Working as a freelance illustrator is never boring. While the majority of the jobs I do work out fine in the end, with a few kinks thrown in here and there, sometimes jobs go bad and end up being total nightmares. These usually stem from expectations being unrealistic or just plain wrong on either my part or the part of the client. Over the years I’ve gotten better at sniffing out these potential disasters but some still slip through the cracks. Occasionally I’ll tell some of the stories of these freelance nightmares here, as they often have some entertainment value. When appropriate, I will change the names to protect the guilty…. uh… I mean innocent. Here’s one that is a classic example of having “too many chefs in the kitchen” and to top it off it was my very first freelance job! I almost became a short order cook instead of an illustrator because of it.

During my third year of school at the then named “School of Associated Arts” in St. Paul, MN., I was approached by the head of the design department about doing a ‘little job’ for him. It was fairly well known throughout the small school (my graduating class: 40 students) that I did caricatures during the summer break, and he had a client that needed some caricature work done. Almost all the teachers at the school were professionals in their field first, and teachers second. The professor owned a design firm in the Twin Cities, and he had a radio station from Ohio (I think… this was 20 years ago) as a client. Their morning show personalities wanted a new logo designed that incorporated caricatures of themselves in it. I had to draw the three hosts of the show, which he was going to work into the logo design. I was thrilled! This would likely end up on billboards and advertising materials, T-Shirts and other merchandise. Published portfolio pieces were worth their weight in gold. I accepted of course and was eager to get to work on it. I got the photo reference a week or so later, studio head shots. Ugh. Glamour shots are the worst things to work from. Regardless, I worked hard on the pencils and gave them to him in short order. I thought I’d done a decent job on it… I was even kind of nice to them. He sent the drawings to the client for approval.

A few days later he went over the feedback. The client didn’t think the likenesses were right on. No comments beyond that. No specifics like “you made his chin too big” or “he has more hair than that”. As a caricaturist, you draw a person they way you think they look. In other words, it looks like them to you when you are done. Did this guy think I just banged these drawing out without thinking I’d gotten a likeness, and now that he’d pointed it out to me I’d just go ahead and draw them so it looked like them? Working from pictures is tough as you have only a two dimensional image to use, and these people are three dimensional and seen every day in that way by the people who were reviewing this. If I’d been smart at this point I’d have asked for more reference, but I wasn’t smart… I was twenty. Okay, I did a new round and tried a more portrait-like approach. Off they went to the client for review again. I received essentially the same comments back. Another round, and off for review. They came back again… still no real direction, just ambiguous comments. Now I was getting frustrated. I then did a flat out portrait using an art-o-gragh to project the pictures and just traced the faces. According to the client it still didn’t look like them. Finally they sent a promo piece that they were previously using to give me an idea of what they wanted. In this example, the hosts of the show weren’t drawn as caricatures at all but as cartoons with big, white blocks for mouths and barely any resemblance to the actual people. Well, know I knew what they wanted so I did something similar. These looked nothing like the people whatsoever. Bingo! The client liked it and we proceeded to final. I redrew them on illustration board, inked and added values for the final art. Off they went, and I patted myself on the back for persevering. My first job complete!

A week or two later the design teacher took me aside and told me there was a problem with the caricatures. He explained that the original sketches I had sent in were shown to the hosts, who thought they looked fine. Some PR person at the radio station took it upon himself to “tweak” the artwork until HE was satisfied. The hosts didn’t see anything more until they were presented with the final logo, to which they objected asking “what happened to the first caricatures that LOOKED like us?” That’s right, I had to redo the artwork using the first sketches I submitted as the art.

Being young and stupid, I did not get compensated properly for the enormous amount of work that went into this. The design professor did not offer me any more money but did do a number of T-Shirts for me in trade (he had a silk screening business as well) because he felt bad about the headaches. I wish I had copies of the artwork, although in all fairness it was probably pretty rough and I doubt I did all that terrific a job on any of those sketches. I never did find out if they ever used the logo, and if so where it was used. I did learn some valuable lessons about communication and the important role it plays in any freelance job… and of course how to make sure you get paid for unreasonable numbers of revisions on a job.

