Legendary cartoonist, fellow member of MAD‘s “Usual Gang of Idiots” and mi amigo Sergio Aragonés is going to have his first restrospective exhibit of his incredible work later this summer at the Ojai Valley Museum in Ojai, California.

Here is the press release from the Ojai Valley Museum:

The Ojai Valley Museum located at 130 W. Ojai Avenue in Ojai, California announced today that it will be mounting “Mad About Sergio,” a first ever retrospective exhibit of the work of world famous Mad Magazine cartoonist Sergio Aragonés, an Ojai resident. The exhibit, scheduled from August 7 – October 4, 2009, will feature original work by the artist as well as inform the viewer about the process of cartooning. Also featured will be wood carvings and other artwork that Sergio produces while he is thinking about his next cartoon concept. An opening reception will be held on August 22 from 5-7 p.m.

As an internationally known cartoonist for over 50 years, Sergio is known as the fastest cartoonist in the world. He is certainly the most honored, having won every major award in the field, including the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Award and the Will Eisner Hall of Fame Award. He has published over twenty books, created several comic book series and has animated numerous television programs. He will be speaking and demonstrating his amazing talent at museum Sunday Gatherings during the exhibit. The first Sunday Gathering will be on August 30 when the subject will be “Cartooning with Sergio.” On the closing date of the exhibit, October 4, the Sunday Gathering subject will be “Sergio on Comics and Humor.”

The Ojai Valley Museum and Historical Society dedicates itself to bridging the past and the future through stewardship of our community’s heritage. Founded in 1966 by dedicated volunteers, the Ojai Valley Museum and Historical Society today is directed and managed by a volunteer Board of Trustees, a small part-time staff and volunteer members of the Ojai community. This very strong group has managed to encourage and support many outstanding exhibits including art, photography, local history, student art and in December a very special exhibit being created in collaboration with the Ojai Green Coalition.

The Museum is housed in a 1919 Mead & Requa early Mission Revival structure, the former St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Church – the only building in Ojai on the National Register of Historic Places.

For additional information check out the Sergio Aragonés website http://www.sergioaragones.com/

and the Ojai Valley Museum website at http://www.ojaivalleymuseum.org

If this is really the first time Sergio has had an exhibit of his work, my only comment is WHAT TOOK SO LONG??!!! Regardless this looks like a wonderful opportunity to see first hand the work of one of the greatest cartoonists to ever put pen to paper, and that is no exaggeration.

¡Enhorabuena, mi amigo!

Next week is going to be “Columbia Week” on The MAD Blog, when I finally chronicle my trip to South America properly. I’ve been too busy trying to get caught up with everything else I’ve neglected while globetrotting to do it yet…. my apologies.

Above is another segment of the dreaded 1993 caricature sample demo, this time featuring Martin Lawrence. I remember how I tried to pick subjects for these demos back then that I thought would remain relevant in years to come, but I don’t think Martin is exactly a household name these days… I’m not even sure anyone will get the gag relating to his “catch phrase” or in his case “catch WORD”.

Cartoon by Nick Anderson, Used with Permission

I heard a story from one of the cartoonists I hung about with in Colombia last week that I think sums up much of what is wrong with the Orphan Works bill. The cartoonist’s name was Francisco “Paco” Pincay, and he was from Ecuador. He was telling me about how much trouble a new law that had been passed in Ecuador was causing. He said in an apparent effort to help clear up a clogged court system in his country, the president and his administration passed a law setting a $600 limit on prosecutable theft. He illustrated how the law worked like this:

Say you are walking along in Ecuador and a guy grabs your brand new digital camera and runs off down the street with it. Say he happens to be caught by a policeman down the block, and is brought back to you. If the value of your camera is less than $600, the thief is only required to give it back to you, and then he can go on his way. No arrest, no prosecution… he just walks away scott free.

