Interview with Jack Davis, March 24, 2012

LANE: This is a “Goin’ Back: Remembering UGA” interview session with Jack Davis and to quote the Atlanta Weekly magazine, one of the country’s most prolific, popular, accomplished and successful artists. Today, March 24, 2012, we are gathered at the Hilltop Grille in Athens, Georgia and with us today, Alice Vernon of the Goin’ Back crew and our stalwart videographer, Bill Evelyn, and I am Fran Lane. Thanks, Jack for visiting with us today and for getting us invited to the Hilltop Grille, your favorite eating place in Athens.

DAVIS: That’s my son-in-law.

LANE: Absolutely, you have connections.

DAVIS: And I’m an old man! I’m 87! I’ve been around a long time!

LANE: Well, you don’t strike us as an old man. But let’s start at the beginning. Were you born with a pen in your hand?

DAVIS: I think so, I don’t know. I really wasn’t, but I think I started drawing in kindergarten. Mom used to walk me to the school at Tenth Street in Atlanta. One day we passed a bunch of chain-gang people working, and they all had the stripes on them that they don’t have now. I saw that and I got to kindergarten and crayons and paper in front of you and I drew them. My mom thought it was great, fantastic, that I could do that and from then on she’s encouraged me to draw--Draw, draw, draw! That’s all I’m doing, I’m not a 00:02:00good student. I don’t want anybody to see that! I went to Georgia on the GI Bill and couldn’t have done that--my mom and dad couldn’t afford to send me to college, but the Navy did.

LANE: Let’s talk about that a little bit. I know--I saw one fact about you was that you didn’t sell but you had published in the Georgia Tech humor magazine--

DAVIS: Well, way back--my aunt married a professor at Georgia Tech in biology. He was a good man, he got me interested in football and promoting football maybe. He had some students who worked with the magazine. I got some 00:03:00drawings--I copied some drawings for the Yellow Jacket magazine, I think it was printed. I think it was just because I was a nephew.

LANE: I don’t believe that it was just because you were a nephew!

DAVIS: But I had traced Jane Arden, nobody remembers her, but there used to be a Sunday page and, of course, there was a girl in underwear and that was what the Yellow Jacket was, kind of a risqué magazine.

LANE: Was that at age 11 or 12?

DAVIS: I think so.

LANE: I think that is advanced! How early did you know that you wanted to be an artist as your life’s work?

DAVIS: Well, my mom and dad, I think they always--they didn’t push me, but they encouraged me. I have no brothers or sisters and they said everything I 00:04:00did was good. Spoiled brat, I guess, and in high school, I think it was in grammar school at E. Rivers in Atlanta, I rendered an apple and I won a prize for that, a bushel of apples, and I got to take it around to all the grades. Then I started drawing, you know, posters for anything coming up, you know, academically, anything--

LANE: So you had this wonderful talent and you got wonderful support at home.

DAVIS: Well, you know, you work at it and you work at it and if you look at this book that’s just out on me you’ll see how I’ve progressed from Tip Top Comics to Time magazine.

LANE: Who were some of your greatest artistic influences?

DAVIS: Well, we lived at 2840 Peachtree Road. It’s still there, in the apartments. We’d get the Sunday paper and it was beautiful, I mean the comic section was just full of great big pages, and I would take that and put it out on the floor, lie down and look at all the drawings and cartoons in it and it inspired me, it really did. Maggie and Jiggs on the front page, beautifully drawn, very tight. Then you turn the page and there was Alex Raymond who drew Flash Gordon and Jungle Jim and Secret Agent X9, all three at the same time, he did them, and then on the following page was a full page of Prince Valiant, drawn by Harold Foster, who is one of my idols, and he is deceased, of course, 00:06:00now. He sent me a full page, I sent him a fan letter and he sent me an original full page of one of the early Prince Valiants, and that was a big thrill; that encouraged me to keep drawing.

LANE: Everybody saw your talent, I think and were obviously very supportive.

DAVIS: Well, they were, and nobody else could draw, I guess!

LANE: You went to North Fulton High School.

DAVIS: Yes ma’am.

