Paul Peter Porges

Paul Peter Porges was born on February 7, 1927, in Vienna, and died on December 20, 2016, in Kingston, Jamaica. He is best known as a cartoonist whose single-panel gags and playful illustrations graced the pages of *The New Yorker*, *Mad*, *Playboy*, *Harper’s*, *Look*, and *The Saturday Evening Post*. Porges fled Europe as a child and eventually settled in the United States, where he broke into cartooning after serving in the U.S. Army. His style was clean, witty, and often surreal, with a gentle absurdity that made his work instantly recognizable. He contributed to *Mad* for decades, becoming one of its most reliable gag artists, and also worked on *Norsk Mad* and *Writer’s Digest*. Over a career spanning 1953 to 2013, he was credited as artist, inker, letterer, and writer on 16 issues. While he rarely collaborated on long-form narratives, his cartoons were a staple of mid-century humor magazines. Porges spent his later years in Jamaica, where he continued drawing until his death. Though he never received major industry awards, his body of work remains a quiet benchmark of American magazine cartooning.