Sorry I have to report the death of George Woodbridge, whose presence in MAD Magazine dated back to the March, 1957 issue. George was in almost every issue until just a few years ago…never flashy but always dependable, and much-loved by his colleagues. It was an odd venue for his artwork as no matter how many issues of the world's leading humor magazine he appeared in, he always considered himself a historical illustrator.
He was a funny, charming gentleman but as he told me when I interviewed him for Mad Art, "I regard myself as an illustrator of historical subjects. When I'm not working for Mad, that's the field in which I work, though I'm damned proud to be part of MAD. I don't consider one field superior to the other and, in fact, the challenges are altogether different. In historical illustration, the goal is to be accurate. In Mad, the goal is to be funny." George was usually very funny.
He was born in 1930 in Flushing, New York and grew up in a house full of art and illustration books, which helped nudge him in that direction. He attended the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, figuring he'd follow in the footsteps of great illustrators like Robert Fawcett and Tom Lovell. But at that school, he began hanging around with folks who'd become great comic artists…guys like Al Williamson and Frank Frazetta. Another in that circle was Nick Meglin, who would soon become Assistant Editor of MAD and later its editor. Nick arranged for his friend George to audition for the magazine's then-editor, Al Feldstein, who liked what he saw…and George found a home.
"George's strong points were many," Feldstein says. "He was especially adept at delineating amusing street scenes with crowds and signs and outlandish going-ons, as well as depicting humorous interpretations of just plain people in comedic human situations. The articles he was assigned to illustrate were chosen with those superb talents in mind." One of those articles, and perhaps George's best-remembered assignment, was a story called "43-Man Squamish" that ran in a 1965 issue and is still hailed as one of the magazine's crowning works.
Throughout his MAD years, George also drew historical illustrations, often of the Civil War, for books and magazines of a more serious nature. He had amassed a huge reference library and was considered a great authority on certain periods. It amused him that when he dealt with scholarly editors and authors, one of them would occasionally, almost apologetically, ask if he was the same George Woodbridge who drew "43-Man Squamish." You can view some of George's illustration work at this site, where they refer to him as "America's Dean of Uniform Illustration."
His long-time friend and co-worker Sergio Aragonés said, "He was such a good friend. He knew everything about history and he knew everything about artwork. When I was starting out and they gave me assignments that had to be in color, George was the one who helped me. Even though he was color-blind, he did the most remarkable work in color. He was a wonderful man and I will miss him very much."