LANE: Thank you. Went to North Fulton High School and worked on the newspaper and the yearbook, drew for those--

DAVIS: Yeah, and I think I had a job with the fellow who put together high school annuals in Atlanta and I would go and help him or work with him and he taught me how to use a brush, you know, to draw with a brush, you know, fine 00:07:00point or thick and that was a big help. We put out a paper in school and one thing led to another, I just enjoyed doing it.

LANE: Alright, just building on what you had. After high school, it was the midst of the Second World War--

DAVIS: And I have always loved sports and I was captain of the basketball team, and the worse year we ever had. I think in one half, we played, I didn’t score, we didn’t even score a bucket, but I did run track, and that was my last year at North Fulton in ’43. I got a lot of points you know, with it. I ran the hundred yard dash and the 220 and relays and the high jump.

LANE: So you were multi-talented. Not only were you an artist, but you were an athlete!

DAVIS: I was for some reason, I don’t know if it was one of the teachers liked me or whatever, but I was most versatile, voted “Most Versatile” in 1943 and that’s an honor.

LANE: I think you are most modest, too.

DAVIS: But I knew that I was going to be drafted, scared to death.

LANE: So you went into the service in ’43, and you ended up in the Navy--

DAVIS: Right, because I got a little taste of Fort MacPherson in Atlanta where you had to pick up cigarette butts--I don’t smoke, I never have smoked, I never had a cigarette in my mouth. Anyway, I chose the Navy.

LANE: Went into the Navy, and--

DAVIS: Went to Pensacola and I stayed there for a while and shipped out of Pensacola to Norfolk, and they dropped the bomb over in Japan and I took a troop train over, across the states. Never been anywhere and went out to San 00:09:00Francisco and we were next to a prison camp, a Japanese prison camp. We were shipped out of there, Alcatraz was the last thing we saw. Lot of things happened, the ship got seasick, everybody got seasick. We finally got to Hawaii and straightened out, and we had a softball game and went on to Guam, that’s where I was stationed for nine months, and I got to go to Shanghai and Saipan, Tinian--all these places students don’t know anything about.

LANE: Their names are not even the same, are they?

DAVIS: And Shanghai--was by myself. It was great. I had leave coming to me, so I decided to take it in Shanghai--way back.

LANE: You also drew some while you were there.

DAVIS: I drew a comic character called Boon Docker and “boondocks” were the jungles and the people in there, they called them--well, anyway, I drew a strip of one panel of a sailor, and he was kind of taken after Sad Sack. Then I had an offer to stay in California when my duty was up. And I said I wanted to go back to Atlanta.

LANE: Go home.

DAVIS: --go home. And I did, I wanted to see my mom and dad.

LANE: Right, right. Now you got back and that’s when you decided--

DAVIS: Then my dad took what I had drawn on Guam, Boon Docker, over to Dean 00:11:00Drewry, and he gave me--and you know, I got in over at Georgia and became an SAE, fraternity. Loved it, everything, it was just the complete opposite of being in the Navy.

LANE: Right! [laughs]

DAVIS: It was just great, being here, and some of us fraternity brothers were football players and it was a different life.

LANE: I read that you, that there were some murals on the walls at the SAE--

DAVIS: Well, they gave free rent at the fraternity house for people who decorated their room the nicest, of course, I started drawing on the walls, and I got--my son-in-law’s father was the president of the SAE.

LANE: Is that right?

DAVIS: Yeah, Georgia Beta.

LANE: Small world, eh?

DAVIS: Yeah, and I loved the house, loved the housemother. We had Doc Banks, who was the greatest, picked up your laundry and everything, furnished booze, didn’t have any liquor stores around in Athens. Doc Banks always had something in the basement in the SAE House. You can strike that, or leave it in, I don’t know!

LANE: You lived at the SAE House?

DAVIS: Yes, I did.

LANE: On Pulaski Street.

DAVIS: Do what?

LANE: On Pulaski Street.

DAVIS: Yes.

