I’m in the final stretch of the two MAD KIDS illustration jobs for issue 7, done with the finals for the Nader job and still haven’t started the National Cartoonists Society illustration… that’s for this weekend.
I also finished the poster job I posted the pencil sketch for a few days ago while waiting on some approvals and revision approvals from the folks at MAD. Here’s some stages of an area of that image:
A close up of the sketch for one of the figures…
The inks…
The backgrounds in color, used a noise filter for the concrete…
The base color for the figure, on a new layer…
The final, rendered color…
Here’s the full image…
Here’s the image with the revised foot… D’OH!
Done in my MAD Photoshop line and color technique. I am still planning on a detailed tutorial for Photoshop coloring but am struggling to find the time and figure out the video part. I’ll get it done sometime soon.
I came across these animated shorts of Don Martin’s cartoons on YouTube:
I believe they were done by German film producer Hahn Film, and may have been part of a 30 minute TV special called “Don Martin Does It Again”, presumably for German TV. They are definitely in German and not the ones that reportedly appeared on early episodes of MAD TV.
As animation goes these are pretty crude and the funky sharpness of Martin’s art is lost in the process. The best one is the last one entitled “Frog”, which is a gag straight from the pages of MAD.
Speaking of MAD TV specials (not the sketch comedy show), apparently there exists a never aired, 30 minute MAD TV Special pilot from the mid 1970s. This special was supposedly commissioned by a producer or executive who was not familiar with MAD’s humor, and ended up axing it from airing because he found it too ‘adult’. With input from MAD editorial staffers Larry Siegel, Stan Hart, Tom Koch, Earle Doud, and Don “Duck” Edwing, the special features the first animated Spy vs. Spy, some Don Martin animated gags, other animated shorts and even a movie parody “The Oddfather” featuring Mort Drucker‘s work. The features were taken from various issues of MAD from 1963-1973. A complete synopsis and breakdown can be found here.
Apparently you can get bootleg copies of the special on DVD from various shady sources, but no official version exists. I’ve never seen it, and it’s so obscure it isn’t even on YouTube!
MAD and Running Press are going to be releasing the first of a series of complete collections entitled “MAD’s Greatest Artists”, where they presumably collect all the art of each featured artist that appeared in the magazine. The first volume is called MAD’s Greatest Artists: The Completely MAD Don Martin.
The article linked above comes from Scoop, a website for news about collectibles, does not go into too many details other than to say it will be a two-volume slip-cased special edition and will include every single work Martin created for the magazine, weighing in at over 1000 pages and 17 pounds. The edition also features commentary and reminiscences from other legendary MADmen such as Jack Davis, Sergio Aragones, Mort Drucker and Al Jaffee as well as other notable cartoonists like Jim Davis and Gary Larson. Running Press says it is being put together by the same people who did The Complete Far Side and The Complete Calvin and Hobbes volumes. As those were exceptionally well designed and beautiful books, I would think the “MAD’s Greatest Artists” collections will be of similar quality. The picture looks good, also from the Scoop website. The article mention a publishing date of Oct. 2007, but Amazon has it listed here as a pre-order with a Nov. 2007 publication estimate.
What a great idea for a series of collections. I can see some great volumes with the works of Davis, Will Elder, Wally Wood, George Woodbridge and Dave Berg coming. I wonder if they will repackage the Antonio Prohias Spy vs. Spy’s despite the fact that the Spy vs. Spy: The Complete Casebook softcover was published only a few years ago? I also wonder if they will go ahead and produce volumes with active artists such as Mort, Jaffee, Sergio, Angelo Torres, Sam Viviano or others who have large bodies of work and were truly among the greatest of MAD’s artists, but still might be producing more work in the future? I’ll have to remember to ask about that and see if I can share the answer.
Can’t wait to see this one. Damn, I need more bookshelves.
