Splash of the MAD Watchmen parody- Art by me, words by Des Devlin

No one can say that comic book fans aren’t a passionate bunch. There has been so much commentary on DC Entertainment’s announcement of a new series of stories featuring the characters of the beloved Alan Moore and Dave Gibbon‘s classic Watchmen, that I can’t even begin to link to them. Here’s a story on it that made CNN. Much of it is outrage over messing with such an icon part of comic book history as Watchmen.

My take: calm down. They are just comics.

I actually don’t understand the venom. There is no “messing” going on with the original Watchmen. Not one single word, panel or page in that incredible piece of work is going to be changed, altered or otherwise manipulated. If so much as a single line was going to be altered in a “new” edition that would tie it in with any of the new stories, I’d be grabbing my pitchfork and torch.

But, it’s not. Watchmen remains Watchmen.

These are simply a series of new stories featuring these characters by different creative teams. That is hardly a new thing in comics. In fact, every 10 years or so everything gets a “reboot”, and new creative teams come and go in the meantime. Sometimes they do things I don’t like with the characters I love. My reaction is to stop buying those comics. Batman’s newest incarnation doesn’t change a word or page or panel of the Denny O’Neal/Neal Adams era Batman that I grew up with and consider the definitive version of the character. Before Watchmen are just new stories, and if you find they are great then enjoy them. If you think they are terrible, don’t buy them. It’s not like DC is redoing the last Watchmen book and making sure Ozymandias fired first.

What I find most ironic about the criticism leveled at DC for what some amount as sacrilege toward someone else’s creations is that Watchmen was based on a series of old and silly comic book characters in the first place… so Moore was “messing” with some else’s creations from the beginning. In fact, the best known of Moore’s work is mostly revamping and reinventing existing characters: Swamp Thing, Marvelman/Miracleman, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, From Hell. Great work, all of it, but not his characters.

Anyway, I intend to give Before Watchmen a chance. Just like any other comics I get, if they tell me an engaging story and stay true to the complex characters Moore wrote, I’ll enjoy them.

In the meantime, MAD has posted their parody of the original Watchmen comic on The Idiotical. Great stuff from Des Devlin, Glean Fabry and John Higgins, with an exclusive cover from Dave Gibbons. Well worth the read:

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Q: What are some of your favorite drawing tools (e.g. type of pencils, drawing software, etc.) you use?

A: I get this question every so often so once I year (or so, actually it’s been since 2009) I do an updated answer. Here is 2012′s version:

In the Studio

For doing my publication work I use a lot of different tools and materials. While most of what I do these days is digital I do occasionally, when the job calls for it, pull out the old paints and such. Here are the tools I like to use in the studio:

Paper and boards-

Paper for roughs- I generally just use my live caricature paper for my rough sketches and layouts, which is a 67lb vellum bristol. The equivalent would be a Strathmore sketchbook heavyweight paper that comes in pads.

Boards for finals- Strathmore 400 or 500 series bristol, usually vellum finish but lately I’ve been using the smoother stuff sometimes… mainly when I know I’ll be doing my “colored line” style of digital finals. I like a smoother line for that. If it’s a real painting I’ll use a piece of illustration board with a kid (rough) surface as it won’t buckle when I apply a lot of washes. BTW, Strathmore has had it’s problems in the last few years with quality, but it seems they have figured out the problem, so it remains my board of choice.

Pencils-

I like the mechanical leadholder type pencils like the Staedtler Mars Technico Lead Holders with F or HB leads. They are comfortable to hold and the lead pointers make keeping a sharp point easy, but it also has a thickness that the ultra thin mechanical pencils don’t have. Otherwise I have been known to just grab a handy No. 2 school pencil. Lately I have been playing around with mechanical pencils that use a 0.5 mm lead, requiring no sharpening. I kind of like these, because the quality of line is so… uh… mechanical that you don’t get caught up in the aesthetics of the line and can concentrate on the forms you are drawing. It seems to work well when you intend to ink the results.

Pen Nibs-

I use mainly the Gillott 303 but occasionally the classic Hunt 102 crow quill. The Gillotts are tough to find in the US. You have to order them from overseas, and that’s expensive. But, if you have to have them, try:

Scribblers (UK)
John Neal Booksellers

There are others but these are the cheapest I’ve found online. If you look elsewhere, usually the good nibs are found listed under “Copperplate” among calligraphy supplies. These suppliers have lots of cool nibs like Brause and such, so if you are looking for something that “feels right” buy some singles and try out a few. You can get pen holders here as well.

You could try my method of getting Gillott nibs: beg a friend and colleague who lives in Great Britain to order 1,000 nibs at his local art store and bring them with him to the NCN convention in the states, where you pay him for them and then buy him some beers in gratitude. I am still a few Guinness shy of total compensation. Thanks, Steve!

Pen Holders-

There are lots of different kinds, but I found one I really love called the Universal Pen Holder. It’s just a clear plastic rod with a soft plastic sleeve around the end to hold the nib. The soft sleeve also acts as a cushioned finger grip. Simple but great. You can get them at John Neal on this page.

