In the 80′s MAD publisher William M. Gaines and the editorial staff cited twelve pieces of cover artwork from the magazine that they considered the epitome of what MAD was all about.. it’s “heart and soul”. They represented the essential philosophy, type of humor and satirical outlook that MAD had established as it thumbed it’s nose at the world and all those who took it, and themselves, too seriously. He called these classic pieces of art the “Soul of MAD“. Over the years there have been several MAD art auctions by Christie’s and Sothebys that featured a lot of classic MAD art, but the “Soul of MAD” pieces where never among them.

I’ve visited the MAD offices a number of times over the years, often bringing people along that we meet up with in NYC to get the “MAD tour”. They recently were moved down a floor in the DC Comics offices and into much smaller office space, but it’s still cool to see all the stuff they have on the walls and in display cases… especially the original artwork. Most of the “Soul of MAD” hangs there, including the first Alfred E. Neuman cover from MAD #30 by Norman Mingo… arguably one of the principal images of American pop culture in the last 60 years. The other 11 are the covers of  issues 31, 32, 36, 38, 43, 96, 126, 153,154 and 171.

On my last visit this summer, I was shocked and saddened to be told that all this wonderful and historic artwork was gong to be auctioned off in the near future. In deed 36 total pieces that MAD held on to and refused to include in other art auctions are going on the block. I’ve been sitting on that information for several months, but now that the auction has been officially announced as happening November 13th on the Heritage Auction website, I guess I can go ahead and announce it here on The MAD Blog.

I cannot tell you how sad this makes me. I can understand that these paintings are very valuable… some experts I’ve heard from say they expect many to go for $20,000 or more each, and the MAD #30 cover likely more than $50,000. I also understand they aren’t exactly hanging in the Louvre, but in cheap frames on the walls of the shrinking MAD offices where they basically collect dust and are seem by only a handful of people a year. Still, it’s always depressing when something like this happens. Gaines and the crew weren’t joking when they said those paintings were the “Soul of MAD“… they represent and embody not just the history of magazine and it’s importance in American culture, but the very spirit MAD and it’s contributors poured into it’s pages since 1952. The really sad thing is that once they are gone they will never be able to be retrieved. They have them now, and all they’ll have when they are gone is a little more money, no doubt quickly spent. I will say that I am pretty sure this decision came from somewhere on high and is not something the editors are doing or likely happy about. It’s a pretty sad thing all in all.

The next time I visit the MAD offices it will be a far diminished space.

So, if any of you readers have an extra $50,000 burning a hole in your pocket, here’s your chance to get some comic art history. I sincerely hope this artwork ends up in good hands.

A few weeks ago I mentioned a special USO and NCS sponsored trip I would be taking where several cartoonists would be visiting U.S. military hospitals in Germany to spend some time with wounded soldiers and medical staff. I am currently in Washington D.C., where today our little group of cartoonist will be visiting the Walter Reed Medical Center and the Bathesda Naval Base to see staff and recovering war veterans. Tonight we will fly out of Washington-Dulles to Heathrow in London, with just a short layover (sorry Steve Hearn, I am airport-bound there) before we are off to Frankfurt and from there to Landstuhl. There we will visit the Lundstuhl Regional Medical Center on Wednesday. The next day we will be going to the Contingency Aeromedical Staging Facility USO to visit the medical evacuation hub and then on to the Air Terminal USO on Ramstein Air Base. We will be back on Thursday.

The final group of artists has changed a little due to various scheduling conflict. Our group includes the man behind this effort and several others bringing cartoonists to military hospitals all over the U.S., Jeff Bacon (“Broadside”, Naval Times) NCS president Jeff Keane (“Family Circus”), Mike Peters (“Mother Goose and Grimm”, editorial cartoonist), Chip Bok (editorial cartoonist), Stephan Pastis (“Pearls Before Swine”), Rick Kirkman (“Baby Blues”), Bruce Higdon (“Punderstatements”, freelance cartoonist), and myself (bum). Quite a group.

I will be unable to take any photos of our hospital visits due to strict rules on that sort of thing, but I will give a full report of the trip and have lots of other pictures of our little crew. I’m glad we will have a guide throught the trip as I may have enough of a smattering of french and spanish to get by in France and Spain and by osmosis can probably fake it if I am ever in Italy with a little cramming first, I know virtually zero German. I have a feeling if I try and ask for the bathroom I’ll end up in the theater.