A: Since last week’s question was about movie parodies, I expected this one would be next. Thanks, for the question, Ike! Again, I did do one TV parody in Cracked, which I will include in the list:
Cracked-
The Stupranos (The Sopranos)- I wrote this one with help from cartoonist friend Jim Batts
MAD-
#403- (Mar 01)- “Malcontent in the Muddle” (Malcolm in the Middle)
#413- (Jan 02)- “Boston Pubic” (Boston Public)
#414 (Feb 02)- “America’s Most Wonton” (America’s Most Wanted)
#426 (Feb 03)- “Shlubs” (Scrubs)
#435 (Nov 03) “Trashing Places” (Trading Spaces)
#442 (June 04) “The O.D.” (The O.C.)
#443 (July 04) “Weird Eye for the Queer Guise” (Queer Eye for the Straight Guy)
#447 (Nov 04) “The Burning Mad Show” (The Bernie Mac Show)
#449 (Jan 05) “Lewd and Disorder: Criminal Malcontent” (Law and Order: Criminal Intent)
#450 (Feb 05) “Two and a Half Wits” (Two and a Half Men)
#453 (May 05) “LOTS” (Lost)
#454 (June 05) “Tedium” (Medium)
#456 (Aug 05) “Dump My Ride” (Pimp My Ride)
#460 (Dec 05) “Extreme Once Over- Home Repetition” (Extreme Makeover: Home Edition)
Once again I only listed actual parodies of TV shows, and not articles like “You can Write the Next American Idol Single” or “MAD Deconstructs TV Talk Shows: The Best Damn Sports Show Period” since they aren’t parodies in the classic sense. The parody of Entourage will be in the issue of MAD on the stands in March, but since they announced it’s inclusion in the issue currently on the stands, I think it’s safe to add it to the list in advance of publication. I’m leaving out the name of the piece just to be safe, though.
That makes 18 TV parodies since “Malcontent in the Muddle” in 2001, compared to 14 movie parodies in the same time period. Frankly those numbers surprised me. I expected the TV jobs to outnumber the movie jobs 2 to 1. I keep a running list of MAD jobs with issue numbers in a computer document just for an easy reference, but I have never really looked that closely at it as a whole. Since #442 (June 04)’s “The O.D.” (2 years 8 months), I’ve done 13 TV parodies compared to only 5 movies. Previous to that I had done more movies than TV jobs. I supposed that’s why I expected a wider difference in the two… it seems like I rarely do movies and I do TV shows all the time.
Thanks again to Ike Ledbetter 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!
Lots of projects on the board right now but many are of the kind I cannot show sketches or finals of until publication.
Workplace Poster- Another one of these jobs… this one is a fun one showing a frazzled woman running for her sanity from family and a co-worker all wanting her attention orhelp. I have to remember to add her lost shoe behind her…
Revisions for Nader Museum Job- These are finally being reviewed. I had to alter the composition of one panel and change the private detective from being “too thugish” in several others. Here’s an image of the “before” and one with the inserted revised pencil sketch. I also was told to lay off the monochromatic purple in this panel, so I roughed in some other tints while still trying to keep the feel of being in shadow. This is just one of several revisions for the job. Of course the pencil looks rough in place… the inked version will look much more like it belongs.
Before
After
MAD Kids- Not one but two jobs for the next production issue. Both are different kinds of projects for me, and it will be fun to see how they turn out. I’ll make sure I save a few stages as images so when it’s on the stands I can post them here.
National Cartoonist Society- Once again I am doing artwork of the Reuben Weekend speakers used on the T-shirt and various other items. This year’s speakers are Jerry Van Amerongen, Mort Walker, Bud Grace and Sam Gross.
Don’t be surprised if the Dreaded Deadline Demon shows his ugly mug around here once or twice in the next several days.
With all the hype and attention that the iPhone announcement got last month at Macworld, the introduction of another new Apple product got less limelight than it would otherwise have enjoyed… Apple TV.
