This week’s sketch subject is Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter. She has a very long face, a crooked mouth and small, angular eyes very far apart.

Looks like the guys at MAD are already running out of good material for their Official Blog, The Idiotical… they are resorting to featuring me as their “Artist Spotlight”!

Actually the MAD gang are really pulling out the stops for The Idiotical. This is no afterthought. They constantly update with daily (and often multiple times per day) content that is a combination of original stuff, classic MAD bits, peeks at current content from the magazine and other fun garbage. They have recurring original features as well, like this “artist spotlight” thing. I wonder if my being featured this week has anything to do with that envelope I sent them containing $20 and a note that said “when am I going to be the %$#@ ‘Artist Spotlight’??”… nah—I’m sure it’s random.

Speaking of MAD, I’m behind on the art for a movie parody that will be in issue #515… so stop distracting me!

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Last week Chris Sparks posted a look at the dust jacket artwork for the upcoming Team Cul De Sac book. The artwork is done (of course) by the incomparable Richard Thompson. I’ve posted about the book before—it features artwork by 150 well-known cartoonists with their take on Petey, Alice and the Cul De Sac world. The full list of contributors can be found here, and it’s damned impressive. I am so happy to have been a small part of this project, which will raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation for research for Parkinson’s disease. Chris was even kind enough to use a blurb from me on the back of the dust jacket!

You can preorder the book here, the release is set for June. If you are a fan of cartooning, this is a one-of-a-kind-must-have book… plus you will be supporting a great cause. I plan on taking care of a few Christmas gifts early this year with a multiple-copy order!

Q: How do I break into MAD?

A: If you want to break into MAD, the easiest way is with a grappling hook, 50 feet of rope, a glass cutter and suction cups. You can bribe your way in on Wednesdays with home baked cookies offered to Dick DeBartolo.

Seriously, getting into MAD is notoriously hard to do, but it isn’t quite the impenetrable fortress it was in the 70′s and 80′s. Back then MAD had their legendary freelancers in their prime, and there was frankly very little work they had in the magazine that one of their established and well known “Usual Gang of Idiots” was not available to do. It was ‘a closed shop’ as was quoted among hopeful freelancers. Today is a little bit different.

MAD‘s long time artists are slowing down, going into retirement, semi-retirement or just plain have less interest in tight deadlines and overwhelming amounts of work. Who can blame them? Their terrific work has defined the magazine for 60 years! Now that the magazine is in color, the dynamic has changed somewhat and artists who work in color have more of a shot at getting their chance than those who work in black and white only. The magazine is also striving to establish a more modern look and identity in the 21st century, and is more open to newer styles and different aesthetics than the traditional MAD look. These changes have opened the doors a little to new artist’s work. Given all that, MAD is still a tough nut to crack. In order to ‘break in’, you need three things firmly in place: have work that they like a lot, demonstrate professionalism and be in the right place at the right time.

Do work they like- This first point may be the hardest. MAD‘s idea of work they like isn’t necessarily the same as just “great work.” There are lots of artists that are terrific and that the editors and art staff are impressed by, but they feel their work just doesn’t fit the magazine. Many caricaturists fit this mold. I know of several who’s caricature work is exemplary, but who suffer from “caricaturist disease.” That’s a syndrome where a caricature artist thinks the world stops at the neck. They are so focused on the face they ignore the rest of the universe. MAD looks for artists who create their own world as seen through their own eyes, meaning the chairs, cars and toilets they draw have as much personality as their caricatures. MAD also looks for artists who can ‘sell a gag’ as I have mentioned before, meaning their artwork makes a written joke funnier and easier to understand. They also look for uniqueness. They don’t want Mort Drucker or Jack Davis clones. Finally, they are always looking for the “MAD feel”, which doesn’t seem to have a quantifiable definition.

Demonstrate Professionalism- This seems like an oxymoron as MAD is famous for self-deprecation and bucking the rules, but don’t let that facade fool you. These guys know their business and expect their freelancers to hit deadlines, do professional work and take art and editorial direction like a pro. The easiest way to demonstrate this is by having a body of work already established… in comics, magazine illustration, advertising, etc. It’s very, VERY hard to do work for MAD without having established credentials as a cartoonist or illustrator. MAD has been at the top of it’s genre for 50 plus years, and they don’t need to act as a proving ground for young, inexperienced talent. Unfortunately the MAD knock-offs that DID act as such a proving ground are basically all gone now. Having a portfolio with published work is basically a must.