Of course the government got the result they wanted… fewer court cases for petty crime.  The other result was an huge explosion of those petty crimes. Why not snatch cameras all day long? The worst that could happen is you have to give it back. The best is you get away with it. No risk.

The orphan works bill is just like that. It’s got a noble idea behind it, allowing for the preservation of deteriorating creative works like pictures, illustrations, writing, films, etc where the creators are unknown and cannot be located. However like the Ecuadorian law the orphan work’s desired result is achieved but the price is allowing unencumbered use of creative works commercially with no fear of repercussions other than being forced to pay a “fair rate” for the use of the work IF the user is caught. Why not take the risk if you are a publisher or a webmaster, when the worst that can happen is you pay what you’d have had to in the first place? Your punishment if caught stealing is to “give back the camera”, just so long as you show you made a “reasonable effort” to find the copyright holder.

From The Illustrator’s Partnership:

Orphan Works: Back Again

6.17.09

In Orphan Works Land, no news has been good news, but that’s about to change:

http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2009/06/11/copyright-holders-acknowledge-losing-battle-for-public-consciousness-at-world-copyright-summit/

US Copyright Register Marybeth Peters told Intellectual Property Watch that orphan works legislation is expected to be introduced within the next 10 days. It is her understanding there may still be some issues in the House version to be resolved, and there are some stakeholders – such as illustrators and other artists – “who are probably going to lobby pretty hard against it.”

Peters said this issue is important to her, and the fact it came so close to passing last year is almost bittersweet. “What I hope it isn’t … is it’s one magic moment you get” to finally get it passed, then it doesn’t happen, she said.

We don’t mean to disparage the Register’s comments. She’s had a long and distinguished career at the Copyright Office. But her statement deserves a reality check. Illustrators are not opposed to an orphan works bill. We’re opposed to this bill.

We’re opposed because its scope far exceeds the needs of responsible orphan works legislation.

Moreover, illustrators and artists are not the only stakeholders who oppose it. At last count, more than 83 creators organizations are on record against it, representing artists, photographers, writers, songwriters, musicians and countless small businesses.

Last year, we proposed amendments to the Orphan Works Act that would have made it a true orphan works bill. The amendments were drafted by the attorney who was chief legal counsel to the House Judiciary Committee in drafting the 1976 Copyright Act. The amendments were co-sponsored by the Artists Rights Society and the Advertising Photographers of America. They can be found here: http://ipaorphanworks.blogspot.com/2008/07/hr-5889-amendments.html

On July 11, 2008, we submitted those amendments to both the House and Senate Judiciary Committees. In our preamble we wrote this:

As rights holders, we can summarize our hopes for the Orphan Works Act simply: to see that it becomes a true orphan works bill, with no unnecessary spillover effect to damage the everyday commercial activities of working artists. We’d be happy to work with Congress to accomplish this. No legislation regarding the use of private property should be considered without the active participation of those whose property is at stake.

Last year more than 180,000 letters were sent to lawmakers from our Capwiz site. These letters did not come from obstructionists. They came from citizens whose property is at stake. They may lack the resources of big Internet companies and the access of high powered lobbyists, but last year they spoke. They asked only one thing: that Congress respect their personal property rights and amend this bill to make it nothing more than what its sponsors say they want it to be – a bill that would affect only true orphaned work.

We urge this Congress to listen.

- Brad Holland and Cynthia Turner for the Board of the Illustrators’ Partnership

All the naysayers will now come forth trying to pretend this bill is about saving Great Grandma and Grandpa’s wedding pictures from being lost to decay, or preserving great works of art that are in similar danger of being lost without being copied for posterity…. PLEASE.

Nobody would be opposed to the archiving, copying and preservation of any creative works just because the original creator cannot be contacted for permission to do so. Those are TRUE orphaned works, and all 83 of those creators organizations in the link above would be happy to agree to a way to keep their loss from happening, as long as it doesn’t trample the rights of creators who are not missing in action.

