Q: I know you have already covered the basics of exaggerating but I’d really love to pick your brain a bit more about seeing your subject; what to exaggerate and emphasise and what to play down. For example drawing familiar faces, friends or relatives or even celebrities you’ve ‘known’ for years. Or drawing characters like Lemmy Kilmister, who looks like a caricature already. It seems really hard to analyze someone’s face that far without over-analyzing and losing the big picture.

A: Well, that’s the trick to caricature. It’s exactly those decisions, what to exaggerate and what not to, that dictate the success of a caricature and places the artist’s personal stamp on the art.

There is no single right or wrong way to draw and exaggerate a given face. Different artists can make different choices and still create a successful caricature. My choices on what to exaggerate might not be the same as your choices. How far you push the exaggeration might not match how far (or little) I push mine. While there are many “wrong” decisions that can ruin a caricature (drawing someone with small, beady eyes and giving them big, gigantic eyes would be a wrong decision), there are also several “right” ones that can apply. Caricature is rooted in personal vision and observation, and the decisions that stem from a given artist will reflect those unique perceptions. You can take a single subject around the country getting a thousand different caricatures drawn of he or she, and no two will be exactly alike. Some will be unsuccessful, but many will be great, dead-on caricatures yet differ wildly. That’s one of the most exciting things about the art of caricature.

I tell the artists that work with my theme park operations that great caricatures are made up of 25% drawing and 75% seeing. Having strong drawing skills is a must, but it’s the ability to see the unique relationships in the face and then make good choices on exaggerating them that is the bulk of the success of a caricature. Even an artist that can draw incredibly well can’t do good caricatures if they can’t see what to exaggerate—the most accurate shooter in the NBA can’t score if they can’t find the basket.

Learning to “see” is a lifelong process and involves developing your ability, not learning it. Yes, there are many techniques and concepts that can help an artist develop that ability, but ultimately only thousands of drawings and hours of time and effort will cause that “caricature eye” to open wider.

Thanks to Tomi Lepistö from Sipoo, Finland 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!

Carlos Santana may be getting old, but guitars do not age and he still rocks!

Back in May The Lovely Anna and I had occasion to visit Las Vegas scouting locations for the National Cartoonists Society’s Reuben Weekend, and while there we saw the 80′s rock band Foreigner perform at the Green Valley Ranch Resort.  Last night, Anna and some girlfriends was Foreigner again with Journey and Night Ranger here in St. Paul… 80′s rock flashback.

When I Facebooked about seeing Foreigner, I got a few comments about how it’s not the “real” Foreigner since original lead singer Lou Gramm was not touring with the band. Likewise, Journey is touring without Steve Perry. Both have young guys who sound just like their predecessors on lead vocals. Many people feel like this is a rip-off—that it’s just a money-grab and the fans are getting cheated without the full line-up on stage.

Well, or course it’s a money-grab… but that doesn’t mean it also isn’t better for the fans.

Let’s face it, the only people who really want to see bands like Journey and Foreigner perform are fans of their classic rock music… they are not reaching out to a new generation of fans with new songs. Both those bands have new albums out, and both did a few numbers from those albums, but in both cases the crowd was silenced and just looked around blinking at one another thinking “what the $%$#@ is this?” until it was over and they went into another of their classics. That’s what these fans want to hear, and in most cases they wouldn’t be hearing it if the original lead singers would be up there trying to belt it out.

Unlike guitars, bass’s, drums and such, voices are instruments that do not last, especially those being abused singing rock music. Few 70′s- 80′s singers can still hit the same notes with the same ferocity now that they are 60-plus years old. Steven Tyler of Aerosmith comes to mind, but not many others. The crowds want to hear the songs the way they remember them… it would be sad to hear some 63 year old geezer up there either butchering the songs or singing it differently to cover up their aging vocals. Steve Perry is rumored to be unable to sing at all anymore due to health issues. I doubt Lou Gramm would be half as energetic and spot-on as the young guy who sang in his place when we saw Foreigner. Mick Jones, the band’s lead guitarist, stood like a statue in silk pajamas during the show, but he brought it on the guitar and sounded as good as he ever has. He’s lucky… his instrument doesn’t age. I saw AC/DC a year or so ago, and Brian Johnson‘s voice was in rough shape. He had to alter the songs so he didn’t have to hit some of the tougher notes. Still fun to see but…

Yes, I’d prefer to have the original lineup there and hear them all playing together… if they were still in their 30′s. This way, with younger lead singers who can hit all the notes with gusto, the crowds get to hear what they want to hear and still see most of the band they remember. In many cases the original lead singers don’t want to participate anyway… so this is as close as you are going to get to the classic bands.

