Elder / Kurtzman Goodman Beaver Goes Playboy art (1962)

This is original art by Will Elder from "Goodman Beaver Goes Playboy", which originally appeared in Help Magazine #13 (February 1962). This infamous story was written and laid out by Harvey Kurtzman. It was a parody of both the Playboy lifestyle and Archie Comics. In effect, the story was a sequel to the story "Starchie" that appeared in Mad comics #12. Archie Comics threatened a lawsuit against Help Magazine relating to the Goodman Beaver story, and a settlement was reached. In order to have this story reprinted in a different format, Will Elder painstakingly added more art to the bottom of the panel. The names of the Archie characters were changed in order to avoid another lawsuit threat, and the revised story appeared in the Executive's Comic Book (1962). Archie Comics threatened a lawsuit again, which resulted in an agreement that the story would not be reprinted, and rights to it were transferred to Archie Comics. However, Archie Comics did not renew the copyright, and the story entered the public domain.