As the IP says, we are not opposed to an orphan works bill… we are opposed to THIS bill, which is designed both to line the pockets of companies like Google who want to charge us to register all of our work in some giant database so it isn’t considered “orphaned” and to allow anybody to use our creative works without paying us with no fear of litigation of payment of damages.

The desired result of preserving deteriorating works can be achieved with a simple changing of the Fair Use exemption to copyright. The Orphan Works Act is akin to using a backhoe to plant a flower… you get a hole dug but destroy the garden in the process.

Do your part to let your congressional representatives know this law should not be passed.

I’m incredibly swamped with all the stuff I didn’t do when I was in Colombia, so I have to cop out of the “sketch o’the week” this week. Instead here are a couple of the pencil sketches from the Bo Confidential book I shamelessly plugged yesterday. I’ll leave you to figure out who the caricatures are of.

Pre-Order Today!

A lot of people ask me what MAD is planning on doing now that they are only publishing 4 times a year.

Hopefully, here’s one answer. New, original content MAD books.

Back in the 60′s and 70′s MAD published a lot of paperback books, many of which were the work of individual artist and writers like Don Martin, Sergio Aragonés, Al Jaffee, etc. These were also mostly original content, not reprints from the magazine. For most of the last two decades, MAD‘s book offerings have been reprinted classic MAD material packaged into themed collections like “MAD About the 60′s” or “MAD about Superheroes”.

This book, “Bo Confidential: The Secret Files of America’s First Dog” which I illustrated, represents the first book of original (non reprinted) content from MAD in a long, long time. This is one of the things MAD is planning on doing in between producing their (sadly) now only quarterly magazine publication.

Click for a closer look!

Art/spreads from BO CONFIDENTIAL: THE SECRET FILES OF AMERICA’S FIRST DOG published by Running Press. On sale everywhere in August 2009. ©2009 EC Publications, all rights reserved.

The story behind this book is a short but intense one.

I got a call from my friend, mentor and a guy who owes me $10.00, MAD art director Sam Viviano at the very end of April to say they had a book project they wanted me to do the art for. The working title was “Bo Obama: The First 100 Days”. It was a book about the Obama’s new Portuguese Water Dog and his introduction into the White House, filled with gags about politics, the Obamas in general and of course, dog poop. It was going to be 96 pages and fully illustrated with a mixture of primarily two page spreads along with color single pages, color spots and some smaller monochrome spots. There was a catch, though (there always is). They wanted the art completed in just over three weeks.

Yes, you read that right. Three weeks. The publication date was to be the end of July.

I’m not entirely sure why the short deadline. Some say it was because there is a bunch of Obama family and Bo books coming out this summer and getting the book into that mix would get it placed on end cap and table displays in the big bookstores. Another theory is that there was a huge publisher’s book fair event right after Memorial Day, and having the book completed by then would allow the publisher to promote it fully at said fair. I don’t know… I just draw the funny pictures. Regardless, I got the final book script/layout on May 1st and had until May 26th to get the book completely illustrated. Worse yet, I had plans to go to the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Awards in L.A. on May 22nd-26th, so essentially I had 22 days to get it all done.

Click for a closer look!

I did it in 21 days. 96 pages including 25 full color two page spreads, 21 full color single page/large spot illustrations and 13 monochrome pages. The remaining pages had other grpahics.

Whew. I’ve done a lot of tough jobs in my time, but this one really did nearly break me. I got about 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night for three weeks straight, with only the occasional night of more due to sheer necessity. I had to place everything else on hold including canceling trips to both my out-of-state theme parks. I finished and FTP’d the last page at about 4 a.m. on May 22nd, and then got on the plane to L.A. 5 hours later. It was a very tired Tom who attended the NCS Reubens this year.

Be that as it may, the book is “in the can” as they say in the movie biz (I don’t know what they say in the book biz) and my first illustrated book will be in bookstores late next month. It’s also a hardcover, not a paperback, and is only $9.95. You can preorder it via Amazon.com. I am not sure why I am not listed as the illustrator on the book in the Amazon listing… I was looking forward to having my name listed as a book illustrator officially in Amazon, but I guess you can’t have it all. Pre Order one today!

