Collection context
Summary
- Title:
- Dave Berg papers
- Dates:
- 1920-2002
- Creators:
- Berg, Dave and Berg, Nancy
- Abstract:
- Dave Berg was a cartoonist, illustrator, lecturer, writer, and editor with Marvel comics; Mad magazine. Collection consists of original art work, including nude renderings; sketches (some with text) and comic 'strip' panels; holograph and typescript writings (some short stories and musings); Mad magazine and Berg book publications; small number of Moshiach Times publications (with Berg contributions); binder like scrapbooks, and small amount of personal and professional photographs and ephemera.
- Extent:
- 50.8 linear feet (19 unprocessed cartons, 32 unprocessed boxes, 4 unprocessed flat boxes, 15 unprocessed oversize flat boxes, 1 unprocessed long shoe box, 1 unprocessed plastic tub) and 1 born-digital carriers (1 unprocessed CD-ROM)
- Language:
- Materials are primarily in English, with a small amount of material in Hebrew.
Background
- Scope and content:
-
Collection consists of materials related to the career of cartoonist, illustrator, and writer Dave Berg. Included is original art work, including nude renderings; sketches (some with text) and comic 'strip' panels; holograph and typescript writings (some short stories and musings); Mad magazine and Berg book publications; small number of Moshiach Times publications (with Berg contributions); binder-like scrapbooks, and small amount of personal and professional photographs and ephemera.
- Biographical / historical:
-
Dave Berg was born June 12, 1920, in Brooklyn, N.Y. He attended Pratt Institute, New School for Social Research, Cooper Union, and Art Students League. In the early 1940s, he landed a job inking backgrounds of the newspaper comic feature The Spirit at the studio of Will Eisner. He moved on to writing and drawing the comic book series Death Patrol and Uncle Sam. During World War II, he was a member of the Army Air Corps and served as a war correspondent in Iwo Jima, Guam, Saipan and Japan. Following his service, he worked for Stan Lee at Timely Comics (originally Marvel Comics) and at Archie Comics. He began working for Mad as a freelancer in 1956, introducing The Lighter Side of... in 1961. He often incorporated friends, family members and Mad colleagues into his cartoons, and included himself into the strip as Roger Kaputnik, an Everyman with an always-present pipe. Over the years, he wrote and illustrated 17 books for Mad, including Mad's Dave Berg Looks at Living, Mad's Dave Berg Looks at Things, and Mad's Dave Berg Looks at the USA. Berg was heavily involved in the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts in Westchester County, N.Y., and later served as president of B'nai B'rith in Marina del Rey. He also produced two humorous books on religion, My Friend God and Roger Kaputnik and God. Dave Berg died May 17, 2002, in Marina del Rey, California.
- Processing information:
-
This collection contains content with racist, sexist, outdated, and harmful materials. This may include anti-Japanese and misogynystic drawings. Please visit our website for more informaion on LSC's Content Advisory Policy.
Collections are processed to a variety of levels depending on the work necessary to make them usable, their perceived user interest and research value, availability of staff and resources, and competing priorities. Library Special Collections provides a standard level of preservation and access for all collections and, when time and resources permit, conducts more intensive processing. These materials have been arranged and described according to national and local standards and best practices.
We are committed to providing ethical, inclusive, and anti-racist description of the materials we steward, and to remediating existing description of our materials that contains language that may be offensive or cause harm. We invite you to submit feedback about how our collections are described, and how they could be described more accurately, by filling out the form located on our website: Report Problematic Content and Description in UCLA's Library Collections and Archives.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed terms
- Names:
- Berg, Nancy
About this collection guide
- Date Encoded:
- This finding aid was produced using ArchivesSpace on 2024-10-03 14:38:43 -0700 .
Access and use
- Restrictions:
-
Unprocessed collection. Material is unavailable for access. Please see LSC's Access to Unprocessed Collections Policy for more information about levels of discovery and access of special collections materials and registering interest in unprocessed collections.
- Location of this collection:
-
A1713 Charles E. Young Research LibraryBox 951575Los Angeles, CA 90095-1575, US
- Contact:
- (310) 825-4988