If I was in New York City this upcoming Wednesday, this is where I would be at 8:00 pm:

If you’ve ever laughed at Mad Magazine’s “Mad Fold-Ins” or “Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions,” you’ve now got a rare opportunity to meet their creator, as comics legend Al Jaffee will be taking the stage with moderator Danny Fingeroth on December 9th at Columbia.

A graduate of New York’s High School of Music and Art, Jaffee worked as an editor, writer and artist for Stan Lee at Timely (later Marvel) Comics during the 1940s. In 1955, Jaffee joined “the Usual Gang of Idiots” at Mad Magazine, where he’s been a mainstay ever since, entertaining generations with his Snappy Answers to Stupid Questions and Mad Fold-Ins.

Join Jaffee as he provides snappy answers to provocative questions about his art and life, including his new book, Tall Tales (Abrams) and his upcoming memoir on Wednesday, December 9 at 8 PM.

The event takes place in Room 501 at Schermerhorn Hall at Columbia University in New York City. (Enter the Columbia Campus at Broadway and 116th Street. Schermerhorn Hall is close to Amsterdam Avenue, between 118th and 119th Streets.)

For more information, call 212-854-2581. The event is free and open to the public.

Via MediumatLarge.net

Nothing particularly interesting comes to mind to blog about today so here are the steps involved in a recent “workplace poster” job:

1. The assignment: 17 x 17 full color illustration showing a woman cutting off a man with an infant and a can of baby formula in a grocery store checkout line. Man should look surprised and a little annoyed but also dealing with it well. Lady has a cart full of groceries and will obviously be taking a lot of time checking out. The cashier is a trainee (must be young and labeled as a trainee) and looks confused/apprehensive.

2. Initial Pencils: (posted as a “sketch o’the week” a few weeks back):

Direction: The client was concerned that the image might be interpreted as this lady racing past the others and out the door as in stealing the groceries. They wanted me to demonstrate better that she was cutting in line.

3. Sketch #2:

I did a number of things to try and give a better impression of her cutting in line. First I changed the angle of the man so she is cutting in front of him rather than past him. I added the sound effect of screeching brakes, and skid marks on the floor. Finally I added the “Express Lane” gag which, combined with her “I know I am doing something wrong” stare back at him gives people a reason to think she’s getting in line.

4. Sketch approved. Final inks:

There were a few tweaks needed… they wanted me to move the man’s right arm up like he’s leaning back way from a collision and to give him a similar expression to the baby’s. Easy enough.

5. Final illustration:

Click for a closer look…

Wondering what that might be?

Here you go:

Content delivered wirelessly and automatically to a portable reading device… a next generation Kindle, Apple’s long rumored iPad or a Windows based tablet netbook.

This kind of content with the flexibility, interaction and dynamics displayed in this demo and delivered to the user is something people will be willing to pay subscriptions for.

I’ve got quite a few smaller jobs on the board right now:

• Penthouse Illustrations- some humorous spot illustrations for a Superbowl article (yes, Penthouse has articles)
• Animation Character Designs- Political caricatures to be used for some animated segments in a documentary
• Personal Commission- I was honored to be asked by a cartoonist I greatly respect to do a caricature of a famous friend of her’s as a birthday present. Looks like I’ll have to haul out the real paints.
• Movie Poster- A very simple design and illustration for previously mentioned documentary
• Workplace poster job- my usual monthly assignment

Speaking of my usual monthly workplace poster assignment for The Marlin Co., here is one I did for them back in October. It was a little different, as it was for a wall calendar not a poster and they asked for a busy office scene (but not too chaotic) surrounded by 12 faces representing the different months of the year. They didn’t want me to use many holiday props, so I eliminated a few of them and in some cases I referenced just the seasonal weather and for some nothing at all. Alert readers might recognize the faces on the border as based on some of the models from the book Facial Expressions by Mark Simon.

Here’s the pencil sketch:

Click for a closer look…

I then added the seasonal border that transitions through the months of the year to get the viewer to understand the concept.

Here’s the final art:

Click for a closer look…

Our subject this week is pro golfer and über shill Tiger Woods. Woods still refuses to talk with police or give any explanation as to why he was driving away from his Florida home at 2:30 a.m. in such a hurry that he ran into a fire hydrant AND a tree. That may be his right to privacy in action like any other citizen has but, as most people do not earn over $90 million a year thanks to endorsements based on the likability, trust and wholesomeness of their persona, I don’t blame anyone who thinks he should be a bit more forthcoming about the incident.

EDIT- Looks like Tiger is finally admitting, albeit vaguely, that he is having a little family problem. I don’t feel a bit sorry for this guy. He has earned an enormous amount of money based on branding himself and his image, and if he is dumb enough to sleep around on his wife he deserves whatever public roasting he gets.

I found out via the MadMumblings forum that Asterisk Animation is doing a series of short films featuring footage of interviews with MAD legends Sergio Aragonés and Al Jaffee. One might presume said shorts will be about MAD Magazine, but there is no official indication of that on the Asterix Animation Blog.

However they were good enough to upload a clip to YouTube that will not be in any of the shorts featuring Sergio talking about some of the animation projects he’s worked on and how that process differs from doing comics.

Unfortunately there are no subtitles… but that is English Sergio is speaking.