Be in the right place at the right time- This means just get lucky. In order to get work from MAD they first must have a job available to give you. Here’s how the distribution of freelance work happens at MAD (as I understand it): First, the editorial and art staff meet with the features and articles that need art for upcoming issues. They start out with the “A” list of freelancers, or those who’s work is in almost every issue. They assign jobs to them as they see the individual artist’s style fits the piece, taking into account the artist’s availability, etc. Once all the “A’ listers are busy with something, they move on to the “B” list, or those who’s work is in the magazine consistently a few times a year. If there is any work left over at this point, they move on to the ‘best of the rest’, meaning those artists who have done some work in the past but aren’t really regulars. If anything is still left over, they will start considering new artists. As you might imagine, many months might go by without ever reaching that point. It’s even tougher now that there are only 6 issues a year.

There are two features in MAD that allow for new artists to get a ‘tryout’ without MAD having to commit a deadline or multiple pages to: “The Fundalini Pages” and “The Strip Club”. The “Fundalini Pages” is a three page collection of short gags, features and jokes that often need a spot illustration, and I’ve seen numerous new artists crop up there. The “Strip Club” is a multi-page feature containing comic strips that have edgy and quirky subjects and feels to them, and many new artists have appeared in that. Getting work in these sections is a little more likely and can lead to bigger assignments.

There is no secret address or password that will get your work in front of “the right person”. Not even home baked cookies will make any difference. Trust me when I say that anyone who sends work into MAD will get the proper attention paid to it, usually by Sam Viviano himself. Send artwork to “MAD Magazine, Sam Viviano- Art Director, 1700 Broadway, New York, NY 10019″. Writers can submit via e-mail at submissions@madmagazine.com. Do not e-mail any artwork, always mail it. Here is a link to their submission guidelines for more info. My advice is only send them strong, publishable type work, and leave the cool sketches you ripped out of your sketchbook at home. They aren’t interested in your ‘potential’, they just want to see work they could envision reproduced in the magazine.

Finally, be patient. Continue to send submissions in periodically. That way you have the best shot of having your work happen to be on Sam’s desk the day they are looking for someone to do a Fundalini spot. Never send the same thing twice, always make it new work they haven’t seen yet. Don’t get discouraged… after all, if I can get into MAD anybody can!

The above is reposted from a 2006 (with updates) mailbag question because… well… I get this one a lot. 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!

Fellow caricaturist Rick Wright asked in the comments on yesterday’s blog post about my 2012 Reuben artwork if I used a 3D program to do the Las Vegas sign in the background, and I got a couple of emails asking how I handled that (one accused me of photomontaging it!). So, I thought I’d post the pencil roughs and inks for a little behind the scenes look:

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Above is the the rough concept sketch. Typically I only take a rough stab at the caricature at this point because I am just working out the composition and general concept. However I did do a fairly tight sketch of the sign in the slight worm’s eye perspective I intended. I had moved John’s header text/graphics over to the right and wanted to use that space on the left for the NCS logo on top of the sign. This sketch was also for “position only” purposes for John , so I didn’t bother drawing in all the characters quite yet… I just knew where I would fit them in.

Unfortunately I didn’t scan in the final pencil sketch before I did the inks, so I don;t have that to show. Here is the final inked version. Note I enlarged the logo on the sign and altered the perspective a touch:

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I inked mostly with a dip pen, but I did break out a brush for the blacks in the suits, etc.

Here is how I handled the sign…

With the lines on their own layer, I painted the background:

Then I painted the sign. Sorry for the big jump in steps, but I flattened all the sign color and lettering into one layer and didn’t have it to separate out for this little demonstration. I did my usual process of painting in flat, base colors first, then selecting the individual colors with the wand tool and painting the shadows/highlights in. I usually avoid the airbrush tool in PhotoShop, but in this case I wanted the smooth, gradated look. The hand lettered “Fabulous” I isolated on the inked layer and then colored the linked lines a flat blue, then added some shadow along the top of them to match that cast by the protruding “drum” objects. Finally I found a font that closely resembled the one in the real Las Vegas sign, and did the lettering using the text tool in the appropriate colors. Then I rasterized the text, and used the transform>distort feature to create the right perspective look to the lettering, which I did using the eyeball method:

I debated whether or not to do the neon-tubing like in the real sign, which I was afraid would be too much. I ended up compromising by doing it on the sign letters but not on the NCS logo, which I thought would make that too busy and hard to see. The tubing was easy. I did the letters by painting in the tubes using a flat, light gray, and then selecting them and creating the darker gradated edges with an “inner shadow” layer filter:

Lastly, I created the circular tubes the same way, but added the connections to the surface of the sign as well:

Fun little illustration, and I’m glad so many people got a kick out of it.

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The official brochures and registration info for the National Cartoonists Society’s 2012 Reuben Awards should be landing in member’s mailboxes starting today, so I thought I’d post the artwork I did for this year’s brochure. This image depicts the 2012 guest speakers, special award winners and our nutty emcee. Here’s the list of unlucky models: Top: Tom Gammill (The Doozies, TV writer and producer, Reubens emcee). Second row from left: Steve McGarry (Badlands, Trivquiz, Biographic, Kid City, NCS Silver T-Square recipient), Mark Simon (animator, storyboard artist, entrepreneur), Alfred E. Neuman (idiot), John Lotshaw (Accidental Centaurs), Dave Kellett (Sheldon, Drive), Michael Jantze (The Norm, Jantze Studios, SCAD). Bottom row from left: Ray Billingsley (Curtis), Butch Hartman (Fairly Oddparents, Danny Phanton, T.U.F.F. Puppy), Jim Davis (Garfield) and Stan Goldberg (Archie, recipient of the NCS Gold Key Award). Assorted characters related to those depicted abound.

This is NOT the official Reuben Awards image. That one is being done by illustrator Ed Steckley this year, and will be featured on the T-shirt, program and other fun stuff. Ed had to wait until the “Cartoonist of the Year” nominees were announced, and I didn’t want to that long to get the brochure printed and mailed. This one might be printed on the other side of the t-shirt, unless I am lynched by the subjects demanding retribution for my mangling their faces.

Headline design by John Kovaleski. No one will lynch him for that… it looks good.

Bit of a cheat this week for the SotW as this is a portion of a job I’m working on. Park of the rough sketch, thus the very loose drawing. I’ll post the final art when it’s appropriate. I would hope it’s obvious this is a caricature of Albert Einstein.

Image courtesy and © 2011 Richard Thompson/Universal Uclick

2010 National Cartoonist Society “Cartoonist of the Year” Richard Thompson is taking a hiatus from his Universal Uclick syndicated comic strip Cul de Sac, and inviting six guest cartoonists to take over the reins of the popular daily during his absence. Richard is taking time off to receive treatment for Parkinson’s Disease.

The six guest cartoonists will be Ken Fisher (Tom the Dancing Bug), Michael Jantze (The Norm), Corey Pandolph (Elderberries), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Lincoln Pierce (Big Nate) and Mo Willems (award winning children’s book author/illustrator). Their guest stints began yesterday (Monday, Feb 20th) with Michael Jantze behind the pen, and will continue with dailies through the week of March 19 and Sundays from March 18 through April 15.

You can read about the guest artist project on the Washington Post’s Comic Riffs blog, complete with interviews of several of the guest artists discussing their involvement and how they approached their take on the unique look at humor of Cul de Sac.

This is going to be very interesting. All the cartoonists involved are great talents, and it is going to be fun to see how they incorporate Richard’s style in with their own. I would be surprised to see any of them do a straight imitation of Richard’s very individual artistic look. The two dailies by Michael so far have that Cul de Sac flavor but are still obviously a different artist’s take.

BTW, several of the guest cartoonists also contributed to the upcoming Cul de Sac book benefiting the Michael J. Fox Foundation which supports Parkinson’s Disease research.

Last week’s kerfuffle over the New York Times Sunday Review‘s new initiative restore an editorial cartoon to it’s features by soliciting submissions of finished cartoons on spec created quite a bit of negative response from professional cartoonists. Cartoonist, former National Cartoonist Society president and Cagle Cartoons syndicate owner Daryl Cagle was one of many who received the following response from the Times last week:

As I’m sure you all know, we got a lot of reactions to our request for cartoons for a new feature in the Sunday Review — much of it negative. Your very good questions and criticisms of our process have forced us to take a second look, and to reconsider. We are going to postpone adding the cartoon to our section until we can figure out a process that is fair to cartoonists and also works for us.

