Q: With all the work you do for the MAD parodies, have you ever contributed your own jokes/gags? Or have you ever done any written and illustrated pieces? Do you have any aspirations to write a comic strip or something like that?

A: I guess that depends on what you mean by “writing”. If you mean do I put words down in a script to contribute jokes and gags, then no… I have never done that for MAD.

However when asked this question I do feel confident in saying I “write” for MAD in a certain sense… meaning I do contribute a lot of humor to the features I draw for them in the form of visuals and background gags. I often mention my affinity for the late classic MAD artist Will Elder‘s “chicken fat” style, where he would cram every available space in a panel with a gag sign, visual, character or what have you to add multiple layers of humor to the feature. All those extra gags are really writing… just with pictures not words. Sometimes a MAD writer will specify some background gag they want me to include, and in that case they “wrote” that gag because they came up with the idea and it was in the script. When I write I just cut out the “script” part and put it directly into the art. You can see many examples in just about any parody I have ever done for MAD… some have more gags in the background than others but I am always looking to add something. Which are my contributions and which are the writers? Having the writer call for a background gag is unusual… they usually leave that for the artist… so if there is a gag or joke incoprprated into the art of a panel that does not have anything to do directly with the dialog in the word boxes, there is a 99.9% chance it’s the artist’s gag, unless it’s really funny in which case it’s probably the writer’s gag (heh). Any hand lettered signs or words are also usually the artist’s contribution.

As for “real” writing, I have not been credited specifically as a writer for MAD, but back in my Cracked Magazine days I wrote two of the parodies I illustrated. One was of the 1998 remake of “Godzilla” and the other was of the HBO show “The Sopranos”. The second I co-wrote with my friend and fellow caricaturist/cartoonist Jim Batts, who contributed several gags and had a lot of advice for me on the show’s characters as I had (at the time) not seen many episodes.

In the interests of full disclosure, I have dug up the decrepit old files of those two old Cracked features from early 1999, and here they are with all their artistic inadequacies intact. The first one of “Godzilla” I actually did to show newly minted MAD art director Sam Viviano in an attempt to get into MAD, but he was singularly unimpressed. Cracked, by contrast, not only liked it but immediately bought it and published it in the magazine (you can read about my Cracked adventures here). Click on any of these for a closer look:

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Incidentally the original title of that paordy was “God-Awful”, which makes more sense with the intro title. However I actually only did the first 4 pages to show Sam and when Cracked asked to buy it I had to finish it, so I came up with the Hillary Clinton joke later and changed the title to “God-Hilla”. After that one, Cracked asked me to do a parody of whatever I wanted (obviously their standards were pretty low at the time). “The Sopranos” was really hot and all over the news so I decided on that one and called Jim for some assistance, whereupon he sent me a box of recordings of the show and embellished the story with a number of gags. Again, click on any of these for a closer look:

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And that is the total of my writing credits in humor magazines. As Alfred might say… big deal!

Thanks to Gavin Aung Than from Australia 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!

Caricature and portrait painting master Sebastian Krüger is one of the most highly respected artists working in the field today. I’ve had the privilege of meeting him a few times at a couple of conventions for the International Society of Caricature Artists (formerly the National Caricaturist Network), and commissioned him to do the caricature of me above. Krüger rarely does caricatures anymore… these days he does mostly fine art paintings of pop culture celebrities for galleries. That’s a real shame as his caricature illustrations were mind-numbingly outstanding, but I don’t think he ever really felt like he was a caricaturist. He is obviously doing what he loves. One of the things he does these days is conduct small workshops on painting near his home in Germany. I’ve had several good friends and fellow caricaturists travel oversees to attend these workshops, and they all rave about it… gotta go to that one of these days.

Sometimes caricaturists are odd ducks, but even I was taken aback when I received an e-mail from a concerned Krüger supporter accusing one recent Krüger workshop attendee of making false claims about his participation in the class.

According to the complaint, Argentinian caricaturist Luis Ordoñez was simply one of 30 artists attending the September 2010 workshop. According to Ordoñez’s website, however, he does appear to be claiming he was actually a co-instructor at the workshop and taught caricature while Krüger taught portraits. Indeed, Ordoñez does seem to have gone around and had his picture taken with many participants of the workshop and then put captions below them indicating he was teaching them and not merely just another participant (these were sent to me in the e-mail I mentioned, and were taken from Ordoñez’s website and translated):

Even weirder are some PhotoShopped pictures like this one:

Ordoñez sells instructional DVDs and art lesson books on his website, so he is a legitimate teacher of caricature and cartooning… perhaps this is some kind of misunderstanding but it sure looks fishy to me. I like to give people the benefit of the doubt, but…

Some people are pretty hot over it, I can tell you. There is even a Facebook group dedicated to “exposing” Ordoñez’s “lies”.