Q: How do you respond when doing a caricature and you present a preliminary sketch, the client says, “His (Her, My, whatever) nose (ears, chin, whatever) isn’t that big?” In a live party situation, where the drawing presented is a done deal and the host is paying by the hour, I respond with, “Now it is!” But in a studio, commission situation my first impulse is always to ask, “Do you know what a caricature is?” I almost always try in the initial conversation to determine if they know the difference between a portrait and a caricature. Even then I sometime get that irritating question.

A: Drawing caricatures for a living, either live or in a studio, will inevitably lead to this issue at some time or another. Mostly it happens when the subject of your caricature is also the one approving the image. There are two possible reason why this happens:

1. The subject is not being realistic or objective, and refuses to see their likeness even though the caricature captures them well.
2. The caricatures actually does not have a good likeness.

I’ll get to that second one in a moment, for now let’s assume the caricature in question is a good, solid likeness of the subject.

So what do I say to that?

When drawing live I usually respond with a smart aleck comment like “I draws ‘em as I see’s ‘em” or “If you don’t like your nose, don’t blame me, blame your parents!” or some such. If they really protest about it then I give them a refund and move on. I do not bother to try and educate anybody at a theme park about the art of caricature. It’s not worth my time. Nor do I care about their opinion of my work past their being happy with it and buying it. That may sound cynical and materialistic, but that’s just the way it is at the theme parks or in any live venue. Some people never should have sat down in the first place, so why try and convince them to buy something they didn’t want to begin with? If I know I did a good job and they don’t want to buy it, or they don’t like it, that’s their problem. I just move on.

Now, with that said, I am also objective when it comes to the likeness. Nobody’s perfect, and drawing live leaves room for doing a bad drawing or three every once and a while. I know when I’ve done a good job and when I’ve blown it, but you still present them with the drawing either way… not that I treat the customer any differently in either case. I always offer a refund or allow them to decide not to buy it regardless if they are wrong or right about the likeness. Sadly a lot of live caricaturists are NOT objective about their own work, and will instantly blame the subject for “not understanding caricature” when they dislike a drawing done of them. I’ve seen live caricaturists do horrible drawings with zero likeness that get returned by the dissatisfied customer and then hear the artist complain about how that customer just “didn’t get it”. Of course, I’ve also seen some really brilliant caricatures returned in the same manner.

In the studio is another story. I don’t present pencil sketches or work to a client unless I am satisfied with the likeness of a caricature, so just the fact that I am showing them the work means I think the likeness is solid. Like I said before the only time this issue ever comes up is when the subject of the caricature is also the person approving it, because their ego sometimes gets in the way.

Again, what do you say to that person? I know the likeness if there, but if they don’t see it then what? It depends on their comments. If they just say “I don’t think it looks like me”, then maybe you have to take into consideration you are (probably) working from photos and the photo reference might be throwing you off. I would say “This looks like the person in the photos to me, so if you don’t think it looks like you then I will need better photos”. Usually that is useless, but at least you are giving them the benefit of the doubt. 99.9% of the time they don;t see themselves in it because they can’t deal with a caricature of themselves… even a relatively nice one.

I have about a million stories about this kind of thing, starting with my very first freelance job. Here’s another: Just a few years ago I did a holiday card for a local insurance company, with about 30 employees and management in pen and ink. The owner was the father of the two managers, one daughter and one son. I did the pencils and sent it over to them and all the employees loved it but the son and daughter didn’t think it looked anything like them. I tried to make them happy by revising it based on what they THOUGHT they looked like, but what I ended up drawing looked nothing like either of them in the end. I did that for two years but the second time around I had an even worse time with the daughter. The next year the daughter, who was the one coordinating it each year, called me up again and I told her I wasn’t interested. I was not shy about why, either. She seemed fine with that. The next year I got a call from one of the other, non-related managers begging me to come back and do it again as they had gotten another local caricaturist to do it and everyone hated the results. This lady was very nice and promised me I would have no problems with the daughter or son as far as approvals went. I told her I appreciated the kind words but I still wasn’t interested… I think I was busy with other work at the time, and I had no interest in going through that again at any rate.

Actually I have a surefire way to avoid having those kinds of issues: I just don’t accept work where the subject of my caricatures has any say in the approval of the artwork.

