Over at Mark Evanier‘s excellent blog, NEWS FROM ME, he posted a little historical fact about how MAD switched out the cover of issue #122 after Robert Kennedy‘s assassination:

The original cover of #122

The revised cover

The original cover showed a series of Mort Drucker caricatures of the those people considered the main candidates for president after Lyndon B. Johnson announced he would not seek re-election. After the cover was completed Robert Kennedy was assassinated, and that led to MAD replacing him with Alfred in the upper right balloon.

This is not the only time such a thing has happened. In 1991, MAD had intended to run this cover showing President George H.W. Bush doing something naughty to a faux American flag:

The original cover of #300

Shortly thereafter the Gulf War broke out. For obvious reasons MAD decided to nix that cover and instead ran this one:

The revised MAD #300 cover

Most recently, and most problematic, was the cover of MAD #411 from 2001. This was the original cover as done by artist John Caldwell:

The original cover for #411

This issue was at the press and this cover had already been printed as was preparing to be bound when the World Trade Center Towers were destroyed on Sept. 11th, 2001. The MAD editors realized that the cover of MAD scheduled to go to the newsstands in just a few weeks showed (although innocently as part of the NYC marathon) a crowd of people running through the streets of New York, police tape and a dead body on the pavement. They quickly, and at great expense and some delay, swapped to the following cover:

The new cover of #411

As it happened I discovered that copies of the original cover had been stolen from the printer, presumably from some employee, and were being sold on eBay as a collector’s item. I alerted the MAD staff about this and they were none too happy, as you can imagine.

Thanks to Doug Gilford‘s MAD Cover Site for the images above.

Late on the evening of Oct. 19th our band of ten landed at COB Speicher in Tikrit, Iraq. Formerly it was FOB Speicher (forward operating base) but because of it’s size was reassigned as a COB (contingency operating base). It was also formerly Al Sahra Airfield under Saddam. Tikrit, of course, is famous for being the hometown of Saddam Hussein. Getting off the plane it was the first of many surreal moments… hard to believe a bunch of middle aged cartoonists were standing on the sands of Tikrit, Iraq. Stephan Pastis and I turned to each other frequently during the next few days to say something like “Dude. We are in Iraq.” We are total dorks.

Stephan and I after landing in Tikrit

We were bussed a short way to our quarters, where we discovered we had drawn a blackjack. We had been told our sleeping quarters in Iraq were subject to availability and could be tents, container housing, etc. Instead we got incredibly lucky and stayed at a facility on Speicher called “Freedom Rests”. This is like the Club Med of Iraq, only instead of a sandy beach it had a sandy…uh… sand. Freedom Rests is a place were deployed soldiers can get a 3 day pass as a reward for various accomplishments to get away from the stress of their missions and relax. It’s a giant warehouse-like building with multiple entertainment centers, games, computers, a gym, a pool, comfortable barracks and good bathrooms and showers. There is a 24 hour kitchen with full menu. Only a handful of soldiers were there while we stayed for two nights, but it can house up to 100.
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Arriving at the airport in Kuwait City, I was prepared for some major culture shock. Traveling in Europe is one thing… usually you can figure out the meaning of things like signs based on the common nature of the Latin based languages, and they all use the same basic alphabetical charters which at least look familiar. Arabic, on the other hand, is totally indecipherable to one with no knowledge of the language. Every time I saw something written in Arabic I had the impulse to turn it upside down.

The Kuwait Airport

My fears were groundless. Almost every sign is Kuwait, especially road and direction signs, had English translations below. There was no shortage of western influences, either. The airport food court had a Burger King, McDonalds, and money other familiar fast food restaurants… and of course a Starbucks. (more…)

This week’s sketch subject is “Twilight” actor Taylor Lautner. I still refuse to draw Robert Pattinson on general principal.

The 2009 NCS Cartoonist USO Tour band members:

Our 8 day USO tour began at a Washington DC area hotel on Wednesday, October 14th where most of our band met, had a quick dinner and talked about our upcoming odyssey. As usual I had a job I had to finish up that kept me working in the hotel room until 4 a.m., so I was already exhausted when we boarded a USO bus on Thursday morning to go to the Bathesda Naval Hospital and then to Walter Reed for our first visits with wounded soldiers. This part of the trip was familiar to us, as we had done the same thing almost exactly a year earlier.