Deadlines conquered.

Here are some images of the jobs I just finished and am working on now. The first two are from my latest MAD job entitled “When Video Games Become Religious”. Like the “Rejected Cars Characters” of a few issues ago, this was a little different than my usual work for MAD.

“Damn, it’s that same stupid shape again!”

“What would Jesus do?”

The challenge here was that I needed to draw images both from the “video game” world and the “real” world, and make it obvious there is a difference between the two. In order to accomplish this, I needed to make the art from each world very different. It was important to try and get the same kind of feel to the video game artwork that is seen in the actual graphics of the games, so the look of that “world” was going to be dictated to me somewhat by the look of the actual games. The real world I drew in the same manner I do most of my parody work (meaning not “real” at all, but my cartoon version of the world), but I also used the bluish cast of TV lighting in a dim room to create a muted and monochrome-like color palette for the real world, leaving the vibrant colors to the screens and game panels. That and the line work in the real world scenes set them apart nicely, I think. Of course my graphics for the video games are a far cry from the true look, but the feel of them is there. You can see the rest and enjoy the written gags in MAD #471.

It’s always fun and challenging to get different jobs like this from MAD. It’s a little frustrating as well, since I am forced out of my comfort zone with them, but that is always a good thing.

The other job, which dropped into my lap suddenly and with a lot of urgency is for the Minnesota Twins, our local pro baseball team. I’ve done a lot of work for the Twins over the years, both for their magazine and for stadium giveaway posters of the team the last four seasons. These posters were caricatures of the entire team, which they insisted I do as a real painting so they could have the original. The paintings were in watercolor with a little airbrush, and are huge (24 x 40 inches). The printed posters were given away to the first 10,000 kids on Kids appreciation day, the last game of the season each year. Unfortunately the Twins have a new sponsor for that promo this year and they want to do a different give-away, so no poster in 2006.

The new job is a T-shirt design. A few weeks ago the manager for the Chicago White Sox, a nut-case named Ozzie Guillen, called the Twins a bunch of “little piranhas” because they have workmanlike, un-glamorous players up and down the line-up who take little bites out of the other team here and there until the other team is dead. The local and national media loved this, and so did the fans. Anyway they want a “piranhas” shirt done ASAP, so I got a call and had to bang out a bunch of roughs the last few days. I think we are getting close now, but likely more tweaks are on the way. Here are the current pencils designs of the back and front of the shirts, respectively:

 

A fun job, but it might never see print. You never know with these things. We’ll see.

Yep. Here we go again! I should have some images to post later today or tomorrow from the current frenzy!

Judging from the flood of e-mails and phone calls I recieved yesterday, the rumors of the death of the comics pages are greatly exaggerated. Yes, that was “me” making a cameo appearance in the 8/27 Sunday strip “Pearls Before Swine” and, yes, I really did draw that caricature of Barbara Streisand in it. No, it was not my idea to be labeled “probably the best caricaturist in the country”… Stephan exaggerates much more than I do in my drawings. Here’s the strip:

Click for a closer look

I met “Pearls before Swine” creator Stephan Pastis at an NCS Reuben Awards weekend in San Francisco in 2003. In fact I did a caricature of him for the NCS Reuben T-Shirt and goodie bag that year, along with a number of other of the guest speakers appearing that weekend. Stephan was very gracious and told me how much he enjoyed my work and his caricature. We got a chance to chat a bit more the next year in Kansas City, when we both won divisional Reuben awards, he for best comic strip and I for advertising illustration.