Lots o’stuff cooking on the drawing board right now. Nothing “big” but a lot of smaller projects add up:

• Workplace Poster Illustration- My usual assignment for The Marlin Company
• Character Illustrations- Sort of a personal commission job doing individual illustrations of his dummies for ventriloquist and comedian Jeff Dunham
• Feature Article Illustration- Full pager for School Library Journal
• Couple of personal commissions- Stay tooned for details on an official personal commission format and availability…

I’m currently “between” assignments for the MAD animated show (wrapping production on a series of episodes prior to beginning on some new stuff) and MAD Magazine… although no doubt they’ll be a-callin’ soon.

Here’s a couple of assignments done recently that I have permission to share:

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Click for a closer look…

Small product Illustration of Dennis Kucinich for a deck of cards

I mentioned a few weeks ago that I am taking Stephen Silver‘s online class on animated character design through Schoolism.com. I am enjoying it and learning a lot, but it is proving to be a bit more challenging in terms of finding the time to dedicate to the lessons and assignments than I thought. This week’s SotW is from a recent lesson. The assignment: draw a more or less accurate drawing of this guy wearing the bowler hat:

Afterward, you put away the reference and the sketch, and using three different basic shapes recreate the face’s essentials from memory based on those shapes. The idea is not to capture a likeness again but to capture the essence of the character within radically different headshapes:

An interesting exercise and one that helps an artist understand how important headshape is to exaggeration.

Last night’s Cartoon Network’s MAD episode featured a segment with some of my artwork… the “Extreme Home Makeover: Fortress of Solitude Edition”. Here is a sampling of some of the art I did for it:

According to the Cartoon Network’s schedule, next week’s episode will also have one of the segments I worked on… “The Batman Family Feud”.

A great article on a great cartoonist: Al Jaffe in the NY Times. Al’s getting a lot of press lately now that his book Al Jaffee’s MAD LIFE is now available… in fact you can order it here. My copy is on the way. Al Jaffee is one of the true geniuses of visual humor, and at 89 is still sharp as the proverbial tack and producing great work.

To say Al’s life has been “eventful” would be the ultimate stupid answer to a snappy question, if you’ll pardon the reversal. The article linked above touches briefly on what has been a life of epically colorful proportion… and I can’t wait to read his book which was illustrated by Al (of course) no doubt is equally epic color.

This past weekend I attended the annual meeting of my chapter of the National Cartoonists Society AKA the North Central Chapter In Omaha, Nebraska. We were treated to beautiful fall weather, great speakers and events and great company.

The speakers, meeting and events all took place in the Old Market area of downtown Omaha, a charming series of bricked streets brimming with local restaurants, pubs, shops and galleries. The event was organized by Omaha World Herald editorial cartoonist and chapter member Jeff Koterba and hosted by KANEKO. KANEKO is a combination gallery, museum studio and educational facility and is self described as “an open space for open minds that nurtures and promotes creativity in the arts, sciences, and philosophy.” It features art shows, workshops, lectures and performances to advance the arts and creativity in all forms. Jeff, along with the KANEKO folks, did an enormous amount of work to put this all together and it was a fantastic event.

The weekend started out with the “Cartoonists in the Classroom” program, where a dozen attending cartoonists were taken to one or more local high schools to talk with art classes about their work and cartooning in general. I participated in this, talking with students at Burke and Millard West High Schools on Friday afternoon. According to KANEKO the program was well received and a great success.

Josh Cooley- Image courtesy of KANEKO

Our guest speaker was Josh Cooley, a story artist and director at Pixar Animation Studios who’s credits include work on “Cars”, “Ratatouille”, “UP” and the forthcoming “Cars 2″. He also directed several of the “UP” shorts called “UPisodes” and the Up extra feature “George and A.J.”. Josh did a presentation on Friday, a workshop on Saturday morning and participated in a panel discussion that afternoon. His work is superb and listening to the process that he and Pixar go through to create their brilliant films was riveting. His talk included a virtual tour of Pixar’s animation studios, which incidentally I would kill (or at least badly maim) to get to see in person, an explanation of what it is he does and examples of the process from rough ideas and story boards on through to the finished results we all enjoy on the silver screen. Josh was an entertaining speaker and it was great fun to get to hear him and take part in his workshop. As is typical when artists of his accomplishments attend something like this, everybody wanted a piece of him so I only got the briefest of chances to meet and chat with him personally. He seems like a great guy and we all appreciated his willingness to come to the midwest and share his time and work with us. I wish I had some pictures to share of this talks, but part of the deal when having a Pixar artist give a presentation is that absolutely no photos, videos or recording of any kind is allowed. Certain parts of me are still smarting from the full body cavity search they gave us prior to Josh’s talk… cartoonist Bucky Jones seemed not to mind it however, as I noticed him sneak back into line for a second helping.

Other speakers and events included:

Cartooning in the New Economy- a panel on the business side of cartooning during this trying economic time and amid the changing climate of publishing. Moderated by John Hambrock (creator of the comic strip The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee) and featuring gag cartoonist Dave Carpenter, editorial cartoonist Ed Fischer, illustrator Buck Jones and editorial cartoonist/illustrator Tom Kerr, the panel discussed how cartoonists have changed with the times to keep on earning a living.