LANE: That beautiful old--

DAVIS: [sings] “Don’t let your friends go [unclear], don’t let them be a darling Chi Phi, I’d rather see them dead. Send them down to Pulaski Street, the boys down there are best! Put a Sigma Alpha pin on him, to hell with all the rest!” [laughs]

LANE: That’s great! See, you sing, too! You’re an athlete, artist and--

DAVIS: I can’t sing, I love music and I love to draw and when I draw at the drawing board, I usually get into the mood, by listening to music, jazz or country stuff.

LANE: Is that right? Your major, you were in the journalism school.

DAVIS: Well, I started off in Journalism, wasn’t good at, you know, I’d hunt and peck at the typewriter. I just was not a very good student, so then I--of course, I took art courses with Lamar Dodd and they saw that I could draw, but I wasn’t a very good academic student, but they let me take courses over, and it was a big help. Lamar Dodd, I liked him so much. He was a--we called him Almighty Dodd. He’d walk around with a pipe, and he’d look at your work and he’d tell you if it was good or bad, and it was good. We had--I went over 00:14:00yesterday to the Jack Davis Lecture. The art school is unbelievable! The buildings--I’m lost--I couldn’t find my way around--what they have done. When I was over here, we had Quonset huts and had a teacher that we drew on--great times, just good times.

LANE: So, good thoughts about the University. You also worked on The Red & Black, the newspaper--

DAVIS: Well, I drew cartoons for them.

LANE: And the Pandora yearbook.

DAVIS: I think I did, pretty sure.

LANE: And then the Georgia Cracker magazine?

DAVIS: Yeah, I just started, and again, we had the off campus magazine, The Bull Sheet.

LANE: Right, right.

DAVIS: --and it had ads in it, local ads. It’s in this book that’s come 00:15:00out, all of the ads that I did locally around here. It’s way back, way, way back.

LANE: What fun! It’s two issues, is that right?

DAVIS: I think we did about two or three. We made so much money we didn’t know what to do with it, so we quit.

LANE: [laughs] Did I hear that the SAE pledges, you had them selling it on the corners to people?

DAVIS: They would go up on campus, off campus and stand on the corner or somewhere and sell it for ten or fifteen cents, I think. And we got funny jokes from Parts magazine, there is automobile magazine over in Atlanta, we would cut it out and paste it in and print it offset and it was kind of risqué jokes, but today, clean. [laughs]

LANE: Talk about how Al Capp and Lil’ Abner affected your life.

DAVIS: Well, they really didn’t. Lil’ Abner was from the south, you know, 00:16:00big brogans and of course, Al Capp could draw and he was very, very funny, but most of all who influenced me was Harold Foster and Popeye and Walt Disney, you know, Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck.

LANE: I was thinking about Lena the Hyena incident. Could you talk about that?

DAVIS: Now, that was a contest they had, the Journal had, I think, and Basil Woolf won it, and I just won it for the state, I think. Ugly face, I don’t know why but I was always good at drawing ugly people.

LANE: Well, Lena--was Lena a character in the Lil Abner series?

DAVIS: No, you never saw her face.

LANE: You never saw her face.

DAVIS: So ugly.

LANE: So you won the Georgia representation of ugly Lena.

DAVIS: The state of Georgia.

LANE: How about Ed Dodd’s influence?

DAVIS: Well, now, again, my mother knew friends of friends of Ed Dodd and he lived on the other side of Atlanta and he needed somebody who drew backgrounds to fill in for him, ink for him, so I would ride a streetcar all the way over to his house and work with him and that was something else. That was comic strip, and Mark Trail was unbelievable, it was good. Ed Dodd did a panel way back about down home or something like that. He was a good man, a great man. He said, “Jack, you ought to go to New York.” And I didn’t want--I wanted to draw Mark Trail the rest of my life, and he said, “Go to New York!” So I went to New York on what I had left to the GI Bill at the Art Students League in 00:18:00New York. It was a McKnolty, was an art teacher, and he never showed up. We had to go at night and look for work during the day and I’d go to all of the agencies, advertising agencies, syndicates strip, I had a portfolio, I had a portfolio stolen. They’d say, “Leave your portfolio and pick it up next week.” I’d say, “I can’t do that! I’ve got to find work.” It’s quite an experience. I had my automobile stolen.

LANE: Oh, gosh!