Stephan is a very unique and talented guy. He worked as an attorney for many years while on the side trying to develop a syndicated strip, which was a long-time dream. After several rejections, his “Pearls Before Swine” was picked up by United Syndicate and debuted in 2002. He left his law practice later that same year in a leap of faith in the continued success of his strip. He was rewarded with ‘Pearls Before Swine” becoming very popular and one of the most successful new strips of the last decade. Stephan is also a bona-fide Charles Schulz historian, and serves in the board of the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa, CA. He is as friendly and generous a guy as you would ever care to meet.

As for “Pearls Before Swine”, Stephan’s strip apparently isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. In fact, some cartoonists (mostly ones not syndicated and still trying to break in to the business) dismiss his strip as crudely drawn, not very polished and some would say unworthy of syndication. With all due respect, anyone who can’t see why “Pearls Before Swine” enjoys the success it has achieved does not understand what makes a successful comic strip. Stephan would be the first to suggest, and has to me many times, that drawing is not his strong suit. He isn’t giving himself enough credit, in my opinion. His art is charming and it’s very simplicity and directness act as a compliment to the real driving force behind the success of his (and ANY) comic strip: the writing.

Comic strips are about the writing, not about the art. Many of the biggest and most popular strips of all time are not going to win any awards for their illustrations. The art of making someone smile, chuckle or all out laugh in 4 panels or less is an art of communication. Oh, you have many strips that have both good writing and good art, like “Zits”, “Mutts” and others for example, but the common denominator with any strip that has staying power is effective writing. Jack Davis tried numerous comic strip concepts over the years and none caught on because the concept and writing couldn’t match the brilliant art of Davis, or more accurately Jack’s art couldn’t sustain the strip alone. Mort Drucker had brief and modest success with ‘Benchley’, but despite the enormous art talent of Mort the strip only lasted a little while. I’m sure there are many more examples, but the point is that great art won’t carry a strip, but great writing will. Stephan’s strip is great writing. It’s funny, irreverent, often times risky and has a relevance to today’s humor sensibilities that older strips often lack. It’s sometimes weird, but it’s always funny. His insider jokes and gags work on many levels, and his characters are strong. I am a big fan and so are Anna and all my kids.

Here’s how my appearance in the strip came about: In April of this year, My niece was getting married in the San Fransisco bay area. Anna and I dragged the entire clan out to California for the event, and one of the stops we made along the way was to the Schulz museum. I told Stephan and the gang there we were going to come by ahead of time, and he was kind enough to meet us and give us a backstage tour, including the separate building that was Sparky’s studio. It’s pretty awesome to stand in the same room where Charles Schulz created countless Peanuts strips, seeing things like the deep gouges in the wall where the back of his chair slowly grooved the wooden paneling over many years of turning this way and that. Stephan had hinted that I should bring along some drawing stuff, but I had not packed any for the trip. I didn’t know what he had in mind… I just thought he wanted me to do a doodle for him or something, but instead he drove the whole family back to his home studio and he showed me a Sunday strip with me as a character… he had come up with the idea knowing I was going to visit. He had pens and markers ready for me, and this strip almost completed except for the space for me to draw Barbara Streisand. He even had some reference pictures at the ready for me. I was more than happy to do it, if a little intimidated knowing this quick drawing would be seen by millions of people! Well, I banged it out for him and he was very happy about it. I was less happy because I thought the drawing had too much of a Mort Drucker feel to it… Streisand is one of those faces where Mort’s caricature of her is burned into my head like the after image of a light bulb when you stare at it too long, and no matter how hard I try when I draw her it ends up looking like Mort’s. Too late now. As I said Stephan was pleased, and he was beyond hospitible to our rag-tag gang. He gave all my kids and some nieces and nephews who were along copies of his books and drew and signed in all of them. My kids are kind of ho-hum about the fact that dad’s art is in MAD magazine almost every month, but I’m a rock star now that I’ve been in “Pearls Before Swine”! Thanks, Stephan!

