Q: Do you ever think color MAD cartoons would’ve been funnier in B&W?

A: No, I do not think that the color art in MAD would be funnier in black and white. Color is incidental technique and has little impact on the effectiveness of a cartoon. A cartoon is either funny or it is not. Most of that has to do with the concept/writing of the cartoon and in art terms with the drawing/communication. Funny drawings are funny drawings. The work of MAD artists like Jack Davis, Don Martin and Sergio Aragonés is visually funny. If they were to take their art from the black and white days of MAD and color it, it would still be visually funny. Not one ounce of humor would be taken away from it. Conversely, a piece of bad cartooning will not suddenly become funny just because of the technique it’s rendered in. I explain this concept to the new artists who come to work with us doing live caricatures at the theme park concessions and start using the airbrush to color their drawings. I never bother asking if potential artists have any airbrush experience because the use of the airbrush or any coloring technique has little to do with good caricature. I look only at their drawing and observational skills. I tell these new artists that the drawing is by far the most important thing, and only functional skill with the airbrush is required for a good result. A bad caricature with a really good paint job is still a bad caricature. A good caricature with only a mediocre paint job is still a good caricature.

This is a lesson it took me a long time to realize applied to my illustration work as well. I used to study the inking of Wally Wood, Jack Davis, Mort Drucker and other classic humorous illustrators/ cartoonists trying to figure out why my inking didn’t have the same pop and life as theirs did. I tried the same tools they used, the same inks and the same papers. I used to look at their originals and marvel at the seemingly loose almost careless nature of the inking and wonder how they did it. It took a long time to come to the conclusion that their inking techniques were as incidental as airbrush color on caricatures is. It’s the DRAWING underneath that counts. A Jack Davis drawing that he inks with a pen nib, brush, marker, Bic pen or a sharpened stick is still going to be a Jack Davis drawing. The presentation is only the medium that allows our eyes to see it. Once I learned that lesson and started drawing with the ink instead of concentrating on the “quality of my line” my inking started becoming more energetic and had more life. Now all I have to do is learn to draw as good as Jack, Mort and Wally. Uhhhhhh… I’m not holding my breath on that one.

I do kind of lament the fact that I started with MAD right as they switched to color, but at the same time I recognize that the switch to color was one of the biggest reasons I got in at MAD… I was capable of movie/TV parody work and could to it in digital color. They needed someone like that and I came along at the right time. Still the classic black and white look is… well… classic. It would have been fun to have done more of that kind of work in MAD.

Thanks to bishopslikepawn 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!

Here’s a 1/2 page spot I did for this month’s issue of Library Journal:

Click for a closer look…

The story it accompanies is about magazines that are popular with teenage kids. I likely got the job because MAD happens to be one of the magazines they list in the article. They wanted a teenage boy and girl reading these magazines. Here’s the initial pencil sketch:

The consensus was they wanted a high impact statement, having the kids reading the magazines but surrounded by high tech toys and other things kids are known for spending their free time with, which they are ignoring in favor of the magazines. They also wanted me to make the kids more “urban” (i.e. not white). The second sketch:

I was able to salvage the girl’s body but the boy I wanted looking more laid back and cool. Plus I needed the image in a more horizontal form factor. Final inks:

You can see the final color illustration at the top of the post. I dropped in approved cover images of the various magazines. Yet another piece in my “colored line” style which is art directors seem to like.

I’m still staying remarkably busy considering the dire state of the economy. Here’s what I have on the board right now:

• MAD job- This one is still in the final pencil stage, as it sadly isn’t due for 6 weeks. Other stuff keeps cropping up preventing me from finishing it.
• Stay Tooned! Cover- This for John Read‘s fantastic magazine. I will have this done today.
• Book Job- Impossible deadline on a massive project I can’t talk about yet… so what else is new? I’m afraid you can expect to see the Dreaded Deadline Demon a few times in the next several weeks.
• Comic book- This one is still vaporwork, but promising. Can’t be more specific.

In the meantime, here’s the latest Marlin Co. workplace poster I wrapped up on Monday. The job was to depict a father trying to blow up a large outdoor pool, out of breath, neighborhood kids looking on, lady running in to save the day with an old fashioned air pump:

Pencil roughs. The client wanted the lady running in to be thinner (but not
too thin), eyes open and carrying a bigger bicycle tire air pump.