Brushes-

I use a red sable #1 and #2, and a #6 for big areas. Winsor & Newton Series 7′s set the standard but they are expensive. If you take care of them they will last a reasonable length of time, but ink destroys them much faster than watercolors do. You can find these brushes at virtually any art store.

I have recently gotten a Kuratake No. 40 Sable Brush Pen, and using their Carbon ink cartridge (waterproof) am enjoying the results. It’s great for certain stages of a piece when you need a brush’s touch but are moving about a lot and dipping/rolling the brush is a pain.

Inks-

For the dip pen I use Pelikan Drawing Ink A. It used to be hard to find this ink but now they are more readily available.  If you want to get a BIG bottle, try:

MisterArt

For the brush I like Dr. Ph.Martin’s Black Star HICARB or Tech 14W Black, which are both much more dense that the Pelikan and make for better brush work.

Digital Color: Software-

I use PhotoShop for all my digital color work. I know a lot of people swear by Painter, but as I can accomplish everything I want to in PhotoShop I do not see a compelling reason to switch. Currently I am using CS5, and I suppose eventually I will upgrade but again I feel no need to rush to do so.

Digital Color: Hardware-

My current computer is a 27″ iMac. I used to have a more expensive Mac Pro but honestly the memory and processor speed of more “standard” computers are so strong now that they can easily handle imaging tasks… even big images. I recently did a 29″ x 40″ movie poster illustration, 300 dpi and CMYK and with multiple layers that weighed in at a whopping 360 MB, and my iMac didn’t even break a sweat. These days unless you are doing 3D modeling or video rendering work, you can use computers right off the rack at Best Buy or the Apple Store for most any illustration.

I use the Wacom Cintiq 21UX as my graphics tablet. Its’ a workhorse and has served me well for many years. It’s the original 21UX model from 2005. The new 24HD widescreen Cintiq looks awesome, but as long as mine keeps on trucking I can’t justify that kind of expense to upgrade. Maybe after I win the lottery.

Real Paints!-

When I do get out the real paints I basically work in a combination of acrylics and watercolors with both a brush and some airbrush touches. I have no preference as to the manufacturers of such materials, and have a hodge-podge of tubes of various types. The last time I did a real painting was last winter for a personal commission, which I didn’t bother to scan. Here’s a spot from a few years ago I used real paint to do:

Live Caricatures

Pencil-

I learned to work in pencil so I stick with that. My pencil of choice is a Caran D’ache FixPencil 3 using the 6B leads. I also use a Create-a-Color 5.6mm leadholder with a 4B lead.

Blending Stump-

Standard No. 8 stump for shading. I soak the new stomp in tap water for about 10 minutes, then put it on a paper towel and place it in a sunny window for about 3 days until it’s fully dried out. This has the effect of loosening the glue that binds the stump and making it much softer. Then I sand off one of the ends to a much rounder shape, so I have a fine end and a wide end. I know… that’s a lot of work for a $1.65 tool, but it’s much more useable after that process.

Airbrush-

I use the Iwata HP-SB Plus for live caricature work with a 13 bottle palette. I also use this same brush in the studio. I have metal bottle hardware custom made, as the plastic horrors available for general purchase are garbage. In fact I make the entire bottle assembly myself (Please don’t write me asking to buy a set… I don’t sell them except to artists who work with us in our caricature concessions).

Airbrush Paint-

Mostly Com-Art Opaque and Transparent paints by Medea.

Thanks to Grant Jonen for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!

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I came across this recently posted unsolicited YouTube review of my book today by Brooklyn caricaturist Elgin “Subway Surfer” Bolling. He has some nice things to say about it. It’s one thing to get positive reviews from general readers, but it’s particularly gratifying to hear from well-established professional caricaturists that, despite long experience doing caricature, they got something from the book as well. Thanks, Elgin!

As always, you can order a copy of The Mad Art of Caricature! here.

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Tags: The Mad Art of Caricature!

Yep… paying the price for my Maui vacation. I can almost still taste those mai tais now…

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This week’s SotW subject is Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Michael Peter Balzary aka “Flea“. He wasn’t naked in the picture I drew this from, but as he was known for playing entire concerts naked back in the late 1990′s… thus the Full Monte treatment.

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Tags: caricature, Flea, sketch

MAD debuted 60 years ago in 1952. It’s success, first as a comic book and then as a magazine (or “slick” as the vernacular of the day went) caused the spawning of imitators… MANY imitators. The longest running of them all was Cracked magazine, which lasted almost 50 years (1958-2007), but the list of less long-lived MAD clones was much longer. Here’s a few off the top of my head:

• Sick
• Crazy
• Plop!
• Nuts!
• Not Brand Eccch!
• Eh!
• Madhouse
• From Here to Insanity

An upcoming book (to be released in April) from Fantagraphics, The Sincerest Form of Parody, reprints some of the material from the early imitators of the MAD comic book (as opposed to the magazine format). Written by John Benson with an intro by Jay Lynch.