This all happened back in April, and it’s been a long wait until yesterday when the strip was printed. Stephan underestimates himself as a caricaturist… that does look a little like me! I have buggy eyes sometimes, and my lips are perpetually pursed. He could have given me bigger arms, though! Regardless, it was great fun and I vowed to get Stephan back. I’m still waiting for the opportune moment to work him into a MAD parody as some recurring character (maybe in a reality show parody sometime), but in the meantime he’s got a cameo in my Hell’s Kitchen parody due out next month:

Yes, he’s a dumpster diving KFC employee! I still can’t believe I didn’t draw rat digging through the garbage… I must be losing it (of course, one could argue I’d had to have “had it” before I could “lose it”). He’ll be getting the original in the mail as soon as the issue’s out, as his original of the strip is going on my “Wall of Shame” as soon as we clip out the print version and treat it so it won’t yellow. The only bad part about all this is that I feel I am having my Warholian 15 minutes right now and can’t figure out how to cash in on it. Maybe it’s all downhill from here….

Q: How do you scan your inked originals for coloring in PhotoShop?

A: I have an oversized flatbed scanner, the Microtek 9800XL, which has a live scan area of 12 inches by 17 inches. Even with the large bed, my pages are often bigger than this, so I scan them in sections and piece them together in PhotoShop. Most of the time I ink my drawings at 150% of the size they print at, and in the case of MAD work it’s at 200% (MAD tradition). The poster image I inked for the inking tutorial, for example, had a print size of 17 x 17 inches. Those posters are very large, so I actually ink them at print size, which is far less forgiving than inking at 150% or 200% or print size but to do it at 150% would mean an original of 25.5 x 25.5 inches! That is gigantic and would take six scans! That image I am inking on the tutorial is 17 x 17 inches in size. I can scan about 17 x 10.5 inches or so on the flatbed (as you get closer to the edge of the scanner, an oversized image is distorted by the slight bend that the raised edge of the scanner has) so two scans will take care of it.

There is no real trick to stitching it together. I just create one large image file at the full size of the original (in this case 17 x 17), then drag the scans over to it and drop them as new layers. I position one in place, then change the opacity of the second to 60% or so, and move it into place or as close as I can get it. I will almost always need to rotate the image one way or the other to match up the lines. Having the one layer semitransparent helps see where you are off. When it’s matched I will ‘fuzz’ the edge of the top layer a little with a soft eraser tool, then change the opacity back to 100% on that layer. Then I flatten it. I usually have to go back in and clean up some areas that don’t quite match up… The scanner is not perfect and with such a large scan area I suspect the speed of the scan lamp isn’t 100% consistent, because the center of an image is often a little off even when the edges match up perfectly. The only way around it is to fix the misregistered lines by hand in PhotoShop.

MAD splash pages are the worst to scan. MAD sends me the board at 200% of print size as I mentioned, so the originals are HUGE. An original MAD splash is 16 3/4 x 32 1/2 with a full bleed. That takes four scans.

I get questioned a lot about the state of MAD movie parodies, usually from people lamenting them as shorter, less frequent and sometimes weaker than the ones in the past. There was a time when the latest issue of MAD could be counted on to have at least one movie parody and one TV show parody in it, and often more than one. The parodies averaged over 6 pages in length, and the targets were usually highly regarded dramas and films that were either critically acclaimed, box office hits or both. Artsy, off the wall films like “A Clockwork Orange” got the MAD treatment as often as films like “The Godfather”, and “JAWS”. MAD seemed equally interested in skewering movies that took themselves too seriously as they did ones that sold a lot of tickets. Parodies would show up in the magazine an average of 3 months after the month of their initial release. Artists like Mort Drucker, Jack Davis and Angelo Torres, along with writers like Arnie Kogen, Stan Hart and Dick DeBartolo made the movie parody a MAD trademark.