Thursday, October 15th:

The Band at Bathesda Naval Hospital

Bathesda is best known as the primary center for brain related injuries, but they treat almost any kind of injury from damaged limbs from explosions to gunshot wounds. Touring these wards is particularly heart wrenching. We visit the soldiers right in their hospital rooms and they are in various stages of recovery and treatment. Sometimes they are very cognizant and lucid, and other times they are so deep under pain medication that they are hard to communicate with. Most of the soldiers we visited with were surrounded by their family members and were in the midst of or almost done with their treatments.
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A Little Background

Last October eight Cartoonists from the National Cartoonists Society went on a trip to Landstuhl, Germany with a stop in Washington DC to visit wounded soldiers at Walter Reed, the Bathesda Naval Medical Center, Landstuhl Regional Medical Center and the Ramstien Air Force Base terminal and staging facility. You can read all about that trip here and here. The cartoonists were NCS president Jeff Keane (The Family Circus), Jeff Bacon (Naval Times/Broadside), Bruce Higdon (Army cartoonist), Rick Kirkman (Baby Blues), Mike Peters (Mother Goose and Grimm), Chip Bok (editorial cartoonist), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine) and myself. The entire trip was funded privately and the USO was involved mainly for organization and activity planning.

The success of that trip and the responses of the soldiers and staff when meet with was not overlooked by the USO, who then fully sponsored a second trip to the same area with a (mostly) different group of NCS cartoonists. The original group (plus the additions of Garry Trudeau (Doonesbury) and Michael Ramirez (editorial cartoonist)) eventually were part of a longer, more involved trip back to Washington DC and Landstuhl, but then continuing on “Down Range” to Kuwait and then into the active war zones in Iraq. We just completed that trip on Saturday.

During our journey we were not able to say where we were exactly nor post pictures until the USO cleared them, so that severely limited how much I could blog or share on the trip. Now that we are back, I will be chronicling our trip in detail over the next several days on the following schedule:

Tuesday: Washington DC / Landstuhl, Germany
Thursday: Kuwait
Friday: Iraq

These posts will be long and involved so I apologize in advance if I bore the hell out of anyone. Feel free to move on to blogs showing cheeseburger loving cats at will.

Tune in tomorrow.

Q: I was wondering if you could explain the process of getting an art rep/agent. When I develop my portfolio more I would like to seek out work in various publications and book illustration. What steps would someone take to get represented or to get regular work?

A: I’ve never had a rep (with the exception of a loose arrangement with Cagle Cartoons, now defunct), but having both looked into one and knowing enough colleagues that do that I think I can answer your question.

First off, for those who may not know a “rep” (short for “representative”) in the art world is like an agent for an actor. They act as both the the finder and broker for work for an artist and get paid via a percentage of an artist’s given pay on a job. Most reps take between 12-20% as their fee. The services offered by a given rep can differ, but a “full service” rep will pursue and find jobs for their artists, negotiate for the pricing on a job, handle the invoicing and collecting of the payments and pay the artists their fees less their given percentage. At least that’s how it’s supposed to work.

Finding a good rep is not easy. There are a lot of pitfalls you have to avoid, but the primary difficulty is simply finding a good one that is willing to represent you. Your style of work, it’s marketability, the number and makeup of their current group of artists and to a certain extent your established credentials will be major factors in whether or not a rep is willing to add you to their “stable”. The better and more effective the rep, the less likely they are willing to take on new clients and especially those who do not have a strongly established career already. It’s the old catch 22… and artist could use a rep to establish a career and a rep only wants artists who have already got an established career. Reps like Gerald & Cullen Rapp are famous and handle mostly big name artists, while smaller firms or individual reps might take on newer artists if the marketability of their work is strong.

Where do you find reps to contact about being part of their group? The best place is probably sourcebooks like the Directory of Illustration, Workbook and The Black Book. They have ads by reps in them and online lists of the reps in their publications (see links). You need to research these reps and look for ones that are lacking in an artist who’s style is similar to your own. Your best bet is to identify these potential reps and contact them, sending in samples your work and a resume including a fairly complete client list. The worst that could happen is they say “no thanks”. You do not know until you try.

Having a rep isn’t a magic bullet. Far from it. Good reps are hard to find, and by “good reps” I mean those that really work hard to find you good jobs. Bad reps will take on an artist and then just add them to an online portfolio and sit back and wait for jobs to come in. Some will spend 99% of their time pursuing work for the one or two “stars” of their stable and not put any effort into finding work for the other artists they represent, again merely waiting for jobs to come to them… after all it doesn’t cost them anything if you do not get any work, so why not add you to their stable and collect whatever comes their way? You can accomplish that kind of marketing on your own and not part with a percentage of your fees. Some reps will expect you to take on any job no matter how poor the pay is or how bad a fit it is for you, wanting to keep you generating money no matter how little it might be for the work involved.