Inks

Final. Click for a closer look…

Q: While in Syracuse, we listened to a pretty cool artist who complained of unfair standards in the publishing industry. She  ranted about doing something for Playboy then finding out that Proctor and Gamble discovered it and banned her from their list of preferred illustrators. Do you fear backlash after doing something for Penthouse?

A: That thought did cross my mind. I do work for some kid orientated publications and having work in an “adult” magazine might be viewed by some as unacceptable to then be allowed bylines in their publications. That’s partly why I used a pseudonym on the last job I did for them.

Ultimately I decided I am my own moral police, and nobody is going to tell me what is appropriate and what is not. I would never do artwork I considered pornographic or that I would be embarrassed or ashamed of. Playboy and Penthouse are both publications that are rich in cartooning history and contain much content that is not objectionable to the mainstream. I would accept jobs from either publication as long as the content of those jobs is not something I would object to on moral or ethical grounds.

If that costs me jobs with other clients not because what I did was objectionable but simply because my name appears in Penthouse, then I guess I live with that. My concience is clear… I do not feel I have compromised any of my principals or beliefs in what is right and proper. If others feel differently I cannot control that.

Thanks to Michael Garisek 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!

This is a job I did a few months back for Penthouse, now on the stands.

The assignment was an unusual one, and one I had to briefly consider if I wanted to do or not. Although I do not have a problem working for Penthouse (nor would I for Playboy) those would be the only two “adult” magazines I would agree to do work for… they have a certain mainstream acceptability that Hustler, etc. does not. Additionally, I would not accept a job even from them drawing nude women or a sexually explicit subject. I have zero problem with anyone’s right or willingness to do or publish work of that nature, but I would politely decline such jobs by personal choice.

This job did not call for that, but the subject matter was drug related. The subject was a list of 13 things a man can do and not be considered “gay” so long as they are stoned when they do it. Since I do work for several kids publications I was not sure I wanted to open that door, but I figured that is not far off from what you might see in MAD. Thus I accepted the job.

The list included things like “baking”, “buying shoes”, “swinging on a swing set”, “listening to 80′s pop music”, etc. The art director wanted to include several in a single image. We needed to show a macho guy stoned out of his mind doing stuff that was not very macho. Of course the problem was that many of these activities were done at different locations, so putting several in one scene was an issue.

Pencil Roughs

My solution was to use the smoke as dream-like balloons to show a couple of the list items from “off-site”. In an effort to make the guy as macho as possible, I made him muscular and square-jawed with a “Slayer” shirt on. Of course that’s a play on an old joke that says a man can be seen kissing another man, but as long as he pauses, throws up the devil horns hand gesture and yells “Slayer RULES!” he would not be considered gay. The actual joke is more graphic that that, but you get the idea. Anyway the baking stuff, bongos, “Duran Duran” on the stereo and the cotton candy cone are all list items. I was going to toss in a poster of Michael Phelps but we decided on the Grateful Dead instead.

Below are the inks and final art.

Final inks

Click for a closer look…

I actually used a pysdoneum credit on this job because of the drug related subject, but in retrospect that was silly. If I am willing to accept a job, it should be one I have no problem signing my name to. I won’t do that pysdoneum thing again… although the art director from Penthouse understood completely. He told me he has several artists who work for children’s entertainment companies that have contracts forbidding doing work for Penthouse, Playboy, etc. and they use other names for their credits when doing work for those publications. Interesting.

I was clearing out the old tear sheet files and came across this old job from 1992 that represents some interesting points about the dos and don’ts of freelance illustration. This was the first job I remember getting directly from my sourcebook ad in the “Directory of Illustration”. I almost turning it down because I was not sure ethically if I should do it, considering the circumstances.

The client was a company called “Business and Legal Reports”, and as the name suggests they usually designed and printed business and legal reports. They had started what would be a series of comic book-like educational booklets meant to be sold to schools with anti-drugs, anti-smoking, etc. subjects.

The ethical dilemma was that I was not asked to create this comic from scratch. What I was being asked to do was finish a partially pencilled and laid out comic already worked on by a previous illustrator… IN HIS STYLE. This I was not too keen on, and I tried to convince the client to let me re-draw the several already completed pencilled pages in my own way, then continue to draw the other pages in my own style.