Fast forward to today. It’s been pointed out that whole issues go by without a movie parody in them. When the parodies do show up, they are often short (4 to 5 pages seems to be the typical size now), and the only movies that get attention seem to be the mega blockbusters, regardless of the worthiness of their content. There are a few exceptions (like “The Royal Tennenbaums”), but largely the only time critically acclaimed, bona-fide Oscar contenders get into MAD are if they also are big money makers. Films like “Million Dollar Baby”, “Crash”, “Capote” and “The Pianist” are passed over in favor of sequels like “Spider-Man 2″, “X2″, “Harry Potter”, etc. Even films that were box office disappointments but still had that high profile buzz like “Constantine” and “Van Helsing” made it over more dramatic and less popcorn-eating fare.

So what happened? Why the change in MAD’s direction with movie parodies? I don’t believe there has really been that much of a change in MAD’s philosophy. The major changes have been in the dynamics of the movie industry itself, which I feel is forcing MAD to alter their approach to one of the most popular aspects of their magazine.

Back in the 60′s through the 80′s and even into the 90′s, the way movies were distributed and shown was very different than it is today. There were no giant 20 theater cineplexes, and movies did not open on 3,000 screens coast to coast on the same day. Most towns outside the largest of cities had only a few theaters, and they mostly had one screen each. Films were released in stages, starting with their ‘premiere’ in the biggest cities: New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. There would be a lot of buzz and reviews and articles in the paper about the films, even though only a small part of the country had the movie playing at all. After they played in the big cities for a while they began to trickle down to the minor cities, then the bigger towns, then the smaller towns, and finally the one theater towns. In this way movies played for many, many months and seeing them was a much bigger event than it is today. There were many times, other than opening day, where you literally couldn’t get a ticket to see a film for weeks because there were far more people wanting to see the film than there were available seats, so successful films routinely played for many months. Today you can go to one of probably 3 cineplexes in even a smaller town on a whim and go into a half empty theater to see a just released movie. No lines, no sell outs. No longer an event. Films now have a significantly shorter shelf life, many out on DVD when their counterparts in the 70′s were still playing in theaters. Films themselves have changed a lot since the advent of the “blockbuster”. Back in the day, Oscar contending films were also the ones that made the money and stayed in theaters the longest. Today Oscar winners often tend to just do decent in ticket sales, whereas the popcorn-eaters make the big bucks but get ignored critically, mostly because they don’t deserve critical attention.

These changes in the film industry have changed the way MAD approcahes the movie parody somewhat. While it’s always been MAD’s philosophy that it’s pointless to do a parody of a film nobody has seen or cared about, the incredibly short runs of today’s movies compared to yesterday’s means that they mostly stick with the extremely high profile mega-blockbusters, and it’s rare that those films are Oscar contenders. Whereas in the past MAD could write, draw, edit and publish a film parody and have it on the stands in 3 months and still have the film both in theaters and on the minds of readers, today by the time 3 months go by, there have been 8-10 more recent big movies or wannabe blockbusters out, and the film getting lampooned is in the dollar theaters if MAD is lucky, and totally gone from the scene and the public’s eye if they are not. The parody seems outdated even though the turn-around time is no different than it was years ago for MAD. This change in dynamics makes movie parodies very hard to work in today’s world. I think this has led to less frequent film parodies and the advent of doing the parody BEFORE the release of the film, working from scripts and trailers in an effort to be more timely with the content. I’ve said before here that I prefer seeing a film first when doing a parody of it, since there is so much more to a movie than the script, but I understand the reasoning in both a reader’s interest and purely sales point of view.

As for the length, that seems to be an editorial trend. Perhaps they are catering to the shrinking attention span of today’s youth, or maybe they just want to make room for other content. The juries still out on that one, but I think MAD is underestimating it’s readers if it’s the former. I think readers are quite capable of getting through a 6 page movie parody. MAD has always operated on different levels and not been afraid to do adult humor along with the booger jokes.

