Comic-Con 2010 is “in the books” as they say and it was it’s usual exhausting but fun time. This year I did a lot of new things including being on a panel about MAD and the new cartoon show and participating as a guest artist in “Quick Draw” with regulars Sergio Aragonés, Scott Shaw! and host Mark Evanier.

There was a lot of interest in the MAD show on Cartoon Network, premiering on Sept. 6th and featuring some of my artwork. Here is an interview with producer Peter Giradi and head writer and producer. Kevin Shinick… you will spot me once or twice at the WB signing we did and on the panel:

That was pretty cool. Kevin and Peter are creative and funny guys and they really “get” MAD, so I hope the show will really take off. There are a few short clips in the video but none of the stuff I worked on.

My “Quick Draw” appearance was especially fun. Basically it’s an entertaining show where fore mentioned cartoonists Sergio and Scott sit up on stage with one other guest cartoonist (in this case William Stout) and draw on boards with projectors so the entire audience can see what they are doing. They then do super fast drawings around themes and games that have the crowd roaring. Usually Mark has three guest artists come up and play a game for a short time, and this year he asked me to be one of the guests… naturally I was thrilled and of course got mercilessly paired with Sergio. The game we played was … well, just read Mark’s post about it.

Other than that I got to hang out with some super talented cartoonists, do a little drawing and signing and drink a lot of beer. Here are just a few pictures:

Hey! It’s Bart Man!

Hey! It’s the guy who created Bartman! Jeff Keane with The Simpsons’ Matt Groening

Thought this was a great costume… MAD Eye Moody!

Jeff Keane, R.C. Harvey and Stephen Pastis

From the WB Booth’s loft… the floor’s other end is literally too far to see.

MAD show writer/producer Kevin Shinick and MAD Magazine editor
John Ficarra hangin’ in the WB green room

MAD artist and art director Sam Viviano

This letter is making the rounds on the interwebby, so…

I first send my work to MAD back in about 1990 and got a rejection letter at that time, but this is not it. As I recall it was in the form of a checklist that had different reasons for the rejection, and it had the same sort of irreverent humor. Sorry now I didn’t save that… it would have been fun to frame up in the studio.

This week’s sketch is of comedienne Stephanie Coutney AKA the goofy but still oddly attractive Flo from the Progressive commercials.

I’m afraid my Comic Con wrap-up will have to wait until Thursday… as usual any time away from the studio comes at a heavy price.

..jiggety jig. Flying back home from Comic-Con today… full wrap up tomorrow hopefully with lots of pictures.

Picture by Tom Racine

We are going to dispense with the Sunday Mailbag this week in order to continue with our annoying coverage of San Diego Comic-Con.

Yesterday was a busy day for me here, starting with the Mad About MAD panel at 10:00 am and then signings at both the DC Comics booth and the Warner Bros booth with fellow MAD men Sam Viviano and John Ficarra, and MAD animated show writer and producer Kevin Shinick, plus a surprise appearance on at the Quick Draw! program in between. I wish I had some pictures of the panel but unfortunately I do not. Tom Racine of Tall Tall Radio fame was kind enough to send me the picture above from one of my signings at the DC booth earlier in the weekend. Speaking of Tall Tale Radio, go to the link in the previous sentence to see some great Comic Con coverage.

The panel discussion went well. I got the opportunity to see some of the animations for the first time, including about 5 seconds of one of the segments I worked on. The show is going to consist of a lot of different types of animation from somewhat traditional to collage to stop motion and a lot of different styles of art. Each 5 minute episode will consist of as many as 20 different segments, some as long as 2-3 minutes and some as short as 10 seconds. Many of the segments shown on the “sizzle reel” got good laughs and it was obvious that the show will be very much like the magazine… short bits of comedy one after the other satirizing pop culture, movies, TV and other things the world takes too seriously. Overall the response was very positive to the footage. I don’t think the video they showed will be posted on the internet (legally, meaning by WB or Cartoon Network) but if it is I will certainly link to it. As far as my work on it is concerned, in my very quick glimpse I thought I could see my artwork peeking through after the necessary adjustments the animators had to make… it will be fun to see a whole episode.