That’s nice an easy. No vanity projects with potential issues like… vanity. I am lucky enough to have plenty of work from clients who will pay me to draw caricatures of other people, so I don’t have to accept personal commissions or projects involving caricatures where the subject’s approve their own image. For some caricaturists personal commissions are a big part of their business. To them I would just say try and make the client understand ahead of time that you’re a caricaturist not a portrait artist, make sure they’ve seen your samples and that they know what to expect… but ultimately be prepared to have the occasional problem like this. Unavoidable.

One final thing. If any caricaturists out there get the “why me?” feeling when someone rejects a drawing you feel you really did a good job on, don’t feel too badly. It happens to the very best. When The Lovely Anna managed to convince the great Mort Drucker to draw my caricature, we were told a major reason Mort doesn’t to personal commissions is he runs into this same issue sometimes. In fact, Anna was told that Mort would send a sketch to her for approval but if there was any question about the likeness he would not revise it but instead talk with her about buying a MAD original for me instead. Of course she loved the sketch.

So, if MORT DRUCKER can be told by some idiot that they don’t think his caricature “looks like them”, it isn’t too hard to imagine we mortals having the same problem.

Thanks to Paul McCall 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!

Used with permission

If you ever needed any solid proof that politicians in this country are a bunch of sleazy, special interest catering con artists, here you go:

Yesterday, with the country in the most dire economic crisis in almost 100 years and a 700 billion dollar bailout or some other form of action desperately needing to be hammered out and put into action, the U.S. Senate passed the Orphan Works Act via a process known as “hotlining”. I guess the economy can just wait.

“Hotlining” is a shady practice that was originally designed for quickly passing noncontroversial bills or simple motions, but has been twisted in recent years to pass significant legislation under the radar, avoiding almost any debate. When “Hotlining” the “Senate Majority Leader and Minority Leader must agree to pass it by unanimous consent, without a roll-call vote.  The two leaders then inform Members of this agreement using special hotlines installed in each office and give Members a specified amount of time to  object — in some cases as little as 15 minutes. If no objection is registered, the bill is passed”-from Open House Project

The House still needs to pass something and it might just drop their version of the bill and pass the senate version.

It is inconceivable to me that with the economic crisis on the table our esteemed political leaders would bother with ANY other legislation AT ALL. Here’s what the Illustrator’s Partnership has to say about what to do now:

FROM THE ILLUSTRATORS’ PARTNERSHIP

Orphan Works Opposition: Plan B

SEPT 27-  Yesterday, in a cynical move, the sponsors of the Senate Orphan Works Act passed their controversial bill by a controversial practice known as hotlining.

With lawmakers scrambling to raise 700 billion dollars to bail out businesses that are “too big to fail,” the Senate passed a bill that would force small copyright holders to subsidize big internet interests such as Google, which has already said it plans to use millions of the images this bill will orphan.

With the meltdown on Wall Street, this is no time for Congress to concentrate our nation’s copyright wealth in the hands of a few privately owned corporate databases. The contents of these databases would be more valuable than secure banking information. Yet this bill would compel creators to risk their own intellectual property to supply content to these corporate business models. That means it would be our assets at risk in the event of their failure or mismanagement.

As David Rhodes, President of the School of Visual Arts has said, the Orphan Works bill would socialize the expense of copyright protection while privatizing the profit of creative endeavors. Copyright owners neither want nor need this legislation. It will do great harm to small businesses. We already have a banking crisis. Congress should not lay the groundwork for a copyright crisis.

–Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner, for the Illustrators’ Partnership

NOW FOR PLAN B

We MUST try to stop the House Judiciary Committee from folding their bill (HR5889) and adopting the Senate version.

PLEASE EMAIL CONGRESS TODAY.
If you’ve done it before, do it again!

It takes only a minute to use our new special letter.
Click on the link below, enter your zip code, and take the next steps.
Thanks to all of  you who heeded the call to action yesterday.

http://capwiz.com/illustratorspartnership/issues/alert/?alertid=11980321

_______________________________________________________________

For ongoing developments, go to the Illustrators’ Partnership Orphan Works blog: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/

Over 70 organizations oppose this bill, representing over half a million creators. Illustrators, photographers, fine artists, songwriters, musicians, and countless licensing firms all believe this bill will harm their small businesses.

The Capwiz site is open to professional creators and any member of the image-making public.  International artists will find a special link, with a sample letter and instructions as to whom to write.