DAVIS: They found it up in Buffalo, New York. I had to go by myself and pick it up. They had stripped it and cost me more to keep the car in New York than it did for me to rent a room. I first went, my mom made a reservation in New York at the Sloan House, the YMCA, and I stayed there one night. I got the New York 00:19:00Times and looked at all of the apartments and rooms for rent and you know, got subsistence from the government, enough to pay for the rent, enough to get my car back home, sell it. I was thinking about getting married then, too. I had a girl.

LANE: And she was in Georgia and you were in New York.

DAVIS: Yes, she was a freshman when I was a freshman. I was on the GI Bill and she was, you know, I am about four years older than she is.

LANE: So it was hard to be apart.

DAVIS: Yeah.

LANE: Tell the story about--

DAVIS: You had to get on the telephone. Had to pick up the telephone and get quarters and drop them in the slot machine and talk to her.

LANE: Tell the story about the ring.

DAVIS: The who?

LANE: The ring, the diamond ring.

DAVIS: Oh, the diamond ring! There were some friends of Mom’s, they sent me some tickets to some Broadway plays. I got to see The King and I and The 00:20:00Detective Story and South Pacific and all of that, and I would come out of the theatre at Times Square and I’d get a subway and go home. I’d wear these brogans like Lil Abner, I guess, and somebody spotted me. He said, “I’ve got a ring, a man’s ring, male ring, that I was in the Aston Hotel, the washroom and I picked it up and I’ve got to out of town, and I’ve got to get rid of this ring.” I said, “I don’t have any money. I don’t even know that it’s really a diamond.” And he took me over to the side of a window. Glass will cut glass, so he made a big cut and he said, “How much money have you got?” I said, “Thirty-five dollars,” and I gave it to him and I walked on back. I stayed up all night looking at it, and it wasn’t worth a 00:21:00dollar. I went to the arts school, the Arts Students League and all my buddies, like Dead End kids that were there on the GI Bill just to see the models, I think, and they wanted to go down to Times Square and find this guy. I said, “No please, don’t do that!” So that was the story.

LANE: So, southern boy in New York City!

DAVIS: I tell you! I had a suit made before I went to New York, tailor made, blue, shiny blue. I had wing tip cordovans, I still have ingrown toenails from walking up and down Madison Avenue, you know, going to different places, to see if I could get work, and I finally went down to EC Comics when they were way down on Lafayette Street in Little Italy. They were publishing a horrible 00:22:00magazine, you know, horror stories. They saw my work and it was horrible, and I got work right away, and that was money. And I started thinking about getting married, you know.

LANE: So things worked out.

DAVIS: Yeah, they worked out.

LANE: And EC, was that Mr.--?

DAVIS: That was the war comic books, you know, I enjoyed drawing them. They had a lot of westerns, I always wanted to be a cowboy and never have been and I’d draw them.

LANE: One of the quotes I read said that you were the nicest man and could draw the ugliest folks-- DAVIS: How do you explain that? I don’t know--

LANE: Warts with hair growing out of them, mangy--

DAVIS: Yeah, but I remember when I was little, you used to listen to the radio a lot and you would imagine things and I remember they used to be a kind of a 00:23:00horror show that would come on late at night, Lights Out was the name of it. All the kids in the apartment would get together and turn the lights out, and the radio would come on and tell these horror stories, and I guess that--and about that time Frankenstein, the monster came out. Oh, gosh, I loved that! Scared me to death, but I still loved it, and one thing led to another.

LANE: That brings up--Bill Evelyn, here, our artist and creative guy and one of the questions he wanted us to ask you was your process. What is it that generates this--?

DAVIS: The only thing I can do--I always kid people, I can’t read or write. All I do is draw. I enjoy, I really enjoy doing it, it’s not really work. 00:24:00It’s fun. I think for kids, I saw kids over there at the art school. They’ve got to enjoy it. They’ve got to work hard and have a lot of faith in themselves. That’s what I’ve had, I had no brothers and sisters and I’ve been kind of a loner and I’ve got some good friends.

LANE: Wonderful support through the years. I have five or six things here that are related to New York City. Talk about The Saint.