Sam and John did a presentation on the history of MAD which got big laughs and each of us on the panel told a few stories about how we discovered MAD and how we ended up working on the magazine. The audience asked a few questions and we were whisked off to sign copies of the magazine at the DC booth.

I’ve got a few people who have promised to send me pictures of the events, so when I do a full wrap up of the Comic-Con I’ll hopefuly have those to share.

In the meantime, today is the last day of the con and I will be signing free copies of MAD (until they run out) at the DC Comics booth (#1915) from 12:30-1:30 and drawing and selling MAD originals at the National Cartoonists Society booth (#1307) from 2:00-4:00. Then I will be laying down with a cold compress over my forehead for several hours.

Day one at Comic-Con? Uneventful. Actually for once the crush of humanity was not that horrific and it was relatively easy to walk about the exhibitor floor. I did a little of that, but mainly stuck by both the DC booth for my signing and the National Cartoonists Society booth where I did caricatures and had some MAD originals for sale. The NCS booth is located at booth spaces 1307 and 1309:

The NCS booth is pretty well done, IMO. Nice location, too. I’ll be there from 2:00 to about 3:30 today doing caricatures, sketches and selling those MAD pages. I’ll also be at the DC Comics booth from 4:00-5:00 PM signing and drawing. Unfortunately the folks at DC have decided they are only giving away free stuff early in the day and at the end of the day… they said it was because the stampede to grab freebies in the heavy part of the day is overwhelming. So, I don’t know if I will have free copies of MAD or not.

EDIT- just confirmed that free copies of MAD are a go for the DC signings.

Last night I attended the Captain Rochester party at the Palm Restaurant on J Street. Captain Rochester is part of an awareness project from a company called Rochester Electronics, a maker of semi-conductors. Apparently there is a real problem in the world of high tech with counterfeit semiconductors and components for electronics.

From the Captian Rochester website:

The goal at Rochester Electronics has been to raise awareness of the devastating implications of counterfeit and substandard components that make their way every day into products that affect our lives. Captain Rochester and his team of valiant allies constantly fight to defeat their treacherous counterfeiting enemies. Through his adventures, we can share – in an entertaining way – important information about counterfeiting with the semiconductor industry’s customers and original manufacturers, as well as with the general public.

Captain Rochester’s adventures have expanded since we introduced him in 2006 because the threat of counterfeit and substandard devices has risen significantly. Arrests and convictions have increased dramatically in the past year, however, as awareness in the industry as well as in law enforcement agencies and government agencies have expanded. Working together (with the help of the message Captain Rochester gives), we can outsmart the counterfeiters by promoting best purchasing practices and understanding the dangers!

Captain Rochester’s adventures will increase knowledge and appreciation of the importance of the quest for quality in the semiconductor industry.

As part of this program Rochester Electronics is producing a series of comic books done by Scott Shaw! and a series of trading cards done by some pretty notable artists (present company excluded). They debuted series one and two here with cards by the likes of Jack Davis, Mort Drucker, Jeff Keane, Sergio Aragonés, Steve Rude, Hy Eisman, Gene Colan, Al Jaffee, Peter Bagge and many more. Here’s my card (sorry for the bad scan):

You can get more information and order the comics, cards or collectible card sheets from the Captain Rochester website.

Well, here I am in beautiful and sunny clammy and rainy San Diego for Comic-Con 2010. The weather is suppose to improve as soon as this afternoon, but it looks like I might get wet on the way to the convention center this morning. I’ll be blogging from the convention floor and you have my promise: No “BIFF!” “POW!” or other sound effects will be lazily used in any headlines or posts.

I’m not sure exactly why I ever go to comic book conventions. As I have written here before, MAD is sort of the red headed stepchild of comics… yes, it’s got plenty of comics and cartooning in it but it’s still a fringe sort of thing, especially today. Whenever I sit at a table at a comic book convention and, when asked what I do I reply “I draw for MAD Magazine”, I always get the same few replies:

“Wow, MAD!… That still being published?”