The Apple TV (formerly known in development as iTv) is a small media box that connects not to your computer but to your living room TV, home theater or wherever you kick off your shoes and stare at a screen for entertainment. It uses the latest flavors of media connections including HDMI, component video, optical audio and analog (2 channel only) audio. It also had an Ethernet socket and built in wifi connectivity for communicating with your computer’s iTunes library (both Mac and PC). There is also a USB port presumably for future expansion like an external hard drive or other toys, but for now it’s just there. Unlike the iPhone, which is months from release, the Apple TV is about to ship to stores and those who have ordered it online from Apple.
The unit has a 40 GB hard drive for local storage of programs, but it is essentially designed as a doorway between your computer’s iTunes and your living room. Videos and music on your iTunes library are available to stream to your Apple TV via the wired Ethernet or the wireless network. If you have a wireless home network already, Apple promises that setting up Apple TV to access it and connect to iTunes is fairly straightforward with either a Mac or a PC. If you do not have a wireless home network you can hard wire it via an Ethernet cable. If you have a newer Mac with Airport Extreme built in, you can just connect to that for your Apple TV to get all your iTunes content. The new, superfast 802.11n format is supported but it’s backward compatible with the current 802.11g dominant wifi flavor as well.
The Apple TV uses an interface similar to Apple’s Front Row, a nifty and easy way to access videos, music, podcasts… any content in your iTunes. Hook it to your home theater and all of a sudden all your iTunes music is available for listening on your stereo, and your downloaded videos for watching on your TV. The built in hard drive stores content locally so even if your network is a little slow it can be played once transfered. In fact, as I understand it the Apple TV is like a wifi iPod, which syncs to iTunes in the same way an iPod does.
It looks like Apple is poised to take over your living room with this neat little box, right?
Not so fast.
Apple TV is a baby step in what might end up being the future of TV, but it is horribly flawed right now. I have zero interest in getting this toy until several issues and inadequacies are ironed out.
First, while the Apple TV supports both 720p and 1080i HD resolution, getting content of that high a quality is almost impossible. First, Apple doesn’t offer it for download in the iTunes store, and secondly even if they did the files would be so huge that even a very fast internet connection would take many, MANY hours to download an HD film. Typical iTunes video resolution is a paltry 640×480, and the quality of such video is roughly that of broadcast TV or regular DVD. That’s fine if you have a regular TV but if you have an HDTV it’s a disappointing picture quality. Here’s the rub… you HAVE to have an HDTV because the only video outputs on the Apple TV are HD outputs… no composite video, S-Video or coaxial outputs. That’s kind of like having a supermodel wear sweatpants and a hoodie. Plus Apple’s interface requires a widescreen to work properly, or it’s cut off or distorted oddly. Until Apple TV supports 1080p output AND HD content is readily available and downloadable in a reasonable timeframe, this is not for home theaters. Oddly, Apple has created a product that can only be used by consumers with an HDTV, and yet is only able to provide content of regular TV quality in both picture and sound.
Second, as far as I can tell Apple TV does not support output of high quality sound such as DTS or Dolby Digital, let alone Dolby HD or DTS-HD. Apple is nuts if they think people do not want surround sound when they watch movies. Sound quality is a big part of film. Maybe I am reading things wrong, but no technical specs list any surround sound support.
Third, it does not allow you to download content directly to your TV via the iTunes store. In other words you need to go to your computer, buy and download any content you want to watch, and then once it’s in iTunes you can go back to your living room and stream it or sync it to your TV. That makes no sense to me. It takes away the independence of living room content and make the Apple TV a glorified iPod hooked to your TV. It’s already on your home network… why not make spontaneous purchase/download and streaming available?? At least it could be like a remote one-click purchase through your computer’s iTunes rather than it’s own independent iTunes store credit. Part of the concept has to be true on-demand viewing of the kind of programming consumers want. Right now it’s a long way from that.
Finally, there isn’t enough content available in iTunes to get me excited about having a set top box. Yes, I could rip my regular DVDs to store in iTunes, but honestly I am not that lazy that I cannot put that DVD into my player and watch said movie instantly. It takes more time to rip a single movie than it’s worth for the convenience of having it available for Apple TV.