DAVIS: Well now, the Herald Tribune posted an ad at the Arts Student League on the bulletin board by Mike Roy who drew Leslie Charteris, the Saint and I did 00:25:00the backgrounds like I did for Mark Trail, Ed Dodd. It was exciting, and you know, he’d pay me a hundred dollars a week and that was great! You know, that was good money, no inflation or anything, and from there the Herald Tribune folded and I was out on the street again looking for work and that’s when I went down to EC Comics.

LANE: Talk about EC Comics, Tales from the Crypt.

DAVIS: It was horrible! Really bad, and I just didn’t enjoy doing it, but I did it. You know, we had a little apartment in Scarsdale after we were married and the drawing board fixed up in the living room where we lived in a little efficiency apartment and I would draw and they’d give me a check right away. 00:26:00When I’d bring work in, I’d pick up a story. That just kept going and kept going, and I kept getting faster and faster because they’d pay me every time I came in. It was a great relationship between publisher and myself.

LANE: Was that Mr. Gaines--Bill Gaines?

DAVIS: Yep, Bill Gaines, a great man. He weighed about 300 pounds. He was a giving man, he was really great--one time he took us all over to Coney Island, the artists and everything. We went up in one of the parachutes, and I rode with him, got up to the top, and there’s a free fall. I was sitting beside him, and he weighed 300 pounds and I tell you, my heart went up in my throat!

LANE: [laughs] Mr. Gaines--he was the--

DAVIS: He was the publisher.

LANE: And he was the--I mean the impetus behind Mad magazine?

DAVIS: Right, he had two editors. One was Harvey Kurtzman and one was Al 00:27:00Feldstein, two fine Jewish boys and were very successful in what they did. They were the boss, and I would draw whatever they wanted.

LANE: You were one of the founding cartoonist of Mad magazine back then, is that right?

DAVIS: Yes. There were about three of us.

LANE: And that was--?

DAVIS: That was Johnny Severin, Wally Wood and myself and that’s it--and Harvey Kurtzman. And then they had trouble with Harvey Kurtzman and the publisher, Bill Gaines and then we were out on our own. We went with Hugh Hefner with Playboy and it failed, and so a lot of things I touched failed. Finally, advertising caught on and most of the art directors were Mad fans or comic book fans, and I got work from RCA Records and got from Gene Shalit, he 00:28:00was very instrumental in helping me. Everything fell into place from then on. I cleaned up my work a little and it caught on. Record covers--

LANE: Right, again, what I read is that you worked fast and you worked well.

DAVIS: Well, again, like I said, I’d go in and I’d get paid and then finally, I got a rep. I never thought I’d need a rep, but you do need a rep. I’m telling the kids, they should get a good rep who can get them work, that I can’t get. They would do the billing, I can’t do the billing. I wouldn’t know how much to pay them. That helped out very much with Colin and Gerald Rapp, art representatives, and today I still do work for them when I can. I’m 00:29:0087 [laughs] and I don’t turn out like I used to.

LANE: We don’t want you to retire! Talk about It’s A Mad Mad Mad Mad World.

DAVIS: Well, again, it was a movie poster. People had seen Mad magazine and I got a call from United Artist. I didn’t have a rep then and I went into Time Square. United Artist had an office there right at Time Square. Went up the elevator, the biggest office there and they said, “How about doing a poster for this movie?” And I said, oh, gosh that would be great, you know! I think they paid about 300 dollars and that was a lot then. They liked it and I did it in a black and white for the newspapers and my mom and dad came up to visit me 00:30:00one time and I think my dad had Parkinson’s disease by then. He came out on Broadway--he loved the Rockettes. He saw a great big billboard with Mad Mad World on there and it was a big thrill.

LANE: How great! As I look at all the things you’ve done; you’ve done magazine covers, film posters, record album covers--

DAVIS: Eighty seven years, that’s a long time.

LANE: Book covers--did Lewis Grizzard--some of Lewis Grizzard’s stuff.

DAVIS: Oh, god! He is the greatest, excuse me, I shouldn’t say--he was so great and Lewis would come down to Saint Simons and play golf and he would play 00:31:00with, what’s his name--has a barbeque stand on the highway--

LANE: Bob Poss?

