A satiric cartoonist "whose frantic, gag filled illustrations helped to define the comic identity of Mad Magazine" and creator for Playboy Magazine of the cartoon series, "Little Annie Fanny", Will Elder, born in the Bronx, spent most of his career in New York City. He was born with the name Wolf William Eisenberg, which he changed to Will Elder after service in World War II.

Growing up with public school education and attendance at the High School of Music and Art, he was much more interested at sporting events in drawing caricatures of the players and keeping score. Fellow students were Harvey Kurtzman, the future founder of Mad and Al Jaffee, who also became cartoonist for the magazine.

Elder studied a year at the National Academy of Design in New York, and during World War II, served in the army doing topographical drawing including maps for the D-Day landing at Normandy.

Returning home, he began his illustration career by taking a job creating a comic book, and married Jean Strashum, who preceded him in death in 2005. They had two children. With Kurtzman and artist, Charles Stern, he created the Charles William Harvey Studio, which became the assembled group of artists and writers that launched and sustained Mad Magazine. Elder was a key part of the operation from 1952, and for the first four years collaborated with Kurtzman, generating "comic mayhem". Later the two of them worked together on other magazine publishing ventures that were not as successful including Trump for Hugh Hefner, Humbug and Help. A success for Elder was "Little Annie Fanny", which ran from 1962 to 1988 in Playboy Magazine.

Elder died in Rockleigh, New Jersey on May 14, 2008, at age 86.

Source:
William Grimes, "Will Elder, Cartoonist of Satiric Gifts and Overpopulated Scenes, Dies at 86",
The New York Times, May 18, 2008, p. 24