"Frequently, I've heard from people who say, 'You really couldn't read one of Willie's stories in one sitting.' You had to go back and reread it several times because you always seemed to miss things."
While at Mad in the '50s, Ficarra said, Elder "did the illustrations for a take-off on Mickey Mouse called Mickey Rodent. He did Starchie instead of Archie. He did Superduperman, which is a real classic. For the people who grew up with Mad at this time period and even afterward, there is real affection for Willie and his artwork."
For The Record
Los Angeles Times Tuesday, May 20, 2008 Home Edition Main News Part A Page 2 National Desk 1 inches; 40 words Type of Material: Correction
Will Elder obituary: The obituary of Mad magazine cartoonist-illustrator Will Elder in Saturday's California section quoted Mad Editor John Ficarra as saying that Elder drew the illustrations for the magazine's Superduperman spoof. They were drawn by Mad artist Wallace Wood.
Which was, he said, "very subversive."
"He would do things like in the Superduperman parody, instead of the S shield he had a Good Housekeeping seal. And in the next panel he changed it to something else and then something else. There was constant playing with the reader."
Ficarra described Elder as being "extremely personable," with "a very sharp wit." He also had a reputation as a prankster.
In school, he once whitened his face with chalk dust and shocked his teacher and fellow students by hanging from a cloakroom hook.
While out to lunch with his comic book colleagues, he attempted to pay the cashier with leaves of lettuce that he had stuck in his wallet.
And he once sent his wife a valentine to which he attached the heart of a chicken with an arrow through it.
Jaffee, who met Elder in junior high school in the Bronx, said his friend had something of a "split personality."
"On the one hand, he was a very serious family-oriented kind of guy," he said. "But then he could switch over to this other personality, which was antic, frantic and funny."
The "serious and funny side" of Elder also influenced his painting, said Jaffee, recalling a portrait Elder once painted of his son.
"It was a beautiful painting," he said. "It was all in very somber blues and black tones, very dark and brooding. After he finished it, he couldn't resist putting two little red dots on the kid's neck as if a vampire had been there. He was always driven by the notion that something should be funny."
Elder was born Wolf William Eisenberg on Sept. 22, 1921. He attended New York's High School of Music & Art, where he met Kurtzman. He launched his career after serving in the Army during World War II.
While working for Mad in the '50s, he also drew for the satirical comic Panic. After he and Kurtzman left Mad in 1956, he worked for a series of humor magazines, Humbug, Help! and Hefner's short-lived Trump.
Kurtzman and Elder's "Little Annie Fanny," a cartoon parody of American life featuring a big-busted blond that Elder painted in a three-dimensional style, ran in Playboy from 1962 to 1988.
"There were occasions when we were working on deadline and the two of them would come and hole up in the Chicago mansion for long weekends to finish the work on 'Little Annie Fanny,' " Hefner recalled. "It was a close collaborative relationship, and I loved the guys."
Elder is survived by his daughter, Nancy VandenBergh; his son, Martin; his brother, Irving Eisenberg; and two grandchildren.
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dennis.mclellan@latimes.com
