CARTOONIST BEST KNOWN FOR ‘HORRIFYING CLICHÉS’ AT MAD MAGAZINE

•1929-2022

Paul Coker, a cartoonist who was best known for using monsters to parody cliches in Mad magazine over many decades and for creating the look of animated television characters, like Frosty the Snowman, died July 23 at his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 93.

Coker was part of an elite group of artists at Mad — including Mort Drucker, Al Jaffee and Jack Davis — who brought a vibrant and varied look to the magazine’s silly and satirical view of politics, war, movies, television and pop culture.

“Paul was capable of whimsical but beautiful artwork that always had a bit of subversion to it,” John Ficarra, a former Mad editor, said in a phone interview. “He did phenomenal penand-ink work, and as he grew older he learned to simplify his work without losing its sparkle and charm.”

Coker collaborated with the writer Phil Hahn, and later with others, for more than 50 years to produce the recurring feature “Horrifying Clichés,” which mocked overused phrases by illustrating them with monsters and other creatures.

The drawing for “Curbing a voracious appetite” showed a man in a black coat walking a gigantic monster on a leash to do his necessary business. “Escaping the doldrums” depicted a frightened man running from a family of monsters, presumably named the Doldrums, who stand in a castle doorway. For “Lodging a complaint,” an innkeeper showed a dungeonlike room to a compliant monster who carries a suitcase covered with stickers showing his previous travels.

“What a great way to earn a living!” Coker wrote in the introduction to “The Mad Monster Book of Horrifying

Clichés” (2002). Describing how he had conceived the illustration for “Dropping a hint,” he wrote that he chose a medieval setting because it allowed for the dropping to be done from a “castle tower window or a rickety old bridge or from a very high wall into a snake-filled moat.” (He ended up going with the window.) And, he added, the hint “can be any kind of imaginary creature with a terrified expression.”

Coker’s illustrations, done in collaboration with various writers, appeared in 372 issues, among the most by any Mad artist. His work included features like “You Know

You’re Getting Old When …” and “Honest Greeting Cards,” as well as parodies of “Star Trek” (“Star Blecch VI: The Uninspired Continuation”) and the TV series “Frasier” (“Flakier”). He contributed to Mad until 2018, a year before it ceased publication, 67 years after its first issue, in 1952.

Sam Viviano, a former art director of Mad, said that one of his treasures was a subscription ad drawn by Coker that depicted a mailman climbing a ladder to deliver a copy of the magazine to an eager rajah sitting under a canopy atop a blanket-draped elephant. “The filigree on the blanket is just eye-popping,” Viviano said.

Paul Allan Coker Jr. was born March 5, 1929, in Lawrence, Kan. He was first published around the age of 12, a cartoon for The Open Road for Boys, a magazine about outdoor life. He studied painting and drawing at the University of Kansas, where he contributed artwork to the student newspaper. He graduated in 1951 with a bachelor’s degree.

After serving in the Navy, Coker went to work for Hallmark Cards in Kansas City, Missouri. In 1961 he moved to New York City, where he called on the offices of Mad.