“I used to love MAD… haven’t read it in 10 years!”

And my personal favorite:

“My grandpa loves MAD! He’s dead now, but still…”

That’s an exaggeration… but not much. I do have a few folks who drop by and actually have recent copies of the magazine for me to sign for them… and many are young kids. MAD isn’t entirely lost from the younger generation. That’s what makes the upcoming Cartoon Network show so exciting. I hope it brings MAD to a whole new generation of fans.

I’ll be signing free copies of MAD at the DC Comics booth (#1915) from 2:00- 3:00 pm today.

A little later today I will probably know my schedule at the National Cartoonists Booth (#1307), which is where I will be doing all my caricature drawing and hawking MAD originals. I brought a limited number of them this year, but they are all comic-book related… pages from the parodies of “The Dark Knight Returns”, “X-Men 2″, “Spiderman 2″, “Superman Returns” and “Watchmen” as well as a few pages from “The Big Bang Theory” and “30 Rock”. Ridiculously exorbitant bargain basement prices.

Usually I completely avoid drawing reality TV “stars” as they don’t need more encouragement or even as mild an extension of their mostly undeserved 15 minutes of fame as my modest little blog provides. However since I had already stooped to drawing his therapy-bound kids and his fame-seeking horror of an ex-wife, I figured I might as well do the trifecta and draw the deplorable Jon Gosselin. This one is a little different, done with a fine tip pen.

One of the books that sees a lot of wear on my bookshelf is The Artist’s Complete Guide to Facial Expression by Gary Faigin. It’s a very comprehensive look into what happens to the face when certain emotions come into play, and shows how to draw someone displaying those emotions. That’s a pretty important skill when doing visual storytelling, and caricature artists can learn a lot from it as well.

The author will be conducting a five day (FIVE DAYS?!?!) workshop on the subject this upcoming December at Gage Academy of Art in Seattle, WA. The workshop must give thorough and comprehensive an entirely new meaning, because you can read the book itself in an afternoon… but no question Mr. Faigin knows his stuff so The workshop is bound to be enlightening. If you are in the Seattle area it might be worth a look see.

Here’s the official announcement… it says you can register online but I didn’t see it listed yet:

UNDERSTANDING & MASTERING FACIAL EXPRESSION
Five-Day Workshop | Mon, December 6 – Fri, December 10, 2010

Teaching Artist: Gary Faigin

Author: The Artist’s Complete Guide to Facial Expression
Lecturer: Industrial Light & Magic and American Academy of Plastic Surgery
Consultant: Animation Production Capstone, Computer Science Dept, UW

Despite our familiarity with faces, a discrepancy can occur between transferring the facial expression one sees in real life into the representation of one. Gary Faigin, artist, author and acclaimed lecturer will address this phenomenon and other common problems in a five-day workshop at Gage Academy of Art in Seattle. While countless workshops offer instruction in depicting the head, this workshop offers forensic experts, animators, cartoonists, plastic surgeons as well as those curious to learn about the mechanics of a smile, a unique and comprehensive opportunity to understand facial expression.

Through a series of lectures, demonstrations and one-on-one instruction, Faigin offers students thorough instruction on how to convincingly portray emotion. Working at their own station, students are provided with drawing materials, a plastic skull, modeling clay and a mirror, and begin the week by drawing their own face in relation to the skull underneath.

Students also gain an objective understanding of the face through a systematic exploration of the muscles that control expression. Working with modeling clay, students form important muscles of various expressions which are later positioned onto a plastic skull. Using this foundation, students are then able to use their own face as a model to draw front and side views that highlight the various muscles in action.

Working in conjunction with Faigin, students also learn how to depict the six categories of emotion (sadness, anger, joy, fear, disgust and surprise) and progress to life drawing from an actor or model at the week’s close. Students also examine a variety of visual sources, including cartoons, master paintings and other artistic depictions of facial expression to inform their work.

At the end of the week, students leave with an increased understanding and command of facial expression, taking home their expression notebook as well as a completed clay-model muscular skull.

Register online at www.GageAcademy.org or call 206-323-GAGE (4243) or 1-800-880-3898