From the book’s desription:

When MAD became a surprise hit as a comic book in 1953 (after the early issues lost money!) other comics publishers were quick to jump onto the bandwagon, eventually bringing out a dozen imitations with titles like FLIP, WHACK, NUTS, CRAZY, WILD, RIOT, EH, UNSANE, BUGHOUSE, and GET LOST. The Sincerest Form of Parody collects the best and the funniest material from these comics, including parodies of movies (20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, From Here To Eternity), TV shows (What’s My Line, The Late Show), comic strips (Little Orphan Annie, Rex Morgan), novels (I, the Jury), plays (Come Back, Little Sheba), advertisements (Rheingold Beer, Charles Atlas), classic literature (“The Lady or the Tiger”), and history (Pancho Villa). Some didn’t even try for parody, but instead published odd, goofy, off-the-wall stories.

These earnest copiers of MAD realized that Will Elder’s cluttered “chicken fat” art was a good part of MAD’s success, and these pages are densely packed with all sorts of outlandish and bizarre gags that make for hours of amusing reading. The “parody comics” are uniquely “’50s,” catching the popular culture zeitgeist through a dual lens: not only reflecting fifties culture through parody but also being themselves typical examples of that culture (in a way that Harvey Kurtzman’s MAD was not).

This unprecedented volume collects over 30 of the best of these crazy, undisciplined stories, all reprinted from the original comics in full color. Editor John Benson (who wrote the annotations for the first complete MAD reprints, and interviewed MAD editor Harvey Kurtzman in depth several times over the years) also provides expert, profusely illustrated commentary and background, including comparisons of how different companies parodied the same subject.

Artists represented include Jack Davis, Will Elder, Norman Maurer, Carl Hubbell, William Overgard, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers, Bill Everett, Al Hartley, Ross Andru & Mike Esposito, Hy Fleischman, Jay Disbrow, Howard Nostrand, and Bob Powell.

Casual comics readers are probably familiar with the later satirical magazines that continued to be published in the ’60s and ’70s, such as Cracked and Sick, but the comics collected in this volume were imitations of the MAD comic book, not the magazine, and virtually unknown among all but the most die-hard collectors. For the first time, Fantagraphics is collecting the best of these comics in a single, outrageously funny volume. 208 full-color illustrations

I obviously haven’t seen it yet, so I can’t comment on the book itself. However, as these 1950′s comics are extremely rare this is likely one of the only places one can find this content. I’m especially interested in John Benson’s commentary about the comics.

Damn… gotta find another space on the bookshelf.

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I don’t post often enough about the good stuff being done on MAD’s official blog The Idiotical. The other day they posted their predictions for the 2012 Oscars:

Click to visit The Idiotical

There are daily updates with combinations of stuff from the magazine (both classic and current), plus a lot of original content. If you don’t regularly visit, you are missing out on some daily chuckles.

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Tags: blog, MAD Magazine, The Idiotical

Q: I remember about a year ago you wrote a post about the decline in quality of Strathmore bristol boards, a brand you used with your work. Whatever happened with that? Did you find a suitable replacement? Have the Strathmore boards improved?

A: Here is the post to which you refer: Strathless Bristol Bored.

I contacted Strathmore about my concerns and found their customer service department very receptive to working with me. They were concerned and, while they didn’t come right out and say it, I got the feeling mine was not the first complaint they had received. They asked me to send them some samples of boards with this problem. I sent them sample boards where the same lines were inked by the same pen nib and the same ink, and yet one board showed the ink clearly bleeding among the fibers while the other looked good. Both were the same 500 series 3 ply kid finish boards, but bought in different batches. I also sent them some 400 boards that were doing the same thing. I demoed several different inks and pen nibs between the two boards. This little demonstration clearly proved it was the board and not the inks causing the issues.

I received an explanation that basically said there was no concrete explanation—yet. There are many chemicals bought from vendor companies that are used through the process of creating the illustration board, and they believed one or more of them had changed their formulas or chemical structure or something that was in turn affecting the results of their process, which had not changed. This made sense, since why would one batch be fine and another bleed when they were both made with the same process? They were trying to figure out which of their vendor’s chemicals might be the culprit, but as yet they did not know.

What they did do was send me a nice supply of good boards, which I am still using today. I spoke with some pretty high ranking executives in the company, and they were both concerned and helpful. I have not had the occasion to buy any boards from an art supply place in a while, so I do not know if they solved their issues or not. I hope so because there isn’t anything that compares to a good Strathmore board out there as a replacement.

Thanks to Grant Jonen for the question. If you have a question you want answered for the mailbag about cartooning, illustration, MAD Magazine, caricature or similar, e-mail me and I’ll try and answer it here!

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Tags: bristol, Mailbag, quality, question, Strathmore

We interrupt this blog for a few days while the blog admin gets himself a serious sunburn and combats the pain with copious amounts of Mai Tais on vacation. The blog will resume with the Sunday Mailbag. Mahalo.

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I had the pleasure of being a guest on the excellent comics podcast Tall Tale Radio with Tom Racine. The show is up on the TTR website now. Tom and I talk about the NCS, the new online comics divisional award, the MAD, MAD, SCAD weekend I attended back in November, my book and a few other stories. Check it out here!

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