They should skip the new material, though. They’ve already done 80′s rock as good as it will ever be done… who needs another album?

Some info on the revival performaces of The MAD Show! musical from MAD’s official blog, The Idiotical:

This weekend, the York Theatre Company is producing The MAD Show, which was originally produced Off-Broadway in 1966. It has a book by legendary MAD writers Larry Siegel and Stan Hart; lyrics by Marshall Barer and Steven Vinaver; and music by Mary Rodgers (including a song by Stephen Sondheim). The original production featured actors Linda Lavin and Jo Ann Worley. The revival cast will include popular actors and actresses from Broadway and Off-Broadway.

Check out this post on The Idiotical for more info, and for background on the original 1966 show, see these posts from Drew Friedman and Mark Evanier both here and here.

I’m still extremely busy trying to get caught up after being away for the San Diego Comic-Con, so here is one of the studies I did for the limited edition print I sold at Comic-Con (and am still selling). This is Roger Moore, the James Bond I remember from my youth. I thought he was THE James Bond, until I saw Sean Connery‘s earlier films after a recommendation from one of my middle-school teachers. Connery’s still the best, but I do like Daniel Craig in the role.

Several people expressed an interest in getting a copy of my signed and numbered, limited edition print, “Secret Agent Man” if I had any left after Comic-Con… well, I have plenty left. They were popular and stopped a lot of people in their tracks as they walked by, but I had a LOT of them. There were 250 total, 11″ x 17″, all signed and numbered… more than half of them are still available.

The print sold for $25 at Comic-Con. Anyone who wants a copy can get one for $20 and plus $5 domestic shipping or $8 international.

Choose your shipping option!

Print w/U.S. Shipping $25.00 Print w/International Shipping $28.00

Personalized? Details:

Comic-Con is over and I’m on my way back to Minnesota. Here are a few pictures from the weekend:

Number one son Tom mans the booth…

Drawing a caricature of some kids

The Big MAD Panel: From L to R: Host Mark Evanier, Sergio Aragonés,
editor John Ficarra, art director Sam Viviano, Dick Debartolo,
Peter Kuper, myself, Keith Knight.

Me answering a question

Not sure how this picture got mixed up in here…

They put me up on the video board just like the real artists
when I signed at the DC Comics booth.

Doing a drawing for a MAD fan

It was fun, and exhausting. Sitting at my drawing board in my studio getting caught up with work will seem like a vacation.

Q: I know of several excellent caricature artists that, from time to time, copy celebrity photographs found on the web in “caricature” form and then sell these works as art-prints. Are these artists at risk of copyright infringement as “Derivative Works”? I understand that some protection is offered under the Fair Use exceptions involving parody/satire, but I’m not sure if this would offer a bulletproof defense in court … especially when I look at the art involved in the famous Rogers v. Koons case involving Derivative Works.

Of course, I have no idea whether these artists are getting permission from the source-photo’s copyright holder, which would make this a moot point. But, for the sake of discussion, I was hoping you might share your thoughts on this somewhat confusing subject.

A: Copyright, Trademark and Right of Publicity laws can be pretty confusing… which is which, and what applies to what? What exceptions exist? Copyrights refer to the rights to reproduce a piece of intellectual property, like a photo, drawing, painting, audio recording, video, some form of writing like a book, article, etc… basically anything someone creates using their brains or talents. Trademarks protect the use of a specific image, word or name that identifies something as being from a company or other entity, and laws exist to prevent others from using that trademark or one similar enough to cause confusion. Right of Publicity is the right of a celebrity to protect the value of their identity and fame for things like products, advertising and endorsement. Exceptions to these laws include things like Fair Use, which is the right to use copyright material done for a limited and “transformative” purpose, such as to comment upon, criticize, or parody a copyrighted work.

The term you are talking about, “Derivative Work”, describes a new, original piece of work that incorporates significant elements of an exisiting, copyrighted work. Examples of this would be making movie based on a book, remixing a song using different instruments, or doing a sculpture or painting based on a photo. In the case of derivative works, the new work is really just another version of the original work… maybe with a new spin on it by the creator of the derivative work, but still relying primarily on the copyrighted work it’s based on.