Personally I would like to see more film parodies in MAD, and not just so I can draw them. I’d also love to work on more meaty films like the “Cinderella Man” types as opposed to the “Mission Impossible 3′s”. Don’t get me wrong, I love working on any movie parody, either after or before a film’s release. They are always challenging. I’m just hoping the movie parody doesn’t become even more of an endangered species than it seems to be now. I really hate opening an issue and finding no film parody in it, and that’s not that uncommon anymore.

Times, they are a’changin’. MAD has had to roll with them, making major changes in the last 10 years or so. It’s a big challenge for them and I have a lot of respect and confidence in the editorial staff at MAD that they’ll make the changes they need to in order to keep the magazine fresh and publishing for another 50 years. Hey! If they read that line maybe I’ll get a raise!

A few days ago I added a new category of post called “Tutorials” in an attempt to allow readers to easily find these features without the need for a cumbersome search. It turns out that isn’t the best solution, as it will eventually require people to click over multiple pages to find what they are looking for.

Instead, I have added two new “Pages” to the blog. WordPress, the excellent blog program I use here, has a nice feature where you can create web pages within the blog for whatever purpose you want. The links to these pages are at the top of the blogroll on the right. Here are the two new pages just added:

Posts of Interest- This will include links to the posts that seem to get the most responses, comments and are asked about the most. There is only a whopping two of these so far, but maybe I’ll get the hang of this eventually and we’ll have a few more. You can find links to “Diary of a MAD Job” and “Caricature and the Right of Publicity” in there right now. More to follow if I write something profound in the future… don’t hold your breath on that.

Tutorials- In the immortal words of Stan Lee: ’nuff said. Here you will find links to the tutorials I’ve posted, and will add to soon. 

It’s not too often I add links to my blogroll or recommend any websites, because… well… there are lot of really good ones and if I linked to them all that’s all I’d have time to do! That said, there are a few I’ve recently come across that have become musts on the “visit every day” list for me I thought I’d share.

Drawn! is, in it’s own words, a “collaborative weblog for illustrators, artists, cartoonists, and anyone who likes to draw.” Populated with contributions from a number of terrific artists including fellow NCS member Jay Stephens, Drawn! is filled with links to great sites, blogs, how-to’s, resources and articles about cartooning, illustration and drawing in general. They have lively commentary/discussions with some well thought out viewpoints like the one on Wally Wood’s 22 panels I linked to yesterday. The folk’s at Drawn! have even recommended my humble little tutorials on their site, which is how I found them. A terrific resource and place to get news, views and see the work of artists you may not have seen before. Highly recommended.

A few weeks ago I recommended the entertaining articles on the absurdities of the comic’s world, in particular comic book covers, written by Mark Engblom in Comics101.com’s “Guest Lecturer” section. Well, Mark has started his own blog, Comics Coverage, where he publishes these articles as well as other fun stuff. His latest look at comic book covers featuring hippies is a riot. Mark’s a life long comic book nut and being a professional cartoonist himself (and a very good one) he appreciates comics from both sides of the fence… as a reader and as a creator. Longtime Comic Buyer’s Guide readers may remember Mark’s funny and insightful editorial cartoons from the 80′s and 90′s, which frequented nearly every issue of CBG for years. Mark’s new site and his articles are great fun and will make you smile.

Finally, for all you MAD fans out there (that means you, mom) you should visit the fan-run forum Mad Mumblings. It’s sometimes a little slow, but there are often in-depth discussions on the direction of the magazine, the latest features and what people like and dislike, plus some smart reviews of current issues and critiques of the contributions therein. They aren’t afraid to tell you what they think, either. I have been told matter-of-factly by some frequent forum contributors that, among many faults, I draw my noses too big…. I’ll have to work on that. Anyway it’s the best MAD fan site on the Internet, and it is frequented by some of the Usual Gang of Idiots who post there occasionally, and comments on the forum get read by the editors as well every once and a while.

