Legendary Bulldog/cartoonist Jack Davis dead at 91.

Bulldog Nation has lost one of its all-time great characters with the death of legendary cartoonist Jack Davis. While Davis’s face is likely not familiar to you, his stylized drawings have been a staple on the walls of living rooms, barber shops, dentists offices, and just about every other available surface in and around Athens for decades.

Davis attended the University of Georgia on the G.I. Bill before decamping to New York to make his name as an illustrator. It may have taken some hard work, but boy did he succeed. Davis got his start in comic books, including contributing on the original comic version of Tales from the Crypt. If you spent your 80’s/90’s childhood having nightmares about the campy HBO Crypt Keeper, you can thank Davis, who largely developed the character’s look. Davis also served as one of the original illustrators for a little project known as Mad magazine, sketching some of the most iconic images of the magazine’s early days. From TV Guide to movie posters to postage stamps, Davis crafted much of the most visible artwork of the late twentieth century. But Bulldog fans will remember him as a rabid ‘Dawg whose anthropomorphized bulldog in a UGA football uniform was always good for a smile. Davis was 91.