Goodman Beaver is a fictional character who appears in comics created by American cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman. Goodman is a naive and optimistic Candide-like character, oblivious to the corruption and degeneration around him. The character was partially inspired by Voltaire’s Candide and Harold Gray’s comic strip character Little Orphan Annie. Goodman was a semi-autobiographical character, reflecting Kurtzman’s disillusioning experiences in the publishing industry.
About Goodman Beaver in brief
Goodman Beaver is a fictional character who appears in comics created by American cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman. Goodman is a naive and optimistic Candide-like character, oblivious to the corruption and degeneration around him. The character was partially inspired by Voltaire’s Candide and Harold Gray’s comic strip character Little Orphan Annie. Goodman was a semi-autobiographical character, reflecting Kurtzman’s disillusioning experiences in the publishing industry. Kurtzman wrote five Goodman Beaver stories for his long-time collaborator Will Elder in 1961–62 for the Kurtzman-edited magazine Help! Most of the stories were in the parodic style Kurtzman had developed as the creator, editor, and writer of Mad in the 1950s, but dealt with more significant issues concerning modernity. The most famous story was \”Goodman Goes Playboy\”, a satire on the hedonistic lifestyle of Hugh Hefner using parodies of Archie comics characters, whose publisher threatened a lawsuit. The story was settled out of court, and the copyright for the story passed to Archie Comics. Goodman’s first appearance in the Jungle Book was in 1959; he first appeared in the September 1961 issue of Help! and was Elder’s first take on Goodman Beaver. In the early 1960s, they were drawn in Elder’s \”chickenfat\” style, in which he crammed every panel with humorous detail and throwaway gags. In later stories, Goodman’s features were reworked to conform with this new look for later reprintings of the later Help! issues of the strip.
The strip was created by Kurtzman and Elder for Playboy magazine called Little Annie Fanny, which was published in 1962 and 1963. It was the first time Goodman had been depicted with more monkey-like features—thick, large mouth and small jaw, and small mouth and jaw. The comic strip was later reworked in later issues to conform to Goodman’s redrawing features, so that he’s more ‘lovable’ and ‘likable’ The strip is now considered one of the best-known comic strips of all time, along with The Flintstones and Spider-Man. The series was inspired by the story of T*rz*n, a young African-American boy who becomes the leader of a tribe in the jungles of the African bush, and learns English from T*n. The strips were written and drawn by Will Elder, who cited the Flemish Pieter Bruegel the Elder and the Spanish Diego Velázquez as influences on this style. The first Goodman Beaver story appeared in 1959 and was drawn by Kurtzman alone; the second by Elder was in September 1961 in Help! The strip has been reprinted several times since then, including in the February 1962 issue of the Help!’s Help! issue of help! The story is called ‘Goodman Meets T*lz*r*n’ and is a modern take on the Tarzan tale, set against the backdrop of the fall of European colonialism and the rise of African nationalism.
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