I think Apple’s ideas for an integrated living room/computer media source is sound, Microsoft’s been after than for years, and the Apple TV is the first stand alone gateway of it’s kind. However right now it is an unfulfilled promise a few years away from being a complete enough package to be what it wants to be. I’ll wait for that time.
This weekend number one son Tommy and I extended Comic Book Day to become Comic Book Movie Day, as we caught a matinee of “Ghost Rider” starring Nicholas Cage and Eva Mendes.
I am only barely familiar with the Ghost Rider character from the comics. I vaguely remember him to be a motorcycle stuntman named Johnny Blaze that was somehow cursed to become the Ghost Rider, a kind of Specter wannabe creature of vengeance. I suspected he was the result of Stan Lee and some of the Marvel boys getting together and thinking a motorcycle rider with a burning skull for a head and chain whips would be “cool”. I actually have no idea how the character came about, but I thought it was a kind of stupid idea so I never even looked at a Ghost Rider comic book.
Likewise I had very low expectations for the movie. It had been in production a looooong time. I remember seeing the “Ghost Rider” motorcycle on display at the San Diego Comic Con… in 2005! Usually that does not bode well for a comic book movie when it’s release is that far removed from the display of a fully realized major prop. Plus it starred Nicholas Cage, and I still cannot figure out how he ended up being an action movie star. Comic books geeks everywhere were weirded out when he announced he had named his son Kal-el… and weirding out comic book geeks is not easy. I had seen some footage and previews and frankly it looked pretty dumb. I would not have gone to see the movie except Tommy really wanted to see it.
Surprisingly, I enjoyed it. The movie treated itself with just the right amount of camp and self parody, without slipping into a total goofy farce. Cage is a great straight man and played Johnny Blaze with a tongue-in-cheek seriousness that was hysterical at times. His Evil Knievel/Elvis stunt rider took the whole “Devil’s bounty hunter” thing in stride like it made perfect sense. There were site gags here and there, especially with the fire, that were very funny. The special effects were high on the cool factor. Surprisingly the least interesting times were when Cage really was the Ghost Rider. He looked silly with a head too small for his broad shoulders. I know it was ‘anatomically correct’ in it’s size, but it still looked like a shrunken head. Peter Fonda played the devil with a wry grin… and a gigantic wig. An inspired casting. All in all the movie embraced the essentially silly nature of the subject matter and delivered a fun and mostly well paced ride, while taking advantage of the ability of today’s special effects to literally bring the comic book page to the big screen.
Now for the bad stuff… not much of a contest between the Ghost Rider and the bad guys. In fact, the antagonists were awfully lame in both acting and on the badness scale. That aspect of it could have been a little better conceived, even if the movie wasn’t meant to be serious (as it clearly was not). Half the fun of this kind of movie is having bad guys that are over the top. Eva Mendes played Cage’s love interest, a TV reporter (what is it with super-heroes and reporters??). She might be a good actress but you wouldn’t know it from this role. She was basically talking cleavage, and added nothing to the film in either humor, drama or interest. Sam Elliot plays the mentor/Whistler character, and he spits out terms like “bonehead” trying to act cranky but looking like he’s bored out of his mind. It makes me appreciate the job Kris Kristofferson did in the Blade movies at bit more.
There is some violence and some scary demon images, but nothing too horrific. There is worse in the Ghost Rider comics, which were quickly put back on the shelves after Tommy wanted to get one and I looked it over. The first one I picked up had a decapitated body with the head staring out next to it and lots of gore within the first three pages. Game over. The movie has more cartoonish violence. The main baddy kills people by touching them and they turn into mummies. Other than that and some of the usual punching and explosions, just the demons get killed. Ghost Rider also has a “pennance stare” which burns the soul out of evil doers. That has the scariest imagery in the film.