Apple does a lot of things right.

They build good computers. They design good software that is easy and intuitive to use. They (mostly) stand by their products and offer very good support, especially if you are willing to pay for their AppleCare extended warranties. AppleCare is expensive, but you get something for your money. Macs are expensive but you get a lot of computer for the money. Apple comes up with innovative products like the iPod and the iPhone. They pride themselves on having their fingers on the pulse of their customers.

However, Apple is truly clueless when it comes to the video rentals in their Apple Store. In that case they are trying to take the pulse of their customer by sticking their fingers in the customer’s eyes. They have the best portable video player available today in the iPhone and iPod Touch, but their rental system is designed to be as inconvenient to a traveler as possible.

I haven’t had many occasions to rent a movie from Apple. Usually I rent them from Netflix, but dragging along a bunch of DVDs and watching them on my laptop isn’t nearly as easy and convenient as loading a couple of movies on my iPhone and watching them. For starters, I’d be lucky to get through two full movies with a charge on my laptop before it died. Second, there is not a lot of room in those airplane seats and only a small DVD player is easy to move when you have to get up and let the fat, smelly man in the seat next to you out to use the bathroom he obviously needed to visit 10 minutes ago. No, if you have an iPhone or iPod Touch you can load 6 or more movies on them and watch them in an easy to access and put away manner.

Watching movies on the iPhone is great… but renting them sucks because for some reason Apple insists on building in a 24 hour self destruct on their rentals. Once you rent them, you have an unlimited amount of time to start watching the movie, but once you start watching it the movie erases itself from your iPhone (or from your Apple TV or in iTunes) after 24 hours. Not once you are done watching it, once you START watching it. So you have 24 hours to finish watching your movie… or else you don’t get to finish it. Ever.

Now, you might say “Big deal! A movie is only two hours or so. You should be able to finish it in 24 hours!” Not if you are traveling, especially in an airplane. You only have a certain amount of time you are allowed to use “approved electronic devices” on an airplane. After all, as we all know, if you happen to have a small, handheld electronic device like an iPod still powered on when the plane is under 20,000 feet it’s enormous magnetic field will “interfere with the plane’s navigation system” quickly turning the aircraft into a flaming pinwheel of death. How often do you think a traveler would start a movie on an airplane and actually finish it before landing? If it’s along flight, could you finish two movies? Not likely. It’s much more likely that said traveler would end up “turning off and stowing” that iPhone somewhere during whatever film they were watching, thereby saving the lives of all the other passengers by deactivating the insidious, plane navigation destroying magnetic field of destruction that threatens the aircraft.

Yet, Apple only allows you another 22 hours to watch the end of that movie. Here’s the rub… in all likelyhood you are going to your destination to do something other than sit in your hotel room and finish watching a rented movie. It’s also likely that eventually you will be taking a flight BACK to where you just came from, and would like to resume your movie at that time, or perhaps even rewind a bit to get back into the story.

No, says Apple! Your $2.99 is only good for 24 hours after you START the film. If you don’t get around to watching the entire thing it that time, it will disappear along with your money from your device. Poof… gone. This happened to me not once but TWICE recently.

That is just plain stupid. Of course Apple needs to restrict the time frame in which you are allowed to have the movie on your device… as a rental you must “return” it at some point. However when you rent a disk from Netflix or BlockBuster, you are allowed to watch it as often as you want during the time period allowed, stopping and starting as often as you wish over a period of at least a week. Apple lets you watch your movie over and over if you want during that 24 hour period, but once it’s over it’s gone.