If you received our mail as a forwarded message, and wish to be added to our mailing list, email us at: illustratorspartnership@cnymail.com Place “Add Name” in the subject line, and provide your name and the email address you want used in the message area.

Please post or forward this email to any interested party.

I was hoping to avoid an appearance of the Demon, but several jobs that need to be finished prior to my leaving for Germany on Sunday are keeping me hopping. Sorry about that…

One of the cool things that happened last weekend at ToonFest in Marceline was the appearance of John Read with a handful of advance copies of the second issue his magazine Stay Tooned!

The issue looks great, including the fantastic cover seen above by Joe Staton. Contents include:

• Profiles of Mike Peters, Tom Bancroft, Joe Staton, Mason Mastroianni and Bill Day
• Interviews with Jules Feiffer, Berke Brethed and Ben Towle.
• Pictures from the 2008 NCS Reuben awards
• Several articles by the likes of Jack Cassidy, Corey Pandolph and Norm Feuti
• Regular features galore including R.C. Harvey‘s “Funnies Farrago” and my “MAD Mailbag”

As with the first issue the profiles are jam packed with the subject’s artwork, and the other pages are likewise filled with great cartooning and great information. Also once again the issue is huge, weghing in at 88 pages with minimal ads.

This is obvioulsy a labor of love for John and the results are terrific. If you don’t have a subcription yet  check out the Stay Tooned! website for the goodies. Highly recommended.

Not nearly as ambitious as last week’s sketch, but here’s a study of another TV actor: Michael C. Hall, star of Showtime’s Dexter. I’ve never seen the show, but I hear it’s pretty good. Watching TV is one thing I just don’t have the time for… except for a few choice shows and whenever I am required to study a show for a MAD job.

Today marks 20 years since The Lovely Anna and I were married in St. Paul, Minnesota on a beautiful Friday autumn evening. I remember it being one of the best days of my life… surrounded by family and friends… embarking on a new chapter in life with a woman I still find hard to believe agreed to marry a poor art student with little going for him and less in the way of promising prospects of a career. I was devilishly handsome, however. Actually she says I made her laugh, and that’s how I hooked her.

“An ARTIST?!?” her friends said to each other. “Poor Anna.”

Well, it didn’t work out so bad. If the next 20 are as rich and full of love, laughs and life as the last I will be writing about our 40th anniversary before I know it. It’s been a wild ride at times, but there has never, ever been a moment even among the many challenges that any couple in this day and age face that I ever had a moment of doubt that I did not love my wife with all my heart, or that I could imagine myself with anyone else.

… not even Salma Hayek or Carla Gugino. Well… yes. Not even them. I’ll bet they snore. Or their feet stink.

Sadly the best we can do today is a nice dinner out, because I am leaving for Germany on Sunday for that NCS trip I mentioned sometime back, and my little freelance dry spell ended with a vengeance yesterday when the phone started ringing and I have several jobs on the board with tight deadlines. Fear not, however. The Lovely Anna is not being deprived! Next month she and I are taking the kids with us for a week in Hawai’i (Maui to be specific) where about 20 of our friends and family will meet us as we renew our vows at sunset on the beach. Flowers, photos, musicians, minister… the works.

You see, I have learned something after 20 years of marriage: when The Lovely Anna is happy, everybody’s happy.

A small, quiet, rural town in the middle of Missouri is not the place one might expect to find a group of well known syndicated comic strip cartoonists (and one lowly MAD artist) gathered for a speaking engagement, but that’s just what happens every year around this time in Marceline, MO. Well, the lowly MAD artist doesn’t show up every year, but there is always a number of cartooning luminaries that speak, participate and in share their time and talents with attendees of the Walt Disney Hometown Toonfest.

Marceline might be the kind of sleepy little town that you ordinarily barely slow down through on your way from big city to big city, but it’s special in several ways. First, it’s special in the way that all similar small towns are… everyone knows everyone and the sense of community and family is tremendously strong. If the big cities and metro centers of this county are the bricks, these communities are the mortar of this nation. These people and communities like them are what makes America into what it is. The other thing that makes Marceline special is one of it’s past inhabitants, and what he took with him from Marceline to eventually share with the entire world. That Marceline resident was Walt Disney.