Appreciate your interest in the Times.
The Editors.

You can read Daryl’s thoughtful reactions on his blog.

Their rethinking the process is good, but the end result of them deciding not to run a cartoon is like curing the disease by killing the patient… but at least they are only postponing the idea and not dismissing it. I agree with Daryl’s suggestion that, if they want to run an exclusive editorial cartoon, they treat the process like they would any exclusive column or regular feature. Solicit portfolios from professional cartoonists, look for one who’s work and voice are in keeping with the editorial direction of the Times, then commission them to produce a weekly cartoon and pay a living wage.

I know people think newspapers are dying, but the New York Times has a Sunday (the day this feature would appear) print circulation of 1.6 million and just passed a paid online subscription base of 380,000. I think they can afford to pay for a weekly original cartoon if it’s something their readers want to see.

Good for the Times to realize their initial approach was not well thought out, and I hope they come up with something that will benefit both their publication and whatever cartoonist(s) they end up working with.

Q: Regarding using DVDs or other video sources for finding reference for your caricatures: Ever since upgrading to MAC OS X Lion I’ve had a devil of a time finding a screen capture solution that allows me to grab a movie still from an iTunes movie or a DVD. I read on your blog that you recommended “CaptureIt!”,  but I downloaded and ran the trial version and it doesn’t work either. The images it captures are just the white-and-grey grid. Have you been able to find anything that actually works in Lion?

A: This question came from fellow Minnesota illustrator Cedric Hohnstadt last week and wasn’t really for the mailbag, but coincidentally a better solution for this just was released, and it seemed like it might make a good mailbag question.

Some background: Apple makes some very good hardware and software products, but sometimes their thinking drives me crazy. They have always taken a “I know better than you so it’s my way or the highway” attitude when it comes to what they allow their customers to use their products for. One such example is their bizarre obsession to prevent Mac users from being able to do a screen capture (a simple still of a paused video) from any video source on the Mac. First they prevented their built in screen cap program “Grab” from being able to do it (taking a screen capture with Grab that includes a window with video in it results in that window appearing black). Then they eliminated any workaround using Terminal. The program “CaptureIt!” mentioned above worked in versions of OSX up through Snow Leopard, but Apple was up to it’s old tricks when they released Lion, and did something to eliminate that feature in CaptureIt!. As Cedric says, screen caps from that program now just show the checkerboard. This is an extremely frustrating policy, as there are many legitimate and legal reasons one can have to take screen captures of a video, including an artist looking for references to draw a parody of that video and the people in it. In fact, it was Apple’s lame-brained policy on this that kept me from using Macs in the first place, and I have seriously considered using Boot Camp or Parallels and a copy of Windows on my Mac just so I can have the pleasure of using the MANY great Windows-based video players that have excellent screen capture features.

My response to Cedric was that I use a program called “VLC player” to play DVDs, Quicktime videos, MP3s, and other flavors and can do screenshots from that with a combination keystroke. It’s not as convenient as CaptureIt! because as there is no single frame advance using VLC, nor does it have quite as elegant and easy an interface, but it worked. The lack of single frame advance was particularly annoying, as I often use that to get a clear and focused still as opposed to a blurry shot in mid-movement.

As it happens, VLC just released an updated version that is a total reworking from the ground up. It has many new features for those who do a lot of video work, but the nice thing for me is it added that missing single-frame advance. It’s still a little clunky to take and organize screen caps, as you need to set up a directory for them and either use a three-key shortcut or click into a menu for the action, but it works well and does the job.

So, for those of you who have a fair use, legitimate reason to take screen captures of video and use a Mac, I recommend VLC Player for that purpose and, best of all, it’s free. However, if you use VLC for professional purposes as I do, I hope you will donate some dough to support its development. I just did a new donation this morning after updating to VLC 2.0, even though I had donated previously. Without support from users, developers like those who created VLC wouldn’t be around and we’d be stuck with Apple’s $#@&*^ holier-than-thou BS policies… or Windows.

Thanks to Cedric Hohnstadt 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!