DAVIS: Bob Poss!

LANE: What a character!

DAVIS: He and Bob Poss would go head to head and play golf, and I would go with Lewis Grizzard’s girlfriend, you know behind them, and they would play for money and all that kind of stuff and I’m not a good golfer but I enjoy it, and all my friends are good golfers and they come down and enjoy it, from Georgia.

LANE: Before you left New York, was it just time to come home?

DAVIS: Oh, yeah! I always wanted to live down south and I wanted to live at Sea Island and saw this property on Saint Simons, the north end of Saint Simons and Saint Simons is the length of Manhattan. We are right on the tip end of the 00:32:00island and my son, the architect--built the house, that was his first house that we’re in now. We’re on the river and I love it, it’s beautiful. Can’t wait to go home.

LANE: I understand.

DAVIS: I love Athens, but I’m ready to go home.

LANE: I hear you. Absolutely!

DAVIS: My son, I am very proud of. He is an architect in Atlanta and he has his own office right near where I went to grammar school, E. Rivers down Peachtree Creek and his wife has a gift shop beneath him where she is very talented in decorating, for weddings and things like that. Then my daughter who is the sweetest, greatest thing in the world, she lives in Athens with Chris and I have two granddaughters, one in New York and one came back from New York and is in 00:33:00Atlanta now, sort of looking for work. Everything has fallen into place, everything is good.

LANE: Talk about, you have done all these things. How did you reconnect with your alma mater? How did you get involved, starting to draw the bulldog?

DAVIS: Well, it was just getting out of the Navy and I had three or four years coming to me in the GI Bill so you take advantage of it and what’s best, I couldn’t go to Georgia Tech, to an engineering school . I’m not a brain, you know. So, at Georgia you had fun, and there were plenty of girls and it was just a different life, and I became a big football fan, because Mike Cooley was star football player with Trippi, he was a center for Trippi and he went to 00:34:00North Fulton at the high school, he was a big star there. He didn’t go into service, probably like Sinkwich; flatfooted, disability, whatever. Anyway, I got attached to football players at Georgia, loved Georgia. I used to love Georgia Tech because I had uncles who taught at Tech. I used to know some football players at Tech. I had a worker’s pass. I’d go to the games with a worker’s pass. My uncle would get me a worker’s pass. I didn’t have a seat. I’d have to sit in the aisle, but they never had a crowd.

LANE: Not at Tech, huh?

DAVIS: No!

LANE: So, you had been a football fan since--for 60 years, right? Now talk about how back in the 70’s--did Loran Smith come and talk to you about--?

DAVIS: Well, I met Loran and Loran and his wife, Myrna. I did some billboard posters for them and I don’t know really how that came about but Loran and I are good friends and he has helped me a lot with the connection with the Athletic Department and that was real good. I met Mark Richt, fantastic person.

LANE: Good man! So you started back in maybe the mid ‘70’s, sort of reconnecting here and I think I saw--

DAVIS: I don’t know how many posters I’ve done. I know one thing that’s very nice that Mark Richt framed all my posters and put in his waiting room in his office.

LANE: Isn’t that great?

DAVIS: It is! [laughs] That’s what I get a kick out of!

LANE: Seeing yourself on the wall!

DAVIS: Oh, man, I tell you, and again, to go to football games to sit in a crowd 00:36:00and to see a cover that you’ve done. I love that! That’s egotistical I guess, but--

LANE: No, that’s great!

DAVIS: Oh, man, I love that, and I’ve had some good times. Bill Gaines again, Mad publisher, took all the artists on trips around the world. I’ve been to Bangkok, Thailand, I’ve been to North America, Dutch Guinea, I’ve been to Italy, I’ve been to Rome, Sicily, all over, but it was through a bonus from Bill Gaines. Fought a bull in Mexico, a baby bull.

LANE: Fought a bull?