This they balked at, partly because the timeframe we had was extremely tight. The reason I was being asked to do this is that the other illustrator had apparently dropped the ball rather badly and put them so far behind that this was a bit of an emergency job. I don’t know the name of the illustrator nor the specifics of what happened, but the client seemed very put off by the artist’s performance. I got the feeling that stages of the job were completed much later than promised, and eventually the deadline was upon them and both parties agreed to move on with other plans.

In the end I decided that, given the original artist had lost the job via his or her own choices and created this situation, taking over the job was not an ethical no-no. I was disappointed that I had to ape his style of drawing, but the client insisted saying the style had been approved already and to redo that process at this time was impossible. So, I accepted and completed the job. This led to my doing, in my own style, several other similar booklet comics for the same company.

The main point this illustrates (pardon the pun) is that professionalism counts. The original illustrator may have had serious personal reasons why he or she was unable to fulfill their obligations, but regardless it resulted in not only losing the job, but also the opportunity for more work with that client. Likely others as well… as I have said many times art directors are the source of word-of-mouth work but that applies in both directions. Do a great job for one and they will recommend you to others, but drop the ball and they will pass that along as well. As I remember those jobs were very well paying.

By the way I did this job the old fashioned way, using a film-pos and acetate overlay, then watercoloring and airbrushing the color. The original art for this job is long gone, but I think I’ve got other jobs using this technique that I can dig out one day and share how it works.

This is a picture of one of my first theme park caricatures in progress,
taken at Great America in Gurnee, IL in the summer of 1985.

People sometimes ask what got me started doing what I do. As far back as I can remember I wanted to be an artist. Comic books and Batman got me started loving art and storytelling, but I never set out nor really wanted to be a comic book artist. The truth is I wasn’t sure what I wanted to do with art… I just wanted to be a “commercial artist” and make a living drawing and illustrating. Caricature was not something that particular interested me early on. I knew what caricature was, of course, but I never made a connection between it and what I did as an artist, or what I wanted to do. That would all change one day thanks to a pretentious art teacher and a pointless art class at the University of Minnesota in 1985, and the change of heart of another caricature artist.

I wish I could remember the name of that art teacher at the U of M… I’d send her flowers.

The class was called “alternative sculpture”, which was one of those silly filler classes that applied to virtually no actual career direction, but was apparently just there to fill up student schedules and collect tuition money for credits. It was “alternative” because you created your sculptures with any material EXCEPT clay or similar. I could go on about how big a waste of time that was, but suffice it to say I was disappointed but it was the only art class with room in it when I registered. The class was so boring and useless I took to skipping it a lot.

I was skipping the class one day and wasting time in the art building commons area when I spotted a flier on the wall that said “can you draw?”. It was an advertisement for caricaturists to work at a local theme park called Valleyfair by a company called Fasen Arts. I thought I could draw pretty good, so I answered the ad and mailed them some drawings. A few weeks later I interviewed for the job with the company’s owner, Steve Fasen. I showed him a number of drawings I had done of celebrities, and he critiqued me pretty harshly before sending me on my way with a “we’ll give you a call”.

Now, Steve is quite a guy, and today I count him as one of my good friends as well as a mentor and surrogate big brother. He’s a great caricaturist and an even better businessman. However Steve has a very selective memory. He will tell you that he took one look at my work and hired me on the spot, knowing I would really take to caricature and make it one of the center points of my career. That’s not how it happened. I in fact did not get the job at Valleyfair, and heard nothing from them for weeks (not that I blame them… despite my overconfidence I know in retrospect my work wasn’t very impressive). Just as I was figuring I was out of luck, I got a call to do a second interview at Steve’s home. There I was given a quick lesson on live work and tossed into a chair and made to draw Steve as his brother Gary watched over my shoulder. No pressure! Wish I had that drawing today… it must have been awful.

Well, not too awful. I did get a job, but not at Valleyfair. Fasen Arts had another operation in a theme park near Chicago called Great America, and they said they had a place for me there. So, I packed my bags and moved to Waukegan, IL, where I lived in a townhouse with 5 other caricature/airbrush T-shirt artists I did not know, worked 12 hours a day 6 days a week all summer and had my life irrevocably changed…. I later found out that I got the job only because another artist who they had selected bowed out, deciding to stick to gigs and fair work back in Minnesota.

