I was sorry to hear about the passing of Jack Davis. I don’t claim to be a personal friend of his, but I’ll tell you about my one encounter with Jack Davis, and the way that he helped the sequential art department, where I work at SCAD, to succeed. Back in the mid-90s, the department was new and relatively unheard of in the comics world. We were working on the guest list for our fledgling Comics Art Forum event. I don’t know who gave me Jack Davis’s home phone number, probably Bob Pendarvis, since they both lived on St. Simons Island. Or he might have simply been listed in the phone book. On a cool, overcast afternoon in early November, sitting in the office at the old Armory building, I girded up my loins and decided to call him. In those days I did a lot of cold calling. I got a lot of answering machines and left lots of messages, sometimes without ever hearing back. (I did get a really nice turn-down letter from Charles Schulz once.) That wasn’t how it went with Mr. Davis.
The phone rang a couple of times, then an honest-to-god person answered, “hello?” I could tell by the distinctive southern lilt that it was Jack Davis himself, yes, answering his own home phone. I spluttered out who I was and where I worked. He’d heard of the art college in Savannah. He had a high opinion of it. Then he said, “well, buddy, what can I do for you?” He was sincere. Jack Davis didn’t know me from Adam’s house cat, but he was asking what he could do for me! I wanted to sit down and cry. I wanted to spend the rest of my life studying to be as polite and generous with complete strangers. I'm not sure the Dalai Lama would be that nice. Just like that, then and there, he agreed to come up on a Saturday and participate in Comics Art Forum. I might add that he was in his seventies at the time. He came up for just one reason, because he wanted to help out the kids at the school.
From that point, I had no trouble rounding up more guests. When I said that Jack Davis was going to be there, people understood how important it was. Everyone wanted to be near the guy. They all wanted to be around Jack Davis. His work for EC and Mad and all those magazine covers was a major influence on them all. Jim Woodring, Charles Burns, I can’t remember the entire, impressive list, but whoever I called, they said yes without hesitation. Those people gained attention for the sequential art department at SCAD that people still talk about twenty years later.
I don’t want to act as though Jack Davis is the only great person who ever visited. There have been many many others. However, no one, no one ever had that same personal touch. Jack Davis officially came back a couple of times after that, for the National Cartoonist Society Convention in Savannah, and for the sequential art department’s “Mad Weekend” later, along with a number of other Mad Magazine creators. I remember that Jack Davis’s phone rang when he was up on stage for the “Mad Weekend” panel discussion. In front of a packed Trustees Theater in Savannah, Georgia, with at least three hundred people watching, he answered it! “Hello?” All the other artists razzed him for it. It was pretty funny, alright. I couldn’t help remembering, though, that time I’d called. I didn’t get an answering machine, or a voicemail message, or a return text, or an I’ll-think-about-it-and-get-back-to-you-someday, or that phone lady’s voice saying the number is no longer in service. I got him. He could have been in the middle of panel discussion then, for all I knew.
Maybe there’s somebody coming along who is as nice as Jack Davis, or as talented, or dependable. I’d like to meet that person. Here’s a little speech I’ve given many times (though I didn’t invent it): there are three important factors determining whether or not you’ll have a career as an artist—but you only need two of them: skills, discipline, personal charm. You can make a living as an artist with any two of these three factors. If you’re a complete jerk, but you are a dynamite artist and you always get things done on time, you’ll work. Or maybe you never meet your deadlines, but you are a talented artist and, by golly, everyone likes you. You’ll still work. Or let’s say you don’t have much talent, but you always meet your deadlines and everyone likes you. You’ll work. (Mind you, if all you have is talent by itself, you’re probably doomed.) With any combination of two, you are a winner. Imagine, though, that you are fully stocked with all three--and maybe you remember old school phone courtesy as well, not to mention that you have a conscience and a heart and a will to make good things happen in the world. Then you’d be Jack Davis.
