Miguel Cervantes scholar Tom Lathrop is turning Don Quixote into a children’s book, which wouldn’t necessarily be news for this blog, except for the fact that he got classic Mad and EC artist Jack Davis to do the illustrations:
Davis, 82, first worked with Lathrop a year ago. He illustrated the hard cover of the third edition of Lathrop’s Portuguese language textbook, “Brasil! Lingua e Cultura.”
For the grown-up, academic translation of “Don Quixote,” Davis contributed 55 drawings.
The character of Don Quixote is like a character in the early Mad magazine, said Davis from his home in Georgia.
“He struck me as funny, long and tall and with a horrible horse, and he has a sidekick, like a cowboy would, and every chapter he’s off on a different adventure,” Davis said. “He has a big heart.”
