Before Alfred

1944 - US Navy

Me Worry? H--- No! I'm Gonna Join the Navy

1945 Hermosa Beach Ca

Me Worry? H--- No! I'm Gonna Join the Armed Forces by Crackey!

1945-Shamrock Tx

Me Worry? H--- No! I'm Gonna Join the Navy

1945-Harbor Or

Me Worry? H--- No! I'm Gonna Join the WACS, and Quite Milking Cows

1945 - Hermosa Beach Ca

Me Worry? H--- No! I'm Gonna Join the U.S. Navy and fight.........

Patriotic covers produced during the second World War utilizing the Simp character

A popular anti New Deal, anti Franklin Roosevelt celluloid pin, featuring the character known as IMA Simp, a forerunner of MAD Magazine’s Alfred E. Neuman. Mr. Simp was a famous image for a clueless person. The New Deal was a series of programs, public work projects, financial reforms, and regulations enacted by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the United States between 1933 and 1938 - Pinback Travels

Alfred E. Neuman is the fictitious mascot and cover boy of the American humor magazine Mad. The character's distinct smiling face, gap-toothed smile, freckles, red hair, protruding ears, and scrawny body dates back to late 19th-century advertisements for painless dentistry, also the origin of his "What, me worry?" motto. The magazine's founder and original editor, Harvey Kurtzman, began using the character in 1954. He was named "Alfred E. Neuman"

 

Ray Alma - Alfred E Neuman : Mad Magazine

2015.10.09 New York Comic Con, NYC

One of the special moments of attending NYCC is walking around discovering who might be at the con. Yes there is a program, but I tend not to take the time to go through it, I would rather wander the aisles. When I came to the National Cartoonist Society booth, which had several cartoonists in attendance. 

One of the downsides to wandering around is not knowing some of the artist by sight. Ray Alma was taking his turn at the table so I asks what comic strip he drew. He pointed to his shirt which said "MAD Magazine"...

We discussed his doing a skeetch of Alfred E Neuman, so I chose a Norman Rockwell cover. I liked the comparison of one of America's famous and loved illustrators linked to America's children choice for literature...

When I went to research Ray Alma, I was happy to see the photo on his site mimic the famous Rockwell painting of his self portrait technique..

Ray Alma  is a caricaturist and illustrator. His work has appeared in magazines, newspapers and books. His contributions to Mad Magazine earned him status as one of "The Usual Gang of Idiots".

Alam won the National Cartoonist Society Reuben Award for Best Magazine Illustration - 2009.