Lots of Little MAD Cover Art… Cheap!
So right after I finished the art for the MAD 80’s special above, I found myself with this big pile of black and white, inked caricatures of 80’s celebrities/icons that were used on the squares of the Rubik’s Cube. I said to myself, “Self, what am I going to do with these little pieces of MAD cover art?”
SELL THEM, of course.
They are all pretty small, the images themselves being about 4×5 inches, done in dip pen/brush and ink on smooth bristol. They are also oddly cropped in some instances, since I did two on a page and sometimes they were too close together so not much white space around the image.
Anyway, I’m hawking them online for a measly $25 plus shipping. Here’s a gallery of all 23 of them (missing one):
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What an interesting project. Since this is about the eighties, before you brought your own distinctive style to the magazine, were you, for this assignment, channeling Mort Drucker for some of the ink drawing’s?. The Crocket + Tubbs ink has more classic Mort style than his own Miami Vice satire art!. You have been called upon to do other visual impression’s at times, and again, besides your own strong style, you have the ability, when needed, to be the visual equivalent of Frank Gorshin!.
Not consciously, I wasn’t. However the 80’s was right in my MAD “wheelhouse” when I rediscovered the magazine from an artist’s perspective and not a little kid’s perspective. I probably see that era of celebrities more as Mort Drucker caricatures in my head than as real people.
Looking at the bookazine Miami satire again just now, I can see More Richmond in your drawing, with a hint of Drucker than I saw before. When I see Drucker at his best, I can’t imagine anyone nailing Lawrence Olivier like he did in the Marathon man satire in the 70’s, but I have to give your Crocket + Tubbs the edge, over the Miami satire pic’s.
Wow. High praise indeed! I disagree but thanks.
It’s funny, but at first glance many people think my work resembles Mort’s quite a lot, but if you put my drawing of a particular celebrity next to one of Mort’s, they are actually very different. Part of it is the medium… pen and ink, line-based likenesses.
There are big difference’s, and a few similarities that all those guy’s would have in common, and be slightly influenced by, and in this one case, some similar ink line choices that looked like Mort when he was more bold and focused than his Miami face’s seemed to me. You are right, when I compare your Siskel and Ebert with Mort’s in the bookazine, they are two different choices, but equally satisfying. Same with the Selleck picture. Still enjoying the amazing Blacklist sketches. New episode April 7th.