Wouldn’t it be better for the customer to guarantee they will be able to watch the ENTIRE movie at least once? Why not set the 24 hour self destruct to start once the movie is over… or a week from the time the movie starts? It’s very aggravating to pay $2.99 for a movie rental and never get to see the end because you were too busy doing whatever it is you were travelling for to stop and watch the rest of your film and it was digital dust by the time your return flight departs.

The self destruct 24 hour limit on their movies is extremely counter productive. They should design their rental system to be as travel convenient as possible, and this is anything but. Right now portability is the biggest thing the Apple Store’s video offers, but they don’t do it in the kind of user-friendly fashion one would expect from Apple.

Can you tell I just spent about 24 hours on airplanes in the last week? Next time I’ll rant about the stupidity of travelers who wear surgical masks that offer absolutely no protection from Swine Flu.

Q: Concerning drawing live caricatures: What do you do if the subject’s key identifying characteristics may be something they are ashamed/embarrassed about? For example, a person whose eyes don’t point in the same direction, a lady with a long, “horse-like” face, people with extremely crooked teeth, people with an extremely pronounced underbite, people with more chins than they would prefer to have, and the list goes on. On one hand, these “unattractive” features might be needed to clinch the likeness. On the other hand, I wouldn’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings.

A: Good question. A lot of the answer involves that “sixth sense” I talked about in my last Sunday Mailbag, where the artist gets a feel for what a given subject/model can take and what they can’t. That’s easier said than done as some caricaturists do not have that sense, nor is that sense always accurate. You would like to think that anyone sitting down for a live caricature actually understands what they are about to get, and if they have features like you described they must be comfortable with them as they should know they will probably be exaggerated.

Sadly that is sometimes not the case.

It’s funny how some people’s self-image works. Some are literally blind to their true appearance, and cannot see the imperfections of their features. It’s like hearing your voice on a tape recording… some people cannot believe that is really the way they sound, but others will instantly recognize it as their voice. Others are all too aware of their imperfections, and will specifically ask you to ignore them. When a person with gigantic buck teeth sits down and immediately tells you not to draw their buck teeth, what they are really saying is that they don’t want a caricature. Why they sat down in the first place is beyond me.

So, what so you do in the circumstance you describe above? I have one rule in that regard…

Draw ‘em as you see ‘em.

I will not ignore features because I am afraid the subject is sensitive about them. My first priority is to get a likeness of the subject, and in order to do that I have to draw what I see. That’s not to say I have to exaggerate those features in order to get the likeness. I can suggest the buck teeth in my drawing without making the person who has them look like they have the Ten Commandment tablets coming out of their mouth. Nor do I have to draw the person with eyes looking in slightly different directions look like Marty Feldman.

I won’t ignore them but I do not necessarily have to focus on those kinds of features. Here are the two scenarios that often happen, and how I handle it:

Subjects sits down with obvious type of feature and asks me “not to draw” that feature- Let’s say it’s a big nose. My response is “You will look strange with a big hole in your face where your nose should be”. They of course respond with a “just don’t make it big”. I then tell these are supposed to be funny 10 minute cartoon drawings, not portraits. If they want a caricature, I’d be glad to draw one for them. If they want a portrait, my price for portraits starts at $250 and a sitting takes 3 hours.  The allusion to the time and money involved for a portrait often does the rick. If they go ahead with the drawing, I make sure I exaggerate something other than the feature they have an issue with. If they get up and leave, I just avoided a likely return and a waste of my time. The trick is to do this and not sound haughty, rude or condescending. They are, after all, the customer. Still a caricaturist is not a portraitist, and shouldn’t be expected to draw a Glamor Shot portrait of anybody.

Sometimes the customer (usually a parent of a kid with big ears or something) gives you the “we are the customer and we are always right, you should do what we say” routine. At that point I give them the old “Chinese food” routine. I ask them if they would go to a Chinese restaurant and expect the chef to make them an Italian dinner. That makes no sense, as it makes no sense to ask a caricaturist to draw something other than a caricature. Again, you have to deliver this message in a way that does not come off as rude, which at this point is getting harder to do.

