Ed Subitzky

Early life Subitzky was born in and grew up in Mount Vernon, New York, just outside of New York City. As a child he read a wide variety of comic books, and Mad magazine. He was greatly influenced by the work of Harvey Kurtzman and to a lesser extent that of Will Elder, both of whom he met briefly in Mount Vernon when he was about 12 years old. He was educated at what is now Binghamton University, where he was a math major who also took many philosophy courses. A few years later he moved into Manhattan, and took cartooning classes at the School of Visual Arts, or SVA, which were taught by Bob Blechman and Charles Slackman. National Lampoon magazine Subitzky ended up doing a great deal of work for National Lampoon magazine, including primarily comic strips, cartoons, and humor writing. The connection was first established in 1972, when contributing editor Michel Choquette of National Lampoon magazine visited the SVA cartooning class that Subitzky was in (p. 47, Levin, 2009). Choquette took a liking to Subitzky’s work, and brought him over to the offices of National Lampoon. Subitzky subsequently became a long-term contributing editor; one or more of his comic strips, cartoons, and written articles appeared in almost every issue of the magazine. His name remained on the masthead of National Lampoon from 1972 on, through the decline of the magazine in the 1980s, and almost up to the point of its eventual demise. Comic strips Subitzky’s approximately 100 comic strips for the Lampoon included aturday Night on Antarius!, wo-way Comics!”, “Eight Comics in One! and ome Too Soon Comics! Many of his comic strips ran to several pages, and featured numerous very small panels. Written humor His approximately 100 articles and written pieces for Lampoon included ow I Spent My Summer and “Stupidworld”. Fumetti Two out of many fumetti or photo funnies he wrote were he Perfect Date and very Red-Blooded American Boy Dream: Three Pretty Girls Doing Just What You Want So You Can Masturbate!” Lampoon books In 1974, Subitzky wrote two sections of the infamous National Lampoon 1964 High School Yearbook Parody: the first piece in the yearbook, which is the Principal’s letter, and “In Memorium” [sic], which is a parody of a student In Memoriam piece. In the same year Subitzky wrote numerous sections of the Lampoon book,The Job of Sex, which was a parody of The Joy of Sex. In September 1974 he guest-edited the “Old Age” issue of the magazine. His writing and cartooning were reprinted in many National Lampoon anthologies, and pieces of his have been included in several other anthologies, including the “Big Book of New American Humor” and more than one collection edited by the cartoonist Sam Gross. In 1972, a comic of Subitzky’s entitled Two-headed Sam in the singles bar! was made part of the (as yet still unpublished) comic book, “Someday Funnies”, which was put together by Michel Choquette. Works for radio National Lampoon radio Subitzky was a writer for and an occasional performer on The National Lampoon Radio Hour, which ran for a little over a year in 1973 to 1974. He conceptualized, and wrote all, or nearly all of, the ublic Disservice Announcements (which were parodies of public service announcements) as well as a number of other pieces. Some selections from the Radio Hour work appeared on the CD album Gold Turkey. He also conceived, wrote, and starred in a one hour, two-episode radio play for The National Lampoon Radio Hour. The play was a spoof of popular science fiction/horror dramas, and it was entitled The Sluts from Space. The two episodes aired on May 25th and June 2nd of 1974. Subitzky voiced the part of the science-nerd hero, Timmy Johnson, who, by clever control of the supply of deodorants, manages to save the world from alien invaders disguised as beautiful and seductive women. The Sluts from Space episodes of the show are listed in detail at: and . Horror stories In 1980 Subitzky wrote numerous pieces for a nationally-syndicated series of five-minute horror stories, broadcast on radio. The series was entitled Nightwatch. Comedy albums Subitzky was the sole author of two National Lampoon comedy albums: Official National Lampoon Stereo Test and Demonstration Record, 1974, voiced by John Belushi and Chevy Chase, among others. The Official National Lampoon Stereo Test and Demonstration Tape on cassette tape for car stereo in 1980. Television work with David Letterman Comedy writing and performing Subitzky was a comedy writer on The David Letterman Show for its first season on the air in 1982, and he also appeared on the show many times, in variations of a sketch which is sometimes referred to as he Imposter”. In these sketches, Letterman introduces Subitzky as someone else altogether, often a minor celebrity, and after a few minutes of interviewing, Subitzky breaks down and admits to Letterman that he had only pretended to be the other person so that he could be on television. He then runs through the audience apologizing abjectly. Subitzky reprised this role in twelve more appearances on Late Night with David Letterman. The New York Times Op/Ed page, and magazine work During the 1990s, Subitzky had several Op/Art cartoons published on the Opinion/Editorial page of the New York Times. His cartoons have also appeared in Natural History, The New Yorker, and Tricycle: The Buddhist Review, and some written pieces of his appeared in Cracked. Science-related work In 1991, he co-wrote a science humor piece for the Journal of Irreproducible Results entitled Call For More Scientific Truth in Product Warning Labels, by Susan Hewitt and Edward Subitzky. This piece was subsequently quoted by both New Scientist and Atlantic Monthly. 