[Obit] 1,001 gags per panel and climbing

[khaosworks]

I don't really recall where we first started referring to, what Harvey called, my "Chatchkies", extra gags, as Chicken Fat. But I think the term just came out of what we both knew were the parts of the strip that gave it more flavor but did very little to advance the storyline. That's what Chicken Fat does...it advances the flavor of the soup and, as we all know now, too much chicken fat will kill you!

What can I say about Will Elder? Funnily enough, I was just describing his adaptation of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Raven" to agaricus the other day, and just the memory of the beaten and bandaged raven, croaking "Nevermore!" juxtaposed with an absolutely straight reproduction of Poe's poem still threatens to send me into a fit of giggles. To list my favourite Will Elder stories would be, to be honest, to list them all.

I was too young to be there when he first burst onto the comic scene with his incredible art style, but thanks to MAD Magazine's facsimile reprints of the early MADs in the 1970s, I stumbled on his work and was mesmerized. Elder's style of packing side sight-gags (the "Chicken Fat" he refers to in his quote) into a panel was virtually unique, and was sometimes funnier than the main action on panel. It meant that not only did one manage to squeeze ten times the amount of fun out of a Will Elder-drawn story, but it rewarded re-reading and re-reading it again. A Will Elder story never gets old. To say that the style of those early MAD Magazines and "The Usual Gang of Idiots" had a profound impact on the way my sense of humour works would be an understatement, and Elder was always at the front of that pack of influences.

And now he belongs to the ages. Rest well, Mr Elder.