If a caricaturist does a caricature based on a single photo and the person who owns that photo’s copyright objects, a Fair Use defense would not apply. That’s because the Fair Use aspect of the caricature is about parody and making fun of the subject or some aspect of the subject’s work or industry… not the photo itself. The photograph is not being parodied, the subject of the photo is. The claim of the photographer would be that the caricature is a derivative work, as you rightly suggest. In this case, the main defense of the caricaturist is that is is not derivative but a totally original work. This is based on the idea that the new work is sufficiently changed to be unrecognizable as the original work it was based on, and that new, original concepts and ideas were applied to make it unmistakeably the work of the new artist. That sometimes holds true and sometimes does not. Yes, the caricature is based on a photo, but by it’s very nature caricature is “transformative”, meaning it’s changed significantly from the photo it is based on… otherwise it wouldn’t be a caricature, would it?

A “Transformative Work”, like a derivative work, incorporates elements of another copyrighted work in it. Unlike a derivative work, it is considered a totally original and copyrightable piece of work. At what point does a work become “transformative” instead of “derivative”? that’s the big question. There are no hard and fast rules. In general terms, in order of a work to be considered transformative it needs to have been changed enough from the original and to have become unmistakeably the work of the ‘new’ artist. The most famous art example of transformative work would probably be that of Andy Warhol, who used copyrighted photos and trademarks in his art but injected his own style and concepts into them to make them sufficiently transformative to be considered original works.

It can be a crapshoot in court to demonstrate whether a work is sufficiently transformative to be original as opposed to derivative. In the case you cited, Rogers vs. Koons, the sculptor’s work was found not to be sufficiently transformative (making the puppies blue and adding some flowers in the hair of the people didn’t do it for the court). There are often percentages mentioned as it pertains to the courts and transformative works: a work is transformative if it is 20% different, etc… 20% of what? Mostly I think works being examined as being either transformative or derivative must pass the “sniff test”… if the average Joe looks at it, do they mistake it for the original work, or see it as something completely different? In close cases, one court may decide one way and another court decide another way.

In the case of caricature, I think you’d have to do a something pretty close to a straight portrait copy of the photo to get the piece labeled a derivative work. Like I said, by it’s very nature caricature exaggerates and transforms a subject into the unique version of the artist. I would be very surprised if something that was clearly a caricature was ever found to be a derivative work by the courts. It’s much more likely a caricaturist would be taken to task by the subject of their work over Right of Publicity or copyright issues.

Thanks to Jack Hunter 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!

Ordering is now online for my book, The Mad Art of Caricature! The book will ship in September, but by popular demand pre-ordering is now underway. Here are your ordering options:

• Signed book: $24.95
• Signed book plus sketch of Alfred: $39.95
• Signed book plus random original caricature art* from the book: $49.95
• Signed book plus sketch of Alfred and random original caricature art*: $59.95

Shipping & handling:

• $5.00 in the U.S
• $10.00 for Canada
• $15 for any other country via US Postal International Flat Rate.

* Regarding the original art option- these are celebrity caricature drawings that appear in the book. Most are former “Sketch of the Week” pencil drawings, which I scanned in and added digital grayscale to for print. I have exactly 100 of these, and they are sure to sell out quickly. This option goes to the first 100 people that choose it, and then I will remove the option from the ordering menu. If I get flooded with orders for the original art option and don’t get it removed in time to prevent over 100 orders I will issue a refund for that $25 with my apologies to those who ordered it too late.

Payments are processed through PayPal, where you can pay with either your PayPal account or via credit card.

Thanks!

I’ll be signing free copies of MAD (I think) at the DC Comics booth (#1915) at Comic-Con on the following days and times:

• Thursday, July 21: 2-3pm
• Friday, July 22: 1-2pm
• Sunday, July 24: 10:30-11:30am

As I don’t have any copies of MAD at my booth, this will be the place to go to get the freebee signed. Then you can take it over to Sergio‘s booth and get him to sign it, and Peter Kuper, and who knows who else!

I’ll mostly be at my booth all other times, except when I’m not.

Because I am at Comic-Con I have to cheat this week on the “Sketch o’the Week” and post a rough drawing for a recent project instead of something I drew specifically for this feature. This may be one of the less sensitive illustrations I’ve done in a while, but the purpose of the job was to illustrate the absolutely worst things you could do in certain difficult situation, like visiting a terminal friend in the hospital. The article it illustrates gives advice on how to do the right things in the same situations.