Mad Magazine illustrator Kelly Freas dies
Kelly Freas, an influential illustrator who produced sleek, stirring images for science fiction and fantasy books and helped shape the image of Mad Magazine mascot Alfred E. Neuman, has died at age 82.
Freas died in his sleep Sunday at his home in Los Angeles, said his wife of 16 years, Laura Brodian Freas, the host of a Los Angeles classical music program. The cause of death was old age, she said.
"He always wanted to be a science fiction illustrator, and the life of a science fiction illustrator led him to so much more," she said Monday. "Life with a Mad artist was never boring."
In a career that spanned more than 50 years, Freas illustrated the covers or the pages of books by writers including Isaac Asimov, Robert Heinlein, Arthur C. Clarke, A.E. Van Vogt, Poul Anderson and Frederik Pohl.
His science fiction and fantasy illustrations included emotive images of pained robots, insidious aliens and exotic women.
Beginning in the 1950s, he spent seven years as the main cover artist of Mad Magazine, creating stylishly detailed portraits and helping to make famous Alfred E. Newman, the freckled, front-tooth-deprived purveyor of the phrase, "What, Me Worry?"
His other illustrations included the official patch of NASA's 1973 Skylab 1 orbiting space station.