Some people cannot be pleased no matter what you do. That happens, and it’s best not to get worked up about it. A long as you are satisfied you did the best you could to appease that person, then that is all you can do.

Subjects sits down with obvious type of feature but leaves the artist to guess if they are sensitive about it- In this case the “draw ‘em as I see ‘em” rule is in full effect. If my Spidey Sense give off no alarm bells, nor tells me this is a “live one” who will appreciate a strong exaggeration, then I always err on the side of caution. I will try and exaggerate expression or some other feature and make that my focus. It’s easy to take the attention away from one feature by creating another area which draws it away. If you are looking at a person with a 50,000 watt smile, you will likely not notice that their ears are very big. The great thing about caricature is that you can choose to exaggerate several different things and still achieve a good caricature.

Here’s a note about drawing people with special needs, like Down’s Syndrome or MS… I have learned is that most special needs people will get offended if you do NOT draw their real features. To ignore or draw them without their physical differences can be considered insulting, like you are trying to “fix” them and they do not think they need fixing. They are who they are and don’t want an artist to try and make them look different. Again, no need to EXAGGERATE their particular differences, but you do not ignore them. For example I would never draw someone in a wheelchair running and winning a race. I might draw them in a souped up, rocket-powered wheelchair outracing other runners, or if they have an artificial limb drawing a robot one doing something superhuman, but that is the extent to which I might draw attention to the feature. Those kinds of gags usually go over well, as they have the double purpose of addressing the disability yet saying that great things are possible despite the challenges involved. However if the subject specifically asks me to draw them without their disability (i.e. running a race, etc) I will do that. That does not interfere with their likeness and if they want me to do that I will comply.

Thanks to Joyce from Singapore 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!

Jiggity Jig. It’s a long travel day today back to Minnesota. It will take me several days to stop saying “si” whenever a question requires the answer “yes”. Again, a full report on my Colombia experience next week.

Some of the crazy South American cartoonists I hung out with for a week in Cali

Last night was the opening of my art exhibition at the Centro Columbo Americano in Cali, Colombia. The Colombo is an educational resource for Cali residents and visitors about Amercia’s culture, language and life. They teach English there, have exhibitions and shows featuring American arts and culture and organize events featuring the same in Cali. Last week they had a blues music festival featuring many international musicians including a few from the United States. They also act as a resource for Americans visiting Cali, and often are hosts to American guests in town for events. The Colombo Americano didn’t organize the CaliComix event but they are one of the sponsors, specifically sponsoring my involvement. They have provided translators for me for my presentations and when I attend the presentations of others, and have made sure I am well taken care of. They have been great.

The show itself was supposed to be all originals but the logistics of sending so much original art, getting it framed and set up and shipping it back later was just too complicated. So I sent they digital files of about 30 pieces of art I did for MAD and other clients, and they had them printed for the show. They enlarged several of them but most printed at the same size they were in the magazine. Other than having some of the enlargements looking “stretched” because their aspect ratios were not kept consistent when they were increased in size, the show looked pretty good. I did bring two originals with me that were included as well.

Here are a few more photos from the show opening party. I’ll be writing a full report next week about my experience in Colombia.

They made a gigantic mural print of the promo piece for the show

I once again took the plunge and advertised in Serbin Communication’s “Directory of Illustration“. Above is my page that will be in the book coming out in November.

Every year I say I am going to take my time and really design an eye-popping page, and very year I realize the night before the deadline that I need to throw something together. This year I staying with a heavy dose of the “colored line” technique I’ve been using lately. The background colors/dot pattern that mirror my site are terribly distracting and overpowering now that I look at it, but there it is.

I’ve written a few times about advertising in national sourcebooks, which is a mixed bag of pros and cons. The DOI is pushing for a web precence as well, and a page gets you space in their online directory… here’s my page. Their online portfolios are not very imaginative in design, but if they net a few new jobs they are worth it.