Speaking of Mad Men, here's a striking cover by John Severin

Severin passed away early this year. You can find a very good obituary at Mark Evanier's blog.

While on the subject of EC, here's one from Mad's George Woodbridge

As mentioned before, Premier made a career of imitating EC, up to and including using some of the same artists.

By the way, according to Wikipedia, Woodbridge was also known as "America's Dean of Uniform Illustration"

From Masked Ranger #5

A MAD in-joke?

This came out shortly after the debut of Mad. That and the font and the style leave me pretty sure that this cover (which does not match the tone of the rest of the story that follows) is an in-joke directed at some friends at EC.

Dave Berg before Mad

Though Dave Berg's "Lighter Side" was the most aggressively mundane feature to appear in Mad, focusing on ordinary people facing everyday urban and suburban life, his earlier work often featured surreal images and fantastic settings. These tales were also marked by beautiful artwork that often reflected the influence of his boss at the time, Will Eisner.

From 1942, here are the adventures of Sir Butch.







From Ibis #1

For Dave Berg fans -- Alice in Bugville

Dave Berg's The Lighter Side ran for over forty years, but Berg was already a comics veteran who had been working in the industry for over two decades when the feature started.

One of Berg's more prominent features was a series loosely based on Alice in Wonderland in the early Fifties. (It may just be a coincidence, but Berg started out at Eisner's studio and, judging from the title page, it seems to have left a mark on him.)

Check it out.