I wish I knew the name of that artist… I’d send her flowers, too.

That summer I fell in love with the art of caricature and cartooning at the same time I learned what it would take to realize my dreams of being a working artist. I was privileged to work with a small group of outstanding artists, most of whom went on to have very successful careers in animation, illustration, comic books, children’s book illustration and fine art. I was humbled by the talent these guys possessed, and realized quickly this art thing was not something you just did or were born with… it was something you had to work incredibly hard at. That summer got me off my rear end and instilled a determination and drive in me that still motivates me today. I drew until my hand was sore… literally. I worked hard at my skills and did live caricatures at Great America every summer all through college, eventually being offered a manager/trainer job by the Fasens at a new operation at Six Flags Atlanta. From there I started my own caricature operations and began freelancing. It was a long road (one I’m still on), with many lucky breaks and many failures and roadblocks. I am still constantly humbled by the skills and talents of artists I admire and that continues to motivate me to improve my abilities and to grow as an artist. My philosophy is still “be confident in your skills today, but do not be satisfied if they are still the same skills tomorrow”.  Today I am lucky enough to do what I love and earn a living at it, supporting and raising my family in the process.

…and I owe it all to a boring art class and a caricature artist who got cold feet.

Here’s a job I did a month or two back that is now on the stands so I can show some of the process and the end result. I used my new “colored line” technique, which is really growing on me, and also seems to be a hit with clients.

The job: Cover illustration with a “survivor” theme showing how library budgets are getting squeezed and cut, but the libraries are “surviving”. They wanted a mixture of calm definace and some anxiety on behalf of the librarians, with sharks (aka budget cutters) eating away at their resources.

Here are three initail rough sketches. They really are the same concept but at three different angles:

“Normal” horizon line

Upward looking angle…

Bird’s eye view

The original idea was to have the island actually be made of money, and the sharks are eating it away. It was decided that was not necessary to convey the message, so the island got changed to a sand one, with the sharks chomping on random bills.

The client liked the downward angle. No scan of the final pencils, but here are the final inks:

Inked in black as always. The color is added to the lines via the line selection trick I outlined some time back, and then simply painted over in different colors. I start out with a basic red/brown color, and then paint over them as needed.

Here is the image at a partial colored stage. You can see the color I use for the linework, which I change as I go:

And here is the final art:

Click for a closer look…

Here are a few close ups to show the colored lines as they relate to the areas they define:

There is a softness/ textural quality to this technique that makes it more versitile than the traditional black line/color look of my work in MAD, for example. It’s still “me” but just in a different light. The technique needs refining but it’s got promise.

For a one-armed artist I am staying pretty busy. Here’s what I’ve got going right now on the drawing board:

NCS Reuben T-shirt Illustration- Wrapping this up over the weekend. I will share it once I get the okay from NCS president Jeff Keane.

Cover art for Stay Tooned #4- I was honored to be asked to do the cover for John Read‘s terrific magazine. That I will finish next week.

MAD job- Two pager that got bumped from issue 500 and will now be in #501, so a ton of time before that is due.

Workplace poster- My usual monthly assignment from The Marlin Company. Incidentally they are preparing to sell individual copies of these posters as stock allows on their website, so when I get more info on that I’ll let people know if they are interested.

“Super Capers” DVD comic- Not much to this as all I did was crop and size the panels of the comic into a DVD video frame format. It will be included on the DVD release of the movie as a video comic.

Not much I can share at this time, but here are cropped sneak peaks from two recent jobs where I used the colored line technique I’ve been experimenting with. I will be able to show the full jobs plus sketches, etc. sometime later this month:

Slow going with only one arm… I am surprised to discover how much I actually use my left hand when working. Pencilling and inking become harder when I cannot support nor turn my board with my left hand. Inking is especially difficult and time consuming.

Just a few jobs going right now, and a few “in the can” as they say that I will be able to share in the next week or two. Here is the latest “workplace poster” illustration, the inking and coloring was done post surgery:

Pencil rough

Final Art