DAVIS: [laughs] Yeah! Sergio, one of the artists, is Mexican and he took us 00:37:00out to a place where matadors worked out with the bulls and you had lunch and you had Margaritas. They asked for volunteers to fight the bull, so about 5 of us went down into the bottom of the arena and there was an altar where you said a prayer before you went out. A place to sign away your life, and then a matador came in with an assistant. They had a leather chap, they gave us all leather chaps to wear and a sombrero and told us, said, “Now when you get out there and the bull comes at you, hold the cape, but don’t move it, you know, because he’s going to charge that cape. You see, he gave us all leather capes and we marched out to music, Spanish music, Mexican music. And who did they 00:38:00choose, I guess because I was the tallest and the ugliest, it was me first. The matador walked out to me, and he said, “Now you get down on your knees.” So I got down on my knees, and said, “You didn’t tell me that--to hold the cape out.” And I held the cape out, and sure enough behind the gate, I could see the hooves pawing the dirt and the gates flew open, and out came a baby bull. But first a donkey--a donkey came out first and then a baby bull came out. The baby bull bellowed up, you know, and tucked his head, and boy, he charged at me and I moved the cape and if he’d had horns, I’d been gored!

LANE: Oh, no!

DAVIS: Oh, yeah. But anyway, a lot of stories--

LANE: You do have a lot. I think I speak for all of us, having grown up with 00:39:00Mad magazine and then watching you show up on all the University of Georgia plastic cups--

DAVIS: It was a lot of fun!

LANE: --and covers, you know!

DAVIS: Like last night, there were so many people from the art department, that you feel like are family. I know all of them, you know, the teachers, they’ve been so good to me.

LANE: Well, they’re proud to call you their own, they’re proud to call you part of the University of Georgia family, so --

DAVIS: --and you know, my son-in-law owns this restaurant, last night he had everybody come here to eat.

LANE: --and they’re proud that you’re kin to somebody that’s going to invite them to dinner, maybe! Let me ask you a couple other things, Jack. You talked about playing music when you work. DAVIS: Well, I can’t sing, I can’t dance, I can’t play any musical instruments, but I love music. I love to listen to it. I love jazz, and I love country music.

LANE: Do you sequester yourself when you work?

DAVIS: When I am at the drawing board, I usually turn on a tape or country music or something like that. When I first went to New York, they didn’t have all that. I could do that and I would listen to the radio and Mickey Mantle would come on, so I got interested in sports with Mickey Mantle. I used to go to Time Square to watch the boxing and when TV first came out, black and white, and Jack Dempsey had a restaurant and I got to shake his hand. He was always there in his bar, in Time Square when the truck drivers would come up there and have a beer, something like, “There’s Jack Dempsey!” They’d go over and shake his hand--it was great--good memories! You couldn’t do that now.

LANE: Talk a little bit about your projects. What was the most difficult thing you ever had to do?

DAVIS: Well, usually when I get an assignment that’s kind of domestic. I’m not very good at drawing beautiful women. I’ve drawn some sexy women, but I just--ads that are household, something like that, I don’t care for, and my rep knows that. My rep knows what kind of work that I like to do best. I just did a thing for the Super Bowl for the [Red Hot] Chili Peppers, a music group. I never heard of them, never seen them, but everybody else has. They sent me some pictures and all these guys change their outfits all the time, and I can’t draw their equipment, you know, guitars and all that bit--I couldn’t 00:42:00do it, but I finally did it, and had my wife drive over to Brunswick to one of the supermarkets to get a good picture of them, to see what they are really like. So that is about the last thing I’ve done for my rep.

LANE: What was your favorite project?

DAVIS: Time magazine. That was exciting and I didn’t have a rep then. I did it on my own and usually the art director was a Mad fan. They would call me up and I would go in and they would tell me the subject and I’d take a 2B pencil. I had a little red tablet, a red border with a tablet with Time up at the top. I would sit in a room by myself and make sketches of what the cover might be, what they’d say it’s going to be. Then they’d take it into the editor and 00:43:00the editor would say, “Great! Go with this,” and I would take it home, I had a little MG that I bought. Then I’d fly back out to West Chester up to my apartment, or the house, finally got a house and do the cover overnight and take it in. I’d take it with my water color box and my electric eraser in case I’d fix a mistake or make it better, and it’d come out the next week. That weekend’s gone and it would come out Monday. Be on the newsstand.