A long time ago a friend of mine showed me a photocopy of a collection of comic book style panels called “Wally Wood’s 22 panels that always work!”. Supposedly put together by the legendary Wood, they showed 22 different panel designs that could be used at almost any time within a comic book story to help give a boring “talking heads” part of a script some visual interest. I thought it was pretty smart. For years I’d been looking for a copy of it. In the last week it’s been getting a lot of circulation on the Internet on cartoon and comic blogs and forums, thanks to some high res scans of it available, including HERE at Joel Johnson’s website. Here’s a small version:

It turns out this was actually put together after Wood’s death by one of his former assisitants, Larry Hama, but the concepts are all Wood’s.

This has sparked some surprising controversy as to whether Wood’s little diagram of panel ideas were truly helpful or a hack’s guide in disguise. You can see some of the comments brought up in the post about it on “Drawn!”, an excellent blog about cartooning and illustration. Mark Evanier also discusses it on his terrific blog.

Personally I don’t see what the controversy is about. Wood’s “22 Panels” are simply one artists observations of storytelling conventions and standards that have been used since they started making comic books and even telling stories with pictures on cave walls. Film makers use similar camera shots and angles all the time, but nobody seems to think a director using a ‘close up’ for the ten millionth time in film is being a hack. Using a standard storytelling trick to bridge panels with more specific design approaches to your particular subject matter is perfectly acceptable. Guys like Kirby, Eisner, Foster… you name it… had their conventions and used them all the time. Were they hacks? Hardly. Wood himself was famous for putting inordinate amounts of time into even trivial panels, and Larry Hama said that Wood put these together as a reminder to himself to stop “noodling” and be more productive with his art, according to Joel Johnson in a conversation with Hama you can read in the link to the image above.

I think some artists today don’t understand what it was like back in the 60′s and 70′s with comics and illustration (not that I can remember either, I was born in 1966- I’ve just heard tales from the artists of that era). There was no thought past the ‘end product’ in many cases. The art was considered disposable. Commercial artists used Dr. Martin dyes and other non-archival materials to do their work, knowing full well the art would fade and be ruined in a short time. The reproduction was all that mattered. There was no after market for originals, and to many artists the art was just a job. They didn’t take is so seriously. Remember many of them had to bang out 2 or 3 issues a month to make a decent living, and did. They didn’t have time to pour their souls into every line. Even today there needs to be a balance between production and art. Deadlines are as important as doing really good work… a client or comic book publisher has little use for an artist who’s work is brilliant but can’t finish a job to save their lives. A successful comic artist needs to go good work in good time, not excellent work way too late, or lousy work really, really fast. Those last two approaches will get a few jobs but ultimately result in failure. Wood’s “22 Panels” are about helping to be that first kind of artist. I don’t think he meant them to be a study in how to assemble complete comic story, but just something to give you ideas when it’s one of those brain numbing script parts that feature a 2 page conversation about nothing exciting.

As for Wood, some have pointed out he has a shadow of his former greatness by the end of his career, for many reasons not the least of which was he was nearly blind by the end. I loved his early work with EC and MAD, and think he was a true genius of comic art. The story of his failing physical and mental health and suicide is one of the most tragic in all of the comic book industry.

Here’s the final colored art of the piece I inked for the inking tutorial:

I hate using photshop tricks like I did rendering the grass on this one, but sometimes you just have to do it. I took only a few minutes compared to who-knows-how-long if I went in and painted blades of grass. Even using the Rubber Stamp tool it would have taken hours more to render that field of grass. It looks a little out of place in my opinion but the art director and client loved it, so what do I know?? 

Also, here’s one of the panels from that Mel Gibson gag strip I did for MAD:

This is much bigger on the screen than it will be in the magazine. Inks don’t like to be enlarged… but there it is anyway. See the rest of it in MAD #471. The other video game piece I’ll have in that issue is still on the board.