Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book

Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book
Cover to original Ballantine Books edition (1959)
Date	1959
Page count	140 pages
Publisher	Ballantine Books
Creative team
Creator	Harvey Kurtzman

Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book is a 1959 graphic novel by American cartoonist Harvey Kurtzman. The satirical stories are aimed at an adult audience, in contrast to Kurtzman's earlier work for adolescents in periodicals such as Mad. The social satire in the book's four stories targets Peter Gunn-style private-detective shows, Westerns such as Gunsmoke, capitalist avarice in the publishing industry, Freudian pop psychology, and lynch-hungry yokels in the South. Kurtzman's character Goodman Beaver makes his first appearance in one of the stories.

Kurtzman created the satirical Mad in 1952, but left its publisher EC Comics in 1956 after a dispute over financial control. After two failed attempts with similar publications, Kurtzman proposed Jungle Book as an all-original cartoon book to Ballantine Books to replace its successful series of Mad collections, which had moved to another publisher. Ballantine accepted Kurtzman's proposal, albeit with reservations about its commercial viability. It was the first mass-market paperback of original comics published in the United States. Though it was not a financial success, Jungle Book attracted fans and critics for its brushwork, satirical adult-oriented humor, experimental dialogue balloons, and adventurous page and panel designs.

The full title of the book is Harvey Kurtzman's Jungle Book: Or, Up from the Apes! (and Right Back Down)—In Which Are Described in Words and Pictures Businessmen, Private Eyes, Cowboys, and Other Heroes All Exhibiting the Progress of Man from the Darkness of the Cave into the Light of Civilization by Means of Television, Wide Screen Movies, the Stone Axe, and Other Useful Arts. At 140 pages, Jungle Book remains Kurtzman's longest solo work. Freed from the length constraints of magazine pieces, Kurtzman was able to make inventive use of page and panel rhythms. According to critic and publisher Kim Thompson, his satire never had "more pitiless a bite" at any other time in his career. Kurtzman had aimed his Mad stories at an adolescent audience; his targeting Jungle Book at an adult audience was uncommon in American comics.