Untitled painting, artist Mikhail Alexandrovich Drizo (aka MAD)

Born July 15, 1887 in the family of Odessa doctor Alexander Akimovich Drizo. He graduated from a real school, in 1908 entered the law faculty of the Novorossiysk University - and in the same year he began to publish cartoons in the “Odessa leaflet”. He also collaborated in other Odessa publications, let's name at least the newspapers “Odessa News” and “Yuzhnoye Obozrenie”, magazines “Skolopendra” (1908), “Krokodil” (1911-1912), ‘Bomba’ (1917-19), “Life” (1918). And the very first drawings of MAD, signed “Mih. Dr.” and “M. D.” appeared on the pages of the weekly “Beginning” in 1907. By the time he graduated from university in 1912, cartoonist MAD had managed to gain experience - and popularity. One can understand why he preferred a solid career as a lawyer to the restless and unreliable fate of a newspaperman. Since then, MAD's drawings regularly appeared in the Odessa press until the end of 1919.