I'm a big fan of Harvey Kurtzman. For me he's one of the greatest comic creators of all time. What I love about Kurtzman's work, above all, is the element of spontaneity which he manages to get into his work. It literally looks like he's thought it up and just slapped it down on the page with barely any thought at all, because the inks are so loose and expressive.
Of course, anybody who knows anything about Kurtzman's work processes at all, knows that this is far from the truth. Kurtzman was a fastidious perfectionist, constantly working and reworking elements until he got them just right. When working with other artists, as he did on EC titles like Frontline Combat and Mad, as well as on his retirement ticket Little Anny Fanny, he was also a control freak, ensuring at every stage that the product turned out exactly the way he wanted it.
Yet the fact is that in Kurtzman's best work, there's a wonderful looseness to his stuff that belies the preparation that's gone into his work. The Jungle Book is probably the best example of this.
There are some occasions, however, when you wish Kurtzman had stopped at the first or second draft. On certain jobs, Kurtzman's control freakery basically squeezes all the life out of his work, leaving it a lifeless husk. This usually happens when he works with another artist. For example, in the Comics Journal Library special on Kurtzman [which is an excellent resource for Kurtzman images and interviews], there is a record of an illustration job that Kurtzman worked on with Al Jaffee for a magazine cover set in a restaurant. The number of processes that Kurtzman goes through to get to the finished product is quite staggering. After getting an initial sketch from Jaffee, Kurtzman goes through several revisions himself. Then he goes to the restaurant and does a series of perspective drawings and reference sketches. After that, he prepares a colour guide for the artist. It's weird that any art editor, however talented, would get this involved with the art process of an illustrator. After all, what are you hiring an illustrator for, if not to get them to give you the unique benefit of their vision? I'm not convinced, actually, that Kurtzman's collaboration with Jaffee, in that case, or with the EC artists earlier on resulted in their, or his, best work. My opinion is that artists tend to produce their best work when they are given some artistic licence, not when they are slavishly following someone else's designs. Ironically, when Kurtzman went on to draw Little Annie Fanny, he was himself the victim of micromanagement by Playboy editor Hugh Hefner. Okay, there's a world of difference between being micromanaged by an artist on an art job, and being micromanaged by a guy with no art experience, but still...
If you want the ultimate in laboured control over work processes, look no further than Little Anny Fanny, the strip that Kurtzman worked on with his old Mad buddy, Bill Elder.
Many people think it's sad that Kurtzman spent so many years on this strip, a strip which was essentially, soft porn with a few chuckles. The economic argument for Kurtzman doing this strip was irrefutable, of course. Kurtzman was a shy guy working in an industry which favours the huckster. It's a miracle, really, that he found any outlet at all for his idiosyncratic talent. In my opinion, however, the problem with Little Anny Fanny isn't the trivial subject matter actually - it's the tediously faultness execution. Kurtzman and Elder went through draft after draft, with roughs, colour guides, inks, and so on, before the final version (you can find full details of this process in the terrifically illustrated, The Art of Harvey Kurtzman). It sure looks polished by the end, but is it art? All evidence that it was created by a living, breathing human being, with the heart that beats in Kurtzman's best work, seems to be absent.
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