This movie isn’t for deep thinking, but nobody would mistake it for trying to. I found it entertaining because it manages to be super-hero cool and still poke fun at itself…plus no tights.
An art director’s job, as it pertains to illustrators, is to work with an artist to create an image or images for a project, be it to accompany an article in a magazine, illustrate a book, add visuals to an advertisement or a product packaging. Anytime a client needs a piece of art there is almost always an art director (AD) involved. Basically ADs act as a translator for the client. They translate what the client’s needs are into the artist’s visual language. They have several tasks along the way. First they need to find an artist who’s work is what the project and client needs for a specific job. Then they need to clearly explain what they want done to the artist in a way they can understand. Then they work with the artist to create the image they have in mind via reviews of roughs and direction of the art at various stages, until the job is done. After that they are usually in charge of the final execution of the project, of which the illustration is just part. Magazine art directors are generally in charge of the entire look and feel of their publications, including the layout and design of every page.
Ask any illustrator about art directors, and you will almost invariably receive a roll of the eyes. I think in most cases that reaction is more about the natural need to disparage anyone who seems likely to be telling an artist who to create his/her art than a long string of truly unhappy experiences. Sometimes there is genuine animosity, however. I know an illustrator who has a heavy bag (a boxer’s big punching bag) hanging in his basement with the words ART DIRECTOR written in black marker across it and a very unflattering cartoon face above. That man has anger issues.
Art directors, likewise, sometimes will roll their eyes when asked about illustrators. The stereotype would be that artists are temperamental babies who think our ‘art’ is pure creativity and any efforts to revise or direct our ‘vision’ is paramount to sacrilege, deserving of resistance and anger. I know a few artists who have trouble with that, but that stereotype is no more accurate for real professionals than the AD counterpart of a control freak who saps the creativity and visual excitement out of every job.
Personally I can count on one hand how many jobs I’ve had where the AD was truly difficult to work with. If you treat each job in a professional manner, most ADs respond equally professionally and the relationship is smooth and easy. In the best cases the AD of a project let’s me do my job and create the visuals based on their very clear explanation of what they want. If I understand what the client is looking for, I can usually deliver it without major revisions or need for extensive reworking. Good ADs are excellent at communicating what it is they are looking for, and that leads to a trouble free project. In cases where I am doing more of the ‘writing’, or I am responsible for coming up the content of the image, then it becomes more of an involved relationship with brainstorming at the thumbnail or very rough stage in a search for a direction prior to moving forward on the image itself.
In some cases the AD is more hands on, making many suggestions and revisions to the job along the way. Sometimes this is a function of the AD not being the best communicator in the first place, or sometimes it’s just the way that particular AD works. This is where some artists can run into problems. As easy as it is to say an illustrator’s job is to satisfy the client, we are still doing something creative and that makes it almost impossible to completely separate ourselves emotionally from the artwork. If you do something you really “got into” and thought was particularly successful, it’s natural to be frustrated when an AD wants you to change it. However as a professional, the only appropriate reaction to revisions is to do them without emotional response. In the rare occasion an AD is asking for revision after revision and I feel that they are just fishing around instead of properly communicating their needs, I will require additional payment for excessive revisions. I can only think of two or three jobs where that became necessary, though. Illustrators who have trouble emotionally with revisions on their work, and treat it as some form of rejection, will have problems with client retention and word of mouth work. In short it’s a real career breaker. It’s the rare artist who’s work is so highly demanded they can take the ‘rock star’ approach and make demands on the control of their creativity and final artwork. The rest of us grunts must work with our ADs and clients to mutual satisfaction.
I believe that the most important job an AD has, with respect to their freelancers, is in making the right choice of illustrator for a given project in the first place. Most of the jobs I’ve had that have really gone sour were a result of an AD that wanted a different kind of art style than what I do. I liken it to a party planner in charge of catering who wants Italian food but hires a chef who specializes in Chinese cuisine, and then tries to get them to cook Italian. Good ADs make a smart choice of artist, and that eliminates a lot of potential problems.
