My daughter The Dramatic Victoria showed me this:

Priceless.

Q: Do you do personal commissions? I’d really like to get a caricature done of my wife for a Christmas present. If you do, what does it entail and how much does it cost?

A: Many years ago I stopped doing personal commissions for a number of reasons. First, I didn’t have the time. I am usually swamped with publication work and it’s hard to squeeze in personal commission jobs around the edges. If I were to take them on, it would be at the expense of publication jobs.

The second reason is that I’d have to charge an outrageous fee to do personal commissions. This is because of the previously mentioned reason of having to sacrifice professional jobs in order to get the personal commissions in. I’d have to charge the same sort of rates I’d charge for the publication stuff, and to be honest I’m embarrassed to do that. My average rate for a full-page magazine illustration is about $1200, and a personal commission is comparable to that in time spent. Asking $1200 for a personal commission is, to me, ridiculous. I could name several dozen professional caricaturists who could do just as good a job as I could (or better) for far less than that.

Thirdly, personal commissions are often a real pain in the posterior. Invariably, it’s always a battle with the client over the caricature itself. Usually I am being commissioned to do caricatures of people the client is very close to, often a relative, friend or co-worker. These are people they are in constant contact with and with whom they have the kind of close dynamic I would never be able to duplicate working from a few photos. As a result, there is a often great deal of “this doesn’t quite capture them” or “don’t make them so heavy” that becomes frustrating. I am far from a “mean guy” caricaturist, but I am working cold drawing a person I have never met from a series of sometime lousy photos, trying to capture a person the client knows intimately. The bottom line is I am trying to capture from a bunch or two-dimensional pictures not the way the subject looks but the way the client thinks the subject looks, and that leads to difficulties.

The last real personal commission I had was the one that broke the camel’s back for me. It was probably ten years ago, and I was contacted by a wealthy family from the Hamptons who owned some fancy restaurant in that area, and wanted a family group caricature done for their eatery. After several revisions it became obvious to me these people thought they looked like Bo Derek when they looked a lot more like Bo Diddley. I was even being overly kind to them, and they still demanded some ideal they did not match. I killed the job and have not done another since, with the exception of the occasional one for special occasions, like this one:

I did this as a present for outgoing NCS president Jeff Keane

That said, I am seriously considering changing my policy on this. I might do something like Mort Drucker did when my wife commissioned him to do a caricature of me (something he also rarely, if ever, does). Mort agreed to do a simple pencil rough of me first, and then send it to Anna for approval. If she liked it, he’d do the commission piece as agreed. If she did not, then it would simply end there and he suggested she could look at some MAD originals instead. In other words, no revisions or art direction. That might work for me to do a similar with for an advance on the commission price. If the client likes it, the advance goes toward the final cost and we proceed. If they do not, I keep the advance for my time and they are not obligated further. Might work… I’d be more inclined to consider commission work if I could eliminated the frustration of reason number three above. Something to think about.

Thanks to Bill Johnson 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!

Over on MAD‘s official blog, The Idiotical, the editors have announced that you can now purchase select MAD books for download on the Kindle Fire. Can the magazine itself be far behind?

One thing I have always had to fight against with respect to my professional work is my tendency to visualize a single solution to an illustration project and just run with it. While that is the least time-consuming way to go about things, it is also just plain lazy. It is always advisable to force yourself to come up with a few other ideas, if for no other reason than to explore the concept and exercise your conceptual skills. The magic number I always adhere to is three… I want to come up with three different ideas for an illustration that communicate the message and address the needs of the client. I may or may not present the client with a choice of the three, but internally coming up with at least three ideas makes whichever one I go with stronger for the exploration of other angles. Also, it is not unusual that the act of coming up with two other concepts beyond the first one that pops into your head will yield a better one in the process.

