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| Jack Rickard's first film poster, from 1963 |
Throughout the sixties and seventies, Jack Rickard was a popular MAD magazine artist as well as one of the most prolific illustrators working in advertising. In fact, whenever the "MAD Men" did a advertising/MADison Ave spoof, Jack was usually they're Go-To guy for the art, satirizing what he knew best and biting the hand that fed him. Among "the usual gang of idiots", his name isn't as famous as say, Don Martin, Mort Drucker, Jack Davis or Al Jaffee among others, but his work was consistently on-target, fun, funny, likeable and always beautifully painted. he's long been one of my MAD favorites.
Long-time MAD editor, and the author of the seminal "The Art of Humorous Illustration" Nick Meglin on Jack Rickard: "My appreciation of Jack Rickard's work was that he could do such terrific work in every medium to give us the special look we needed for each piece--line work here, a funny rendered "Ad" parody there, etc."
MAD writer Frank Jacobs on Jack Rickard: "Jack Rickard was a joy to work with and a talent like no other."
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| Alfred E. Neuman morphing into MAD publisher William M. Gaines |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Rickard
J.R. also enjoyed a career (beginning in 1963), as one of the most in-demand film comedy poster artists, (at first exclusively with United Artists), lasting through the seventies and into the eighties. It's his film poster work I'll be showcasing here. Along with Jack Davis, Frank Frazetta, Sanford Kossin (all of whose film poster work I've recently blogged about), and to a lesser extent Mort Drucker, J.R. turned out many terrific, fun and innovative movie poster images. Jack's career at MAD lasted only 22 years, beginning in 1962, with his last illustrated piece running in 1984. He died of cancer in 1983 at age 61. At that time, J.R. had become MAD's main cover artist, having taken over from the late, great Norman Mingo.
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| cover art by Jack Rickard |
I hope you enjoy the terrific film poster art (plus a few extra rare items) of the great Jack Rickard. Some of the posters will be familiar and some will hopefully be new to you (many were to me).
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larger view
Spanish version of the poster |
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also from 1963, a long forgotten Italian comedy. Mel Brooks narrated the trailer!
Not an actual movie poster but a parody created for MAD in 1964 |
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| a forgotten caper film comedy from 1965 with a fun J.R. poster |
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from 1966, a Billy Wilder hit, poster art by Jack Rickard
Jerry Lewis/Tony curtis, together for the first and last time! "the big comedy from Nineteen Sexty Sex!" (1966) |
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from 1967, a great cast, and another " It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World" inspired comedy, and J.R.'s most elaborate poster art to date. Produced by Moe Howard's son-in-law!
Trailers from Hell on "Who's Minding the Mint?" |
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| a Bob Hope/Phyllis Diller "comedy" from 1968 |
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| Jack was hired in 1969 to do the original poster art for "Bob, Carol, Ted & Alice" which was ultimately not used. But he enjoyed the last laugh when MAD asked him to do their cover parody of the film in 1970. |
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the original J.R. art
and his preliminary painting |
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| another popular Jack Lemmon comedy (based on the work of James Thurber) from 1972 |
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the newspaper add for the film
the Belgian poster |
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| from 1974, the sequel to "The Three Musketeers" (in case that needed to be explained) |
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| the Yugoslav poster and a closer look at J.R.'s art... and Raquel Welch's boobs |
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| from 1974, a Peter Sellers comedy, original title: "Soft Beds, Hard Battles" (Oy vey) |
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| A second version with additional J.R. caricatures of 6 Peter sellers in various disguises. |
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| J.R. created several versions of poster art for this popular Sidney Poitier comedy with an all-star black cast, also from his busy year of 1974 |
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| second version |
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Jack's poster art for the sequel from 1975. Sanford Kossin also created a poster image for this film (see my blog on Kossin)
larger version
Art by J.R., unclear which film it was commissioned for but perhaps also for Bingo Long. |
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| J.R. was hired to create the poster art for another all-star black film comedy, "The Bingo Long Traveling All-Stars and Motor Kings" in 1976 for Motown films, which was ultimately not used |
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| more unused art created for "Bingo Long" |
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| terrific artwork created for "The Ritz" (1976), for some reason unused |
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| J.R. art done in 1978 for the poster for "Movie Movie" starring George C. Scott, but not used |
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"From the MADman that started it all"... Not.
from 1980, and a legendary, clueless, godawful film disaster (directed by Robert Downey's dad!). MAD publisher William Gaines hated it so much he had MAD do a vicious satire of it. The film's Star Ron Liebman had his name removed from it. The only reason it was even made was an attempt to cash in on the huge success of "National Lampoon's Animal House" from two years earlier. It backfired and bombed. The only actual connections this film had to MAD was the large statue created of Alfred E. Neuman (Which Gaines acquired and sits to this day in the reception room at the MAD offices) and this poster art created by Jack Rickard.
the original art |
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| J.R. poster art created for the 1980 Martin Mull/Tuesday Weld/Tommy Smothers comedy "Serial" (directed by the legendary comedy writer Bill Persky), though finally not used. |
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Jack Rickard's final poster illustration, a Dudley Moore all-star "Dud", also from 1980.
Thanks to Nick Meglin, Sandy Kossin and Justin Humphreys |
