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.

While Annie Fanny provided much of his income for the rest of his career, he continued to produce an eclectic body of work, including screenwriting the animated Mad Monster Party?

He admired a wide variety of strips, including Hamlin's Alley Oop,[16] Caniff's Terry and the Pirates, Gould's Dick Tracy, Foster's Prince Valiant, Raymond's Flash Gordon, and Capp's Li'l Abner.

[b][26] He produced a large amount of undistinguished work in 1942 and 1943, which he later called "very crude, very ugly stuff",[27] before he was drafted in 1943 for service in World War II.

[28] After his discharge following the war, Kurtzman found competition fierce in the comics industry, as freelancing replaced the system of packaging shops.

Kurtzman was assigned artwork duties for the Lee-scripted Rusty, an imitation of Chic Young's comic strip Blondie, but was disappointed with this type of work and began looking for other employment.

[37] He also sold longer pieces to Toby, including episodes of his Western parody Pot Shot Pete, a short-lived series that hinted at the pop-culture satire Kurtzman was to become known for.

Gaines directed Kurtzman to his brother, David, who gave him some low-paying work on Lucky Fights it Through, a two-fisted cowboy story with an educational health message about syphilis.

[57] When Kurtzman parodied National's Batman character just four issues later, the spoof included six separate picket signs, posters and other notices proclaiming that "Batboy and Rubin" was a comedic imitation, e.g.: "Not a spittoon, not a cartoon, not a harpoon, but a LAMPOON!"

[63] In 1954, Kurtzman dreamed up a full-color, 100-page adaptation of Dickens' A Christmas Carol called Marley's Ghost, and proposed the project to Simon & Schuster and other publishers.

[66][page needed] The Senate Subcommittee on Juvenile Delinquency brought pressure on such comic books in 1954, and EC, one of the major purveyors of such fare, found their wares being refused by their distributor.

[67] The new presentation was ambitious, and included meticulously rendered advertisement parodies and text pieces by humorists such as Ernie Kovacs, Stan Freberg, and Steve Allen.

Cartoonists who contributed to Trump included Mad regulars such as Elder, Wood, Davis, and Jaffee, as well as Russ Heath and newer artists such as Irving Geis, Arnold Roth, and R. O. Blechman.

Only artist Jack Davis became an equal shareholder and the only salaried employee despite declining to financially back the project; his participation was considered vital to its success.

With Kurtzman in the lead the reinvigorated, close-knit group set out to produce a classy publication in the vein of college humor magazines, but aimed at a general readership.

[80] After the demise of Humbug, Kurtzman spent a few years as a freelance contributor to magazines such as Playboy, Esquire, Madison Avenue, The Saturday Evening Post, TV Guide, and Pageant.

The magazine made frequent use of fumetti photographic comics, which sometimes starred celebrities[89] such as Woody Allen and a pre-Monty Python John Cleese.

had introduced a number of young cartoonists who were to play a major part in the underground comix movement, including Robert Crumb, Jay Lynch, Gilbert Shelton, Spain Rodriguez, and Skip Williamson.

His protégés such as Crumb, Spiegelman and Gilliam sang his praises, his reputation grew with the spread of comics fandom,[116] and collector Glenn Bray published The Illustrated Harvey Kurtzman Index in 1976.

He oversaw[115] reprints of his work in deluxe editions from Russ Cochran, who did The Complete EC Library, and Kitchen Sink Press, who did collections of Goodman Beaver (1984), Hey Look!

[104][119] Kurtzman brought Little Annie Fanny to an end in 1988, amid failing health, a poor relationship with Playboy cartoon editor Michelle Urry, and resentment over the discovery that he did not own the rights to the strip.

[132] Though it may look deceptively simple to the casual observer, [Kurtzman's art] is the end product of a long process of paring an elaborate drawing down to its essential line.

[134] In the war stories he drew himself he employed a drawing style that distorted figures in expressive ways more akin to modern art than the stylizations of contemporary superhero or talking animal comics.

[48] R. C. Harvey described this style as "abstract and telepathic" in stories that were realistic in the telling, but in which "his figures were exaggerated and contorted, demonstrations of posture as drama rather than reality as perceived".

[15] Along with cartoonists such as Will Eisner, Jack Kirby, and Carl Barks, Kurtzman is regularly cited as one of the defining creators of the Golden Age of American comic books.

This prompted an angry response to the newspaper from Art Spiegelman, who complained that awarding Kurtzman partial credit for starting Mad was "like saying Michelangelo helped paint the Sistine Chapel just because some Pope owned the ceiling.

[149] Kurtzman's style of humor influenced countercultural comedians from the 1960s on, including the sketch comedy series Saturday Night Live, according to member Harry Shearer.

"[123] While some, such as R. C. Harvey considered it a masterpiece,[135] others such as Michael Dooley felt Little Annie Fanny was "known more for its lavish production values than its humor",[153] or that it compromised Kurtzman's genius.

[157] To Comics Journal editor and Fantagraphics publisher Gary Groth, Kurtzman's style "achieves some sort of Platonic ideal of cartooning.

[168] Bill Schelly spent three years to research and write[169] another, longer one in 2015, titled Harvey Kurtzman: The Man Who Created MAD and Revolutionized Humor in America,[170] with an introduction by Terry Gilliam.