LANE: All over the country!

DAVIS: --and that was a thrill!

LANE: All over the world!

DAVIS: I’ve worked with some good people. I mean, really talented.

LANE: You are the most modest person I have ever met.

DAVIS: Oh, no-- and I love my computer. I get on there--I don’t know a thing about it. I think all the art work now, kids, students coming along now. 00:44:00They’ve got to be computer experts.

LANE: So your favorite project was Time magazine. Is that what you are most proud of, Jack?

DAVIS: Yes ma’am.

LANE: Have you ever experienced--?

DAVIS: --with Gerald Ford and he sent me a letter.

LANE: Is that right? How wonderful!

DAVIS: --and, you know, I’ve got stuff from Joe DiMaggio and stuff like--that’s a thrill! Just like Harold Foster sent me page of Prince Valiant when I was a little kid. Not a kid, but I was about 14.

LANE: Well, just throughout your life, other people recognized your talent and you have gotten such wonderful support.

DAVIS: I have! God has been good to me!

LANE: Blessed!

DAVIS: I’ve been blessed. People say I’m lucky, but I’ve been blessed.

LANE: I think you are talented. Maybe a little luck too, sometime. Jack, have 00:45:00you ever experienced artist’s block?

DAVIS: Do what?

LANE: Have you ever experienced artist block, where you just could not come up with something?

DAVIS: I have, I had an assignment with one of the oil companies to put out a pamphlet. It was really Deadsville, I couldn’t think of an idea to save my life. I went to bed at night and I thought about it and I thought about a character, you know, associated with the copy in it and I did it and it went over. Great! But it was just--I didn’t know what to do!

LANE: But you came through.

DAVIS: But I did it. Yeah.

LANE: Well, we could talk all day long about your accomplishments. I looked at your list of your clients, it’s everybody from AT&T to Warner Brothers, ESPN, Ford--

DAVIS: Yeah, I’ve done a lot.

LANE: Postal Service. Talk about--

DAVIS: I’ve been lucky. There’s so many people out there that are talented, and you go to your computer and all of a sudden there out looking at the old illustrators, Albert Dorne, who I’ve always loved, and I’m nothing compared to them. I’ve just turned out a lot a junk.

LANE: I don’t think any of us would agree with that.

DAVIS: It’s the truth.

LANE: Talk about being asked to do a stamp for the US Postal Service.

DAVIS: Well, that came through my rep and it came through one of the artists that worked for my rep. He had done some stamps, and they did one stamp. That was enough, no more! I had done some advertisements for the Postal Service.

LANE: So you had a connection.

DAVIS: Yeah, through my rep. That’s where my rep comes in. I could never get a job like that.

LANE: I looked at all--I cannot tell you how much fun it was, doing research on 00:47:00you and all of the different things you’ve done.

DAVIS: You’ve got nothing else to do!

LANE: [laughs]--and the awards and honors that you’ve received.

DAVIS: Well, one of my achievements is that I’ve forgotten about is the Society of Illustrators in New York. They gave me a lifetime award, unbelievable, achievement award. That’s with Norman Rockwell and with all these great illustrators! That’s my high water mark!

LANE: You deserved it!

DAVIS: I turned out a lot of stuff.

LANE: Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003.

DAVIS: Well, a lot of things--

LANE: The National Cartoonist Society, the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award in 1996.

DAVIS: They got no taste!

LANE: I’m giving you the Fran Lane Modesty Award! I am not modest but you are!

DAVIS: Well, I appreciate that, Fran and Alice--and the man behind the camera! I’ve forgotten the man behind the camera!

LANE: Bill!

DAVIS: I’m getting old. I forget a lot of things. I go in another room and I forget what I coming in there for!

LANE: We all do that! Let me say in closing that with all your achievements and all your accomplishments and the kind of person that you are, you’ve certainly brought honor to your alma mater.

DAVIS: Well thank you!

LANE: --and we are so proud that you are one of us!

DAVIS: Thank you.

LANE: Thank you, Jack.

DAVIS: I appreciate it!

[END OF INTERVIEW]