Ed Subitzky
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Ed Subitzky is an American cartoonist and humorist. He has also worked as a television comedy writer and performer, a radio writer and performer, and in various other media. He is a member of the Screen Actors Guild, AFTRA, and the Writers Guild of America.
In the early 1970s, Subitzky became a contributing editor at National Lampoon magazine, where he worked with many well-regarded humor and comedy creators and performers, including Henry Beard, Doug Kenney, Michael O'Donoghue, P. J. O'Rourke, Michael Gross, John Belushi and Chevy Chase. As well as his work for the magazine, Subitzky contributed to many other Lampoon projects.
Subsequently Subitzky went on to various other kinds of humor and comedy work, including working on television and more work for radio. He has also written broadcast horror stories, and has recently contributed several pieces to a serious science journal.
Subitzky has had a longtime day job as an advertising copywriter.
[edit] Early life
Subitzky was born in and grew up in Mount Vernon, New York. As a child he read a wide variety of comic books and Mad magazine. He was greatly influenced by the work of Will Elder and Harvey Kurtzman, 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 to New York City, and took cartooning classes at the School of Visual Arts, or SVA, which were taught by Bob Blechman and Charles Slackman.
[edit] Cartooning and writing for National Lampoon magazine
Contributing editor Michel Choquette of National Lampoon magazine visited the SVA cartooning class in 1972. Choquette noticed Subitzky's work and brought him over to the offices of the magazine.
Subitzky then became a long-term contributing editor of National Lampoon, where one or more of his comic strips, cartoons, and written articles appeared in almost every issue of the magazine. Subitzky's name remained on the masthead of National Lampoon through the decline of the magazine in the 1980s, and almost up to the point of its eventual demise.
His approximately 100 comic strips for the Lampoon included “Saturday Night on Antarius!”, “Two-way Comics!", "Eight Comics in One!” and “Come Too Soon Comics!”. His approximately 100 articles and written pieces included “How I Spent My Summer”, "Stupidworld", and two out of his many fumetti or photo funnies were, “The Perfect Date” and “Every Red-Blooded American Boy’s Dream, Three Pretty Girls Doing Just What You Want So You Can…”
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[1].
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.
[edit] Works for 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 “Public 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 deoderants, 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: [2] and [3].
In 1980 Subitzky wrote numerous pieces for a nationally-syndicated series of five-minute horror stories, which were broadcast on radio. The series was entitled Nightwatch.
[edit] Recordings
Subitzky was the author of two Lampoon comedy albums: Official National Lampoon Stereo Test and Demonstration Record, 1974, and the subsequent, similarly-titled album, The Official National Lampoon Stereo Test and Demonstration Tape on cassette tape for car stereo in 1980. The first of these two albums was voiced by John Belushi and Chevy Chase, among others.
[edit] 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 “The 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.
[edit] 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.
[edit] Science-related work
In 1991, he co-wrote (with his wife) a science humor piece for the Journal of Irreproducible Results entitled “A 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. Nearly 17 years after it was first published, it continues to be featured (both with and without its title, attribution and introduction) on hundreds of websites, including versions translated into German, Dutch, Spanish and Hungarian.
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, and two short written articles published. These include an essay "I am a conscious essay" [4], the comic strip "Inkland" [5], the short story "The Voyage" [6], and the short story, "The Experiment" [7]. As is also true of the product warning labels piece, most of these were published under the name Edward Subitzky, rather than Ed Subitzky, except for "The Experiment".
[edit] 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).
[edit] 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 National Lampoon Gentleman's Bathroom Companion as the Tidybowl man, and in 1988 he was featured on the cover of the March-April issue of National Lampoon magazine as a disappointed television viewer [8].
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.
[edit] A recent parody of Ed Subitzky's comic strips
In 2006, an Australian magazine, POX, ran a multi-page National Lampoon magazine parody, which included a take-off of Subitzky's comic strips.
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- [9] Currently this is the major, and definitive, Lampoon information site
- [10] Shows all the Lampoon covers
- [11] One of many sites which show the "product warning labels" piece
[edit] Books
- KARP, Josh, 2004 Chicago Review Press, A Futile and Stupid Gesture
- SIMMONS, Matty, 1994, Barricade Books, If You Don't Buy This Book We'll Kill This Dog
- HENDRA, Tony, 1987, Dolphin Doubleday, Going Too Far
[edit] Magazines
- COOKE, Jon B., April 2003, Comic Book Artist, 24, "Ed Subitzky 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"