The Disney Family Home

Disney lived in Marceline from age 4 to 9, from 1906 until 1910. His family moved there from Chicago, the big city to the small town life of farming. Disney was never shy about how Marceline was a huge influence on him and the ideas and concepts he’d later apply to his films and life’s work. In 1938, Disney wrote:

“Everything connected with Marceline was a thrill to us… to tell the truth more things of importance happened to me in Marceline than have ever happened since – or are likely to in the future.”

There is much evidence of this, from the obvious Marceline design influences in Disneyland and Disneyworld, to the small town fascination that permeated Disney’s work in film and his theme park concepts. Disney was enthralled with the idea of small town America, and all that seems to have stemmed from the time he spent as a boy in this small railroad town in Missouri.

Each years since they celebrated Walt’s birthday in 2001, Marceline puts on a weekend event called the Walt Disney Hometown Toonfest, where they celebrate not only Disney’s life and his time in their town, but cartooning as an art form. The speakers that have graced the stage in the nostalgic Uptown Theater on Marceline’s Main St. would pack the house at any comics convention or big city symposium. Cartooning giants like Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm, Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist), Lynn Johnston (For Better or Worse), Chris Browne (Hagar the Horrible), Ann Telnaes (Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist), Jim Borgman (Zits and another Pulitzer Prize winning editorial cartoonist), Tom Wilson Jr. (Ziggy) and many others over the years. That’ some serious cartooning star power.

The 2008 guest artists (L to R): Dave Coverly, Greg Evans, Jan Eliot,
Me, Michael Jantze, Disney “architectural miniatures” sculptor Dale Varner

This year’s ToonFest had another stellar lineup. Greg Evans (Luanne), Jan Eliot (Stone Soup), Dave Coverly (Speed Bump), Michael Jantze (The Norm and Jantze Studios) and my humble self, who these great talents acquiesced to slum with for the weekend. Seriously, though, what a great lineup of speakers. The speakers presented in the Uptown Theater, a landmark old school theater in the heart of Marceline’s Main St.

Me emceeing the show

I was honored to be the emcee of the speaking event. We presented twice, once on Friday to a theater full of high school kids, and once on Saturday to the general public.

Greg Evans

First up was Greg Evans. I’ve met Greg on numerous occasions and his is one of the most soft spoken and pleasant guys you will ever meet. He’s also a smart and funny person and it’s easy to see why his strip, Luanne, is so successful. He talked about how he got into cartooning, and offered some great advice. One thing he said really stuck with me, and that was about how he struggled with getting syndicated for years. Basically he was trying to be too analytical about his subject matter, trying to hard to write a strip about something that he thought was different and filled a niche that was missing on the comic’s page. He realized later he was trying to write about things he knew nothing about. Once he started writing about what he knew (his teenage daughter gave him all the insight he needed about teenage girls) he created something that resonated with readers.

Jan Eliot

Jan Eliot, creator of Stone Soup, I had never really met before. I really enjoyed spending some time getting to know this wonderful lady. Cartooning is more than a bit of a boy’s club, but despite that when a woman cartoonist get’s a chance they often hit a homerun. Jan started her strip, which would eventually become syndicated as Stone Soup, when she was a single working mom trying to raise two daughters on her own. I was impressed by her perseverance as well as her work. Her strip is beautifully drawn and written. Some of her originals were on display at the cartoon art show, and she’s very old school doing the art with a dip pen and traditional tools. I still love that look. Her story was inspirational, and she’s a terrific person.

Dave Coverly

Dave Coverly, creator of Speed Bump, probably got the biggest laughs of the day. His single panel cartoon is laugh out loud funny. I had met him several times but never really got to talk with him much, so it was great hanging out and getting to know him a little. I told him over a beer later that his artwork impressed me greatly. It isn’t just that his concepts and gags are funny, because they are, but his drawings are funny. That’s a powerful combination. Sadly we do not get Speed Bump in any of our local papers, so that’s one I’ve subscribed to online. I won’t miss another day of it. Dave’s a great talent and I can see why he’s been nominated for “Cartoonist of the Year” by the National Cartoonist Society for the last 4 years. He’s going to take that ugly statue home in the next year or two, and well deserved.

