Perhaps best known for his work at MAD magazine, Basil Wolverton was a Mid-Century artist best know for his humorously grotesque drawings. “If you were a preteenager in the 1950s and had precocious friends or a with-it dad, it’s a good bet you knew the cartoons of Basil Wolverton,” states a 2009 New York Times article. Wolverton’s drawings embodied the “sick-and-proud humor” of MAD magazine and were considered a “virtuoso exercise in bad taste, made all the weirder for being so meticulously executed.”
Pictured here is a selection of buttons from the 1965 LEAF “Fink Buttons” edition featuring Wolverton’s artwork. Currently housed at the Busy Beaver Button Museum, these art buttons are a coveted collector’s item.