18 years after it was first published, it is still featured (both with and without its title, attribution and introduction) on hundreds of websites, including versions that have been translated into Dutch, French. German, Hungarian and Spanish. Since the year 2000, based on his long-term interest in science and philosophy, Subitzky has been contributing to a peer reviewed academic journal, the Journal of Consciousness Studies, where he has had one cartoon, a 4-page comic strip, three written articles, and a poem published. In chronological order these are: an essay “I am a conscious essay” , a single-panel untitled cartoon which was used as a frontispiece, the 4-page comic strip “Inkland” , the short science fiction story “The Voyage” , another science fiction short story, “The Experiment” and a poem, “Mirage” . As is also true of the product warning labels piece, several of these were published under the name “Edward Subitzky” rather than . Film-related work Subitzky conceived, wrote, and did the original drawings for, a short animated piece which was then produced, and bought by Saturday Night Live, but was not aired. He co-wrote a screenplay, which was bought but not produced. He also wrote the lyrics for a country song which appeared as background music in a bar scene in another film (Kandyland, 1987). Character modeling Subitzky appeared in the Lampoon magazine as a character model in editorial photographs 54 times. In 1977 he appeared on the cover of the book National Lampoon Gentleman’s Bathroom Companion as the Ty-D-Bol man (a spoof of commercials for a blue-tinted toilet bowl cleaner). In 1988 he was featured on the cover of the March-April issue of National Lampoon magazine as a disappointed television viewer . During the 1990s, Subitzky occasionally worked for the modeling agency FunnyFace Today, appearing in a few publications including Redbook. In the 1980s Subitzky was the sole actor in a television commercial for a video game called Mountain King. A 2006 parody In 2006, an Australian magazine, POX, ran a multi-page National Lampoon magazine parody, which included a take-off of Subitzky’s comic strips. References ^ “Saturday Night on Antarius! The planet with 12 different sexes)” by for National Lampoon (magazine) ^ [http://www.marksverylarge.com/booksetc/encyclopedia.html/The National Lampoon Encyclopedia of Humor, editor Michael O'Donoghue, 1973, table of contents, shown at "Mark's Very Large National Lampoon Site" downloaded Aug 9, 2009 ^ section, "Theater of the Air" written 2009, downloaded Aug 9th 2009 ^ /Journal of Consciousness Studies December 2003, contents, listed under "Off the Page"] ^ Very Large National Lampoon Site, table of contents for National Lampoon Issue September 1974, Vol. 1. No. 54 External links Currently this is the major, and definitive, Lampoon information site Shows all the Lampoon covers ] One of many sites which show the “product warning labels” piece Has two images Books KARP, Josh, 2004 Chicago Review Press, A Futile and Stupid Gesture: How Doug Kenney and National Lampoon Changed Comedy Forever, Chicago Review Press, 2006, ISBN 1556526024, 9781556526022 SIMMONS, Matty, 1994, Barricade Books, If You Don’t Buy This Book We’ll Kill This Dog: Life, Laughs, Love and Death at the National Lampoon ISBN 1569800022; ISBN 978-1569800027 HENDRA, Tony, 1987, Dolphin Doubleday, Going Too Far: the Rise and Demise of Sick, Gross, Black, Sophomoric, Weirdo, Pinko, Anarchist, Underground, Anti-establishment Humor ISBN 0385232233; ISBN 978-0385232234 Magazines and journals LEVIN, Bob, August 2009, The Comics Journal, No. 299, p. 30-81, How Michel Choquette (Almost) Assembled the Most Stupendous Comic Book in the World, Starring: Harvey Kurtzman, Jack Kirby, Federico Fellini, Art Spiegelman, Wally Wood, Bill Griffith, Don Martin, Vaughn Bod, William Burroughs, Michael O’Donoghue, Roy Thomas, Sergio Aragones, Jann Wenner, Gahan Wilson, C.C. Beck, R.O. Blechman, Eugene Ionesco, Barry Windsor-Smith, Guido Crepax, Ralph Steadman, Steve Englehart, Salvador Dali, Arnold Roth, Archie Goodwin, Shary Flenniken, Evert Geradts, Moebius, Denny O’Neill, Tom Wolfe, Will Eisner, Frank Zappa and many more COOKE, Jon B., April 2003, Comic Book Artist, 24, ” Interview: A mind for mirth, the nicest cartoonist in comic book history off the top of his head” BUTCHER, Susan, & WOOD, Carol, 2006, POX (Australia), # 6, page 26, “Itsy-Bitsy Comics! by Izzy Bitzky” Categories: American cartoonists | American humorists | American comics artists | American comics writers | American comedy writers | American television actors | American voice actors | Living people | 1943 births