Working on coming up with different angles or solutions to the same dilemma is called “brainstorming”, and a good illustrator should start out each job with a brainstorming session. Here’s an example—a few days ago I posted this spot illustration I did for Seattle Business Magazine:

The concept was to create a visual for a short story about Seattle developer Michael Mastro, who disappear along with his wife and a number of assets including two diamond rings weighing in at over 40 carats from his bankruptcy hearing. The illustration needed to show them on the lam, with the loot, in a humorous way. Here are the three ideas I brainstormed for this spot:

The first two don’t actually show the Mastros at all, but tell the story of their absence in different ways. I kind of like the TSA screener idea best, but the client went with the beach scene. All three demonstrate the thought process and exploration of a solution to the assignement.

Sometime I am just plain lazy, though. This is the way it should always be done.

My apologies to all for the extended hiatus. It’s a long story involving FTP permissions, security and other client son the same servers I was on… it would be extremely boring to go into it. Suffice it to say it’s all ironed out and the MAD Blog is back in action.

By way of an apology, here is a fantastic link to the fantastic blog of fantastic illustrator Drew Friedman, where he fantastically recaps his fantastic interview with the fantastic Jack Davis.

This message has been brought to you by The MAD Blog’s Adjective of the Day:

ITCHY

Thank you.

I am once again changing servers, this time internally within my web-host’s structure, and for a brief time I am unable to upload images or do several things with the blog during the transition. As a result, The MAD Blog will be on hiatus for a brief time… might be just today, might be for a few days. Unknown. My apologies, we will be back up ASAP.

In the meantime—carry on, internet.

On news stands next week and in comic book shops today:

MAD # 513 (February 2012)

• Cover (Mark Fredrickson)
• The Fundalini Pages (Bob Staake, Glen LeLievre, Teresa Burns Parkhurst, Kevin Pope, Jeff Kruse, Scott Bricher, P.C. Vey, Tom Bunk, Kit Lively, Tim Hamilton, Jacob Lambert, Charles Akins, Jason Salas, John Caldwell, )
• The MAD 20- The Dumbest People, Events and Things of 2010
1. The Walking Debt (Artist: Hermann Mejia)
2. Tired Air Traffic Controllers: Stay the F**k Awake (Darren Johnson, James Warhola)
3. The Blind Eye (Artist: Scott Bricher)
4. The Anthony Weiner “No Limits” Sexting Plan (Writer: Desmond Devlin)
5. Wedding Cashers (Matt Lassen, Mark Stutzman)
6. The Sheen Lantern (Kit Lively & Scott Nickel, Tom Richmond)
7. Olbermann Implodes at MSNBC (Desmond Devlin, Drew Friedman)
8. No Basketball Association (Artist: Timothy Shamey)
9. Casey at the Trial (Lance Hansen with Frank Jacobs, Ward Sutton)
10. Tiger Moms (James Greby, Juan Doe)
11. Rex Ryan: Footlewd (Matt Lassen, Scott Bricher)
12. A Message from Netflix (Dick DeBartolo)
13. Crazy, Stupid Gov (Artist: Richard Williams)
14. Birther King (Desmond Devlin, Roberto Parada)
15. Game of Phones (Jacob Lambert, Mick Coulas)
16. Michele Bachmann: The Look of Moron (Writers: Frank Santopadre and Genenieve Sterbenz)
17. Howard Camping: The Day the Earth Still Stood (Jacob Lambert, Mark Stutzman)
18. The Amazingly Dangerous Spider-Play (Desmond Devlin, Ty Templeton)
19. The Pee-Wee Herman Cain Show (Artist: Mark Fredrickson)
20. The MAD Fold-In (Al Jaffee)
• The Strip Club (Tom Bland, Keith Knight, Kit Lively & Scott Nickel, Kenny Keil, Jason Coates, Brian Gordon, Joey Alison Sayers)
• Planet Tad!!!!! (Writer: Tim Carvell)
• A MAD Look at Protests (Sergio Aragonés, Tom Luth)
• Spy vs Spy (Peter Kuper)
• Ways to Create a Healthier McDonald’s Experience (Teresa Burns Parkhurst)
• The MAD Vault: (Frank Jacobs, Don Martin)
• Drawn Out Dramas (Sergio Aragonés)

So, what are you waiting for? Go buy a furshslugginer copy, clod!

