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Sid Caesar by John Johns
The late illustrator/caricaturist John A. Johns (1921-2005) might very well be the textbook example of a "big fish in a small pond", the small pond being Pittsburgh (not to disparage Pittsburgh). Johns was born in Pittsburgh and worked and remained there his entire life. Aside from perhaps Andy Warhol, Johns was the most renowned artist ever born in that city, although unlike Warhol, outside of Pittsburgh he was virtually unknown.
In 1952, Johns became an in-house "staff artist" at the Pittsburgh Press, drawing caricatures, spot drawings, even maps, all on demand. Beginning around 1960, towards the end of each week, finally came the big perk for him: creating a full color cover image-- usually a current TV star, for their Sunday TV GRAPHIC magazine. Johns usually had little time to render these covers, perhaps several hours from start to finish, and in some cases less than an hour, yet for the next decade, he somehow managed to turn out over 100 beautiful covers, vivid, lush and funny images, some far more weirdly distorted than others. In fact he was a master of distortion. It became a ritual for many in Pittsburgh to look forward to the John Johns TV caricature every Sunday.
Johns ended his tenure with the Pittsburgh Press in 1970, which was also the year he made his single contribution to MAD magazine, illustrating a 3 page piece written by Larry Siegel (scroll down below). MAD would often test potential contributers (including me) with an initial assignment and then decide whether the artist was worthy to join the ranks of "the usual gang of idiots". Similar to his fellow illustrators Sanford Kossin, (who wound up doing a total of 2 assignments for MAD), and Bruce Stark, (who would do 3), Johns would only appear in MAD once. I'm not up on the facts, but speculate that his finished art for the piece was perhaps a bit too similar to Mort Drucker's in style, and MAD didn't need another Mort Drucker.
No matter, John Johns went on to be an (and according to many, a much loved) art instructor at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh for the next 30 years, even becoming it's president for a decade.
The renowned caricaturist Zach Trenholm is a walking encyclopedia on caricature and it's history and recently introduced me to the amazing work of John Johns who I had never heard of (although I did vividly recall his lone MAD piece from 1970, especially his Sammy Davis, Jr. faces!) Many of these John Johns images come from Zach's collection. Check out his caricaturist site to see more great examples of current and forgotten caricaturists:
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| Sid Caesar, the printed cover |
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| Bob Hope |
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| Danny Kaye |
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| Fred Astaire |
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| Bing Crosby |
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| Ernest Borgnine |
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| Art Carney & Harvey |
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| Vince Edwards as Ben Casey |
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| Carol Burnett |
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| Jack Benny |
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| Fred MacMurray |
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| Raymond Massey & Richard Chamberlain: "Dr. Kildare" |
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| Dean Martin |
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| Jackie Gleason |
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| James Arness: "Gunsmoke" |
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| Don Knotts & Andy Griffith |
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| Raymond Burr |
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| George Burns |
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| Lloyd Bridges |
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| Henry Fonda |
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| Mike Wallace |
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| Alfred Hitchcock |
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| Lucille Ball |
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| Richard Boone |
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| Jack Webb |
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| Dennis Weaver, Rickey Der: "Kentucky Jones" |
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| Johnny Carson |
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| Barbra Striesand |
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| Charles Bickford: "The Virginian" |
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| Bill Cosby, Robert Culp: "Eye Spy" |
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| Joan Blondell: "Here Comes the Brides" |
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| Mitch Miller |
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| Imogene Coca |
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| Sid Caesar & Imogene Coca |
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| Hugh Downs: "The Today Show" |
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| Jonathan Harris, Robot, Billy Mumy: "Lost in Space" |
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| Merv Griffin |
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| Lee J. Cobb |
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| the cast of "Mission Impossible" |
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| Eddie Albert |
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a montage of Johns images created for the National Cartoonist Society,
including Tennessee Ernie Ford,
top right
A recent display of Johns original art
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| 1968 Pittsburgh Press interior cartoon by Johns |
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| Pg's one and two of John Johns' only piece for MAD magazine, from 1970, issue #133 (click to enlarge) |
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Pg. three
A later sketch of Prince Charles by Johns |
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montage of various friends of John Johns, including Johns himself
(on lower right with bow tie) and "Famous Monsters"
editor Forrest J. Ackerman
directly above him. |
A nice blog post on John Johns...
Special thanks to Zach Trenholm and Richard Greene
