William Elder was an American illustrator and comic book artist who worked in numerous areas of commercial art but is best known for a zany cartoon style that helped launch Harvey Kurtzman's Mad comic book in 1952. Playboy publisher Hugh Hefner said, "He was a zany, and a lovable one." Longtime Mad writer-cartoonist Al Jaffee called Elder "Absolutely brilliant... he was the star from the beginning. He had a feel for the kind of satire that eventually spread everywhere." Elder was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2003. 

September 22nd, 1921 in The Bronx  /  Died:   May 15th, 2008