If/when you find a rep willing to represent you, the details of your contract with them needs to be scrutinized. There are a few things in the fine print to be aware of. For example, you still pay for the lion’s share of any active advertising. The arrangement with most reps is that the costs of any advertising done (i.e. in a sourcebook) is split by the same percentage as the rep fee. So if you pay your rep 15%, you will pay 85% of a page in the Directory of Illustration and the rep covers their 15%. Your page is then part of a section of the sourcebook for their agency. Likewise with online advertising.

The most problematic pittfall with regard to reps is how previous clients are handled. Some reps (although this is becoming increasingly rare) insist that ALL your work must go though their office. That includes clients you already have and do regular work for, not just the ones your rep finds for you. This arrangement is unacceptable in my opinion, as any work I get from a client that my rep had nothing to do with landing should not be subject to their rep percentage. Just doing the paperwork is not enough to justify their fee. For the artist’s part, once you are being represented you should not pursue work independently and should refer new work through them. You should also not accept work directly from a client your rep has found for you. This occasionally happens when a client thinks calling you directly would result in a reduced price on illustration since the “middle man” is cut out. Accepting work like that is unethical.

The best reps are ones that are active in pursuing work, and have a network of established relationships with buyers of illustration that they can work on your behalf, and have the smarts to negotiate the highest fees they can get for you. The worst are ones who sign you to a contract, advertise (at 85% your cost) in some sourcebook and set up a website and then sit back and wait for the jobs to roll in. It’s the former everybody wants and thus is the most difficult to find and get accepted by.

Thanks to Robb Miller 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!

Here’s a link to an article by “Comic Riffs” writer Michael Cavna about our USO trip.

The International Society of Caricature Artists (ISCA, formerly known as the NCN) 2009 Annual Caricature Convention and Competition is just over a week away on November 2nd-7th in Sandusky, Ohio. For caricature artists this is the ultimate event. Whether you work as a live artist, publication or fine artist, if your work involves caricature you could not spend your time and money better than to attend this event.

There are some unique things about this year’s convention that makes it a perfect time for non-ISCA members to attend to see what it’s all about.

First off, there is not one, not two, not three but FOUR guest speakers, all from MAD Magazine:

• Sam Viviano- Longtime MAD artist and current art director
• Mark Fredrickson- Frequent MAD cover artist, former airbrush demigod and current digital painting master
• Hermann Mejia- The brilliant “artist’s artist” for MAD, caricaturist, painter, sculptor, genius
• Tom Richmond- My humble self

ISCA itself is a great value to be a member of. For new professional members it’s only $50 for a year’s membership, and thereafter $60 per year. What do you get? A subscription to their excellent quarterly magazine “Exaggerated Features”, which is chock full of instructional articles and other features about the art form. You also get access to their members-only online forum, which is a great resource to share work, get critiques, learn new techniques and connect to caricaturists from all over the world. Finally it is a great network for getting work or finding people to work with you.

Ordinarily these conventions are only open to members of the organization. For the first time this year there will be a special fee of $125 for anyone who is not a member but wants to attend just the MAD speaker presentations. I warn you, though, if you are a caricaturist or cartoonist and attend just for the speakers you will be so blown away by the creative power of the event you will likely apply for membership on the spot and end up drawing away like the other 150 plus attending artists.

There is still time to register and attend either the full experience as a member or just for the MAD seminars. Check out their website for all the details.

Back row: Me, Jeff Bacon, Bruce Higdon, Rick Kirkman, Jeff Keane, Garry Trudeau
Front: Mike Peters, Stephan Pastis, Chip Bok, Mike Ramirez (Photo courtesy Jeff Bacon)

Here’s a picture of all us us “geared up” before flying back to Kuwait from Iraq on a packed C-130 military airplane. Here is a link to a short story about one of the group’s visits at FOB Marez that includes a picture of me drawing one of the crowd. Right after this picture was taken we traveled for 18 hours straight to reach Washington DC. Until I got back to the USA the last shower I’d taken was in Saddam Hussein’s palace… something the folks on our flight likely did not appreciate. Since all ten of us were equally dusty and smelly, maybe they didn’t notice me all that much.