Drawing in the House of Saddam- Cartoonist Rick Kirkman (Baby Blues) and I gave a presentation on the cartoonist’s tour to Germany, Kuwait and Iraq last fall which we both were a part of.

Rick Kirkman and I talking about the Iraq Trip- Photo by Cedric Hohnstadt

Sketching As Story- Moderated by Jeff Koterba and featuring Chris Browne (cartoonist on Hagar the Horrible) Josh Cooley, illustrator/animator Cedric Hohnstadt and cartoonist/illustrator/animator/you-name-it Glenn McCoy (The Duplex, The Flying McCoys), this panel discussed how storytelling is incorporated into their work and how they go about it.

The Sketching as Story Panel and the back of Buck Jone’s head…

We were then in for a special treat… the exhibit One Fine Sunday in the Funny pages, curated by “Stay Tooned” editor and publisher John Read was hanging in the Bemis Gallery just down the street, and the crowd sauntered over there to enjoy the show. You can read the details about the exhibit here but in short it is a collection of about 250 comic strips that all appeared in newspapers on the SAME Sunday, April 11th, 2010. I was greatly looking forward to seeing the show, and it was every bit as great as I expected.

Some pics from the exhibit:

A “Pearls Before Swine” Original

Doonesbury!

This one made me laugh out loud…

Edison Lee!

Rick Kirkman and a fan…

We also squeezed in a chapter meeting somewhere there, which included judging the 2010 Toon-Ed Award which featured some gret work in comics, comic strips, animation, editorial cartooning and illustration.

Judging the Toon Ed Award- Photo by Scott Holmes

Of course we also had a great time hanging out with other cartoonists, talking shop and eating and drinking ourselves silly. Great fun for all and a great job by Kaneko, Jeff Koterba, all the guest speakers, John Read and of course our Fearless leader, chapter chairman Mike Edholm.

Q: Like you I use a nib (i.e. a dip pen and ink) to draw cartoons with but unlike you I don’t have deadlines to worry about. Artwork inked with a nib can take a long time to dry before you can erase any pencil lines and scan into the computer to be coloured. Do you have a number of pieces on the go at any one time or do you have to just go and do something else. I can’t imagine a client would accept, “sorry, the ink isn’t dry”!

A: Inking with a dip pen does lay down a lot of ink and it does take a bit of time to dry… but not THAT long. Even the heaviest of lines are dry in about 10 minutes or so…. certainly not long enough that it would interfere with meeting a deadline. The main concern with using a pen nib to ink is smearing the inked lines with my hand if I try to work on the drawing while it’s too wet. I do several things to combat this:

1. Work on a few different pages at the same time- As you mentioned, this is a good solution if you have multiple pieces to do at one time. In the case of a MAD parody, I usually have several pages to do for a job, so its easy to work on one until it’s too wet to continue working on, then I toss it aside and grab another page and work on that until it’s too wet… then on to another or back to the now dry first page.
2. Work down and to the right- (If you are a lefty it would be “down and to the left”). I will start in the upper left of either the panel or object I am working on, then proceed to lay down ink lines as I move down and to the right, ending up on the lower right of the panel or object. In this way all my wet, inked lines are above and to the left of my inking hand, and thus never get obscured or passed over by that hand. I can see them at all times and am never in danger of smearing them… unless I forget and move back up to the upper left again in which case both smearing and swearing occur in proportionate amounts.
3. Use a brush for the big lines- The big, thick lines take a lot longer to dry due to the heavy amount of ink laid down, but you use FAR less ink when using a brush as opposed to a pen and nib. I will often use a #2 or #3 watercolor brush to ink in big, bold lines for that reason. They are dry almost instantly. If you are comfortable inking with a brush, this is a good solution.
4. Blot the not-quite-dry lines- I don’t do this too often because it often messes up the line, but you can carefully blot the excess ink off the paper surface if you use a tightly rolled paper towel. Roll up a folded paper towel so it is about a 4 inch long tightly rolled tube. Lay it on the paper surface close to the wet line but not on the wet area. Roll it slowly across the paper and wet line keeping gentle pressure on the roll and not allowing it to slide at all… the trick is to roll it along the surface. This only works for smaller areas as once you reach the full circumference of the roll you have to stop blotting. Also the area cannot be too wet, or you will just squeeze it into a big blob of ink.

Fortunately for inkers everywhere, there is a little thing called “white out” that can be used to fix the inevitable little smears and screw ups when needed… nobody likes to use that stuff, though, so a little care and foresight when inking will save on the need for the white.

See my tutorial on inking for more techniques and tips.

Thanks to Des Campbell from England 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!

Okay… so I didn’t FLY to Omaha, Nebraska for the annual fall meeting of the North Central Chapter of the National Cartoonists Society which I am attending today and tomorrow. I didn’t have a cartoon of my trusty Buick barreling down the highway with the Iowa State Patrol in hot pursuit.

A full report of our antics on Monday…