Q: Knowing that you’re a huge Batman fan, which version of Batman (TV or movie) do you feel came closest to living up to the character and who would be your favorite villain? Also, I know you’ve had some of your work animated, but did animation itself ever appeal to you as a career?

A: Please forgive the self-indulgence of answering a more personal opinion question here. Let’s take the second one first, as it’s the more pertinent professional query. I never considered animation as a career because I don’t have the patience for it. I might have been able to do character design given proper study and application, but it just didn’t interest me much. If anything, I think I’d be best at storyboarding animation as I enjoy graphic storytelling more than anything else. I have gigantic respect for those that do work in animation, as it takes enormous talent and skill to do so. I guess I’ll just continue to be a fan of great animation and enjoy it from the theater chair or my couch.

As to the Batman question, this comic I did for the ISCA magazine Exaggerated Features pretty much say it all:

Click for a closer look…

Click for a closer look…


Click for a closer look…

I did that before seeing Batman Begins or, of course, The Dark Knight Returns. I liked the first film a lot and loved the second. Best of the live action stuff IMHO, but nothing beats the Paul Dini/Bruce Timm version from Batman: The Animated Series. The perfect blend of the peak of human physical potential, mental detective skills, use of great wealth for equipment and advantage, and the vengeance driven psyche without going overboard with the darkness and psychotic angle. Greta stories, great style, great show. To be fair, I never watched The Batman, Batman Beyond or The Brave and the Bold shows.

Favorite bat-villain: it’s not a very original opinion but the Joker is the greatest comic book villain ever created. Ever. Period. End-of-story.

Actually, I do love the old 60′s show and can appreciate a comic take on the character. That cartoon above was done from a traditional comic-book fan’s perspective, which usually accounts for zero sense of humor about their beloved characters.

Thanks to John Nelson 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!

When I joined the National Cartoonists Society in 1999, I got the chance to meet many of my cartooning heroes at the Reuben Awards weekends held in May each year. It was thrilling to get to meet legends like Jack Davis, Charles Schulz, Mort Drucker, Jeff MacNelly, Mike Peters… the list goes on and on. I’m not easily starstruck, but a few of those artists I was genuinely tongue-tied when I met them.

Jerry Robinson might be the one I was most awed to meet, and that is saying something.

Anybody who knows me knows I am a huge Batman fan… as I type this my movie-prop replica Batman costume stands 10 feet behind me on a mannequin, ready for action. I have a studio full of Bat-toys and boxes of Detective Comics dating back to the 1950s. Jerry was one of the talents who worked on the early days of Batman that shaped him into the enduring character he became, including creating Robin and the Joker. Just those contributions to the world of comics would have been enough to cement his legacy as one of the founding giants of the industry. However, that was just one of many important accomplishments he made to cartooning. In addition to many other credits in comics including his own characters, Jerry was an illustrator, editorial cartoonist, syndicated newspaper strip creator, teacher at the School of Visual Arts in New York, president of the National Cartoonists Society from 1967-1969 and president of the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists from 1973-1975. He was also a well-respected comics historian and author of The Comics, a book that studied the history of newspaper comics. In 1978, he founded CartoonArts International, syndicating the work of over 500 international artists to publications all over the world. Jerry was also a champion of artist’s rights, and was instrumental in the struggle for securing recognition and compensation for Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster for their creation of Superman.

… and that’s just scratching the surface of the importance Jerry Robinson had to the world of comics and cartooning.

Jerry passed away on Wednesday, Dec. 7th at age 89. Rest in peace, Jerry—and thank you for being you and sharing your talent, heart and passion with the world.

Me and Jerry Robinson, Reubens 2000, NYC

Clicky to Embiggen

Usually MAD wants me to wait until the latest issue is on the stands before sharing any of the work I did in it here on The MAD Blog. Well, I guess the cat’s out of the bag on this one, so I might as well share it here. MAD has provided Comic Book Resources with an exclusive first look at the piece I illustrated for this year’s “MAD‘s 20 Dumbest People, Events & Things” feature in #513. Written by Kit Lively and Scott Nickel. Image courtesy of CBR and MAD Magazine.

Here’s the pencil rough and the finished art sans the copy (click for a closer look)…