But, without a good story and/or joke or text of any kind the art can fall flat on its face.
Step in the writer. Writers, especially great writers, imbue illustrated stories and gags with life. A visual joke falls flat if it is not written correctly.
Sequential art is just so many panels without a proper script to provide cohesion and direction.
"Weird Al" Yankovic provides the foreword for Running Press's new book: MAD's Greatest Writers: Frank Jacobs: Five Decades of His Greatest Works.
Growing up in the 1950s and 1960s and somehow surviving the decades since I've always appreciated the off-kilter humor provided by MAD Magazine from its "Usual band of idiots."
While I enjoy art by such cartoonists as Mort Drucker, Jack Davis and other classic artists, along with new talent, many of the stories and gags stuck with me, not because of the art, but because of their hilarious text.
Frank Jacobs was, and is, the genius writer behind many of MAD's greatest stories and jokes.
Stories culled from five decades of MAD magazine's stories the book spotlights Frank Jacobs' prolific output ripe with his sardonic wit.
From TV and movie lampoons, poetry, strip scripts, lampoons and humorous observations, Frank has done them all and done them very well.
Take some time, flip through the book's page, immerse yourself in the art and let Frank's words knock around your brain until all that accumulated humor makes its way to your funny bone, travels up your spine and before you know it, you're laughing out loud!