been particularly impressed by the way Mort Drucker drew hands --
so expressive and seemingly effortless, sometimes carrying the scene as much
as the faces.

A good summary: [http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2006/03/wowee-look-at-
th...](http://illustrationart.blogspot.com/2006/03/wowee-look-at-those-
hands_11.html)

------
xtiansimon
.

I met Mort Drucker by accident at a Starbucks in Syosset, NY. I noticed he was
sketching and made a comment. His companion said, do you know who this is..?

I worked in a comic book shop in high school and into college. Of course I
knew Mort Drucker, and now I recognize him.

------
The_rationalist
Kinda ironic that his name literally means _dead_ in French

~~~
beering
I was curious enough to look it up and the given name Mortimer means "dead
pond" according to Wiktionary. Mort Drucker's name is Morris, not Mortimer, so
I guess this is a somewhat irrelevant piece of trivia.

------
Razengan
Even though I haven’t read MAD in a long time, and didn’t see this name
anywhere for probably a decade, seeing this post instantly sparked
recognition.

------
3fe9a03ccd14ca5
Is it common in the USA to have an obituary without including the cause of
death?

~~~
kube-system
Yes, very common, especially if the cause is not directly relevant to the
person's life story.

i.e. it might be mentioned for things like a military member dying in combat,
or a person who fought a lifelong battle with a disease. But an older person
who died of a health issue would not usually be mentioned.

~~~
JJMcJ
Sometimes there are ways to guess:

"long illness" \- cancer, but can be other things

"short illness" \- heart attack, stroke, pneumonia, for instance

"died at home" \- polite euphemism for suicide, though can be natural death at
home for someone who lived alone