I have a few simple guidelines for working with art directors that both facilitate a smooth and successful completion of a job, and ensures that I create a reputation as a professional that ADs can be confident in working with:
Ask questions- Don’t be shy in asking a lot of questions about what it is an AD wants. Not all ADs are great at communicating the purpose and needs of a job. The better you understand what they are looking for, the fewer problems the job will have down the road. Make sure you understand what the message you are communicating is. Also make sure boring specifics like borders or bleeds, image shape (if it needs to work within a particular layout), placement of any type or other elements and such are covered. Whenever possible I ask to see a mock up of the layout the image will be used in.
Get the revisions done at the earliest stages possible- Nothing is more frustrating than when you’ve moved past the rough pencil stage and have already done a tight final pencil or, worse yet, have finished the final only to be told you need to make more revisions. Some revisions, like color changes and perhaps execution issues can only be seen and resolved at later stages, but as far as content and drawing/composition/design goes, that should be worked out in the rougher stages. Once I get approval to go on from these stages and I sense some possible uncertainty, I will ask if the AD is sure it’s time to move to final as changes after this point become a lot more difficult.
No emotional responses to revisions-Jack Davis has always been my idol in the freelance illustration world. The man is a consummate professional, and treats his sketches as mere visual thoughts on paper. He discards them as easily as anyone might discard an idea they have that isn’t working and moves on to the next one. That’s exactly the attitude you need to have when working on a job. Sometimes easier said than done. I’d be lying if I haven’t had the occasional frustrated moment when some sketch I think really has life and energy is changed or discarded in favor of something I don’t think is nearly as successful. That’s when I bite my tongue and go into cool pro mode. It’s just a job, after all.
Deliver as promised- ADs usually have lots of projects going at once, and need to multitask to keep things moving. It’s terribly unprofessional to tell someone you’ll have pencils done on Wednesday and not deliver until Friday. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but always do your best to keep such promises. If possible, always use the “Mr. Scott” method when promising delivery of stages of a job… if you think it will take you two days to get to a promised stage, tell the AD it will take you three. If they ask for it sooner, tell them “aye canna break the laws of physics, Cap’n!” If they still want it sooner, charge them more… Mr. Scott never thought of that, or he’d have had his own starship in no time.
Treat deadlines seriously- Some ADs take the Mr. Scott approach to deadlines, meaning they ask for the final art by the 15th but they would still be okay with production if they didn’t get it until the 20th. You can never assume they have that kind of cushion. I’ve occasionally called and asked an AD if it would be possible to extend a deadline by a few days, but I always try and avoid that and am prepared to do what I need to do to meet the original deadline if that is not possible. Nothing is less professional than blowing a deadline.
I’ve been lucky to have worked with many excellent ADs over the years, particularly at MAD. The entire art staff there really knows what they are doing, and head art director Sam Viviano worked as a freelancer with MAD for many years before taking the art director position. His direction and that of the editors has never failed to improve the final results of the pieces I have done for them, and I have learned a great deal from them in the process. That’s a rare but welcome relationship.
Finally, familiarity breeds comfort with respect to ADs. If a job is from a new client I have never worked with there is always a certain amount of extra caution and care taken with the project as neither of us knows exactly what to expect from the other. Once you’ve worked with a client and AD for several jobs, expectations become known commodities and the surprises and troubles are fewer and far between. That’s why ADs tend to like to work with the same artists more often than not, and why repeat clients are worth their weight in gold.
It also reduces the need for punishing a heavy bag/art director effigy, which your knuckles will undoubtedly thank you for.
If there was ever a poster child for the seedy side of becoming famous, she is it. I bought an entertainment mag with Anna Nicole Smith on the cover intending it as reference for this sketch at a train station bookstore. The clerk who rang me up immediately offered me her opinion on the matter. “Double murder”, she says. She’s probably right, but it’s the circus of it all that makes me cringe.