Micheal Jantze

Michael Jantze I have had the pleasure of being friends with for some years now. He’s been a speaker at our North Central Chapter meeting more than one, and we got to hang out at the Minnesota Fall Con one year ( I even took him to a Minnesota Twins game). He’s a very smart guy, and after he took his comic strip The Norm out of traditional syndication and online he’s been busy coming up with the next generation of comic strip media. He recognized that the traditional newspaper delivery format for comic strips is slowly dying, and that if comics are to survive into the 21st century they need a cost effective way to be electronically delivered to the next generations of readers. He demonstrated some of the concepts they’ve been working on, and the progression of ideas were fascinating. His studio’s “Audio Comics” are a blend of simple animatic animation, voice-over and design effects that keep the basic feel and delivery of a comic strip’s gags and pacing but become visually viable for delivery via the web or a cell phone. The future of comics unveiled in Marceline, MO!

The speakers do a Q & A after the presentations

Unfortunately the attendance at Toonfest is not exactly like the Olympics. These great speakers presented to a half filled theater, many of who were locals (who are of course welcome, but it’s out of towners we want to bring in). That’s really a shame. Marceline is not an easy place to get to (2 hours drive from the nearest commercial airport), but one would hope that line ups like these would bring in more interested people. There were some folks that traveled long distances to be there, however. There was one guy from Long Island NY, several people from Florida, a number from St. Louis and other somewhat nearby areas. I am sure they were not disappointed. I hope future years see more cartoon fans and cartoonists making the trek. It’s worth it.

On Saturday there was a parade down Main St., where all the speakers were “Grand Marshalls”.

After the Parade the guests artists all received these wonderful plaques with a small piece of the Walt Disney “Dreaming Tree” mounted on it.

The bubbly Megan presents me with my plaque

After the Saturday speaking program there was a ceremony out at the former Disney home and farm. On the property is a huge cottonwood tree Walt called “The Dreaming Tree” where he spent a lot of time just sitting and thinking, listening to the nearby train’s whistle and watch the sky wheel above. Each year saplings from the tree, which itself is not in the best of shape after 150 years or so of life, are planted by the guest cartoonists who are inducted into the “Order of PlantEars”, followed by a visit to Walt’s beloved barn, which he called “The Happy Place”.

The Dreaming Tree ceremony

The 2008 order of PlantEars inductees

Jan shows off her green thumb

The original barn disappeared after the Disney’s left Marceline, likely burned as firewood during the Great Depression, and this recreation was painstakingly built in the exactly spot. Inside are the signatures of thousands of Disney fans thanking Walt for what he gave to them and the world.

The Happy Place

We also squeezed in a meeting of our local chapter of the National Cartoonist Society, the North Central Chapter.

North Central Chapter members (L to R): Mike Edholm, Me, Cedric Honstadt,
Ted Goff, Paul Fell, Eric Scott, Scott Holmes

The fest itself has lots of activities for kids like the “Princess Tea” and other fun stuff. I had a great time and the Toonfest folks, especially Kaye Malins, Barbie Boyd and Debbie Foster (as well as everyone else), treat the visiting cartoonists like family and royalty. Thanks to them and to all the cartoonists who attended and who I got to spend time with… there were more than just the speakers. Like I said, great fun.

Special thanks to car pool pal Cedric Honstadt for some of the above pictures.

Q: Regarding your posted porta-pottie-pic from (yesterday), who’s the bust sculpture of on the left? Okay.  It’s a simple question that may not be worthy of a Sunday mailbag, but one never knows how long the story may be that goes with the bust!

A: This is exactly the kind of question to answer on a day I am driving all the way back to Minnesota from Marceline, so thanks!

That bust is something I got about 4 or 5 years ago from a small entrepreneur that was making them for a time. It’s hard to find them now, as I do not think anyone is making them nor has for years. It’s of Shakespeare of course, and anyone who has ever watched the Batman TV show from the sixties should recognize it immediately:

Just an innocent bust of Shakespeare?

Me thinks not!!

The bust’s electronic innards act as a switch. There is a cord to plugging into an outlet and another to plug something into, and flipping the switch turns that something on.

The plan was to rig this to a sliding bookcase that would roll aside to reveal a shaft with a pole in it, which I would slide down into a secret underground cavern full of crime fighting equipment. Unfortunately there was no underground cavern beneath my house, and apparently it would cost a lot of money to dig one out. The Lovely Anna puts up with me buying expensive home theater and audio gear, computers, Batman toys and that kind of stuff… but apparently secret underground caverns is where she draws the line.

So, it turns on my light table.

That’s not as cool as opening a secret door to your batcave, but you can’t have it all.

Thanks to Kevin Richlin from San Jose, CA 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!