MAD Art for Kenosha Festival of Cartooning

The last two years the small but picturesque town of Kenosha, Wis. has been host to a very impressive cartooning event called, appropriately enough, the Kenosha Festival of Cartooning. Kenosha happens to be the hometown of cartoonist John Hambrock (The Brilliant Mind of Edison Lee), and his wife Anne is the driving force behind these terrific events. Previous years (2011 and 2012) featured stellar speaker lineups including the afore mentioned John Hambrock, Dave Coverly (Speed Bump), Greg Cravens (The Buckets, Hubris!), Norm Feuti (Retail, Gil), Michael Jantze (The Norm, Jantze Studios), Stephan Pastis (Pearls Before Swine), Hilary Price (Rhymes with Orange), Between Friends creator Sandra Bell Lundy, creator of Pooch Cafe Paul Gilligan, editorial cartoonist for the Chicago Tribune Scott Stantis, Disney and freelance Animator Tom Bancroft, and myself, where I talked mainly about the cartoonist USO trips. The festival is a lot more than just a bunch of speakers, however. There are gallery shows, panel discussions and programs at local colleges, art auctions, workshops, and lots of time to meet and get to talk with some pretty great cartoonists face to face.

In 2013 there will not be the usual three day extravaganza, but instead a one day “Mini-Festival”, which will feature just me as a speaker, workshop teacher, and portfolio reviewer, along with John Hambrock. It’ll be a full day. Here’s the schedule of events from the Kenosha Cartooning Festival website (times TBD):

• Caricature class for kids aged 13-18 at the Kenosha Public Museum **Note: this class is run by the museum and will NOT be tied to backer rewards. Once the museum adds the class to their event roster and opens enrollment, we will provide a link to their site. Check back in August.
• Presentation on Tom Richmond’s Career in Illustration and work for magazines like MAD at the Kenosha Public Museum – Free to the public but seating is limited to 200
• Caricature class and freelancing tips for aspiring professionals at Artworks Kenosha – class limited to 17
• Portfolio Review with either Tom Richmond (caricature and illustration) or John Hambrock (comic strips and panels) – reviews will last 15 minutes and are limited to 6 per artist.
• Artist Hangout and behind the scenes tour of John Hambrock’s studio – limited to backers only and offered as an alternative to the afternoon caricature class and portfolio review. A full lunch will be served.
• Meet and Greet Reception at Matt’s on Main with Tom Richmond, John Hambrock and any and all other professional cartoonists who attend the mini-fest – this event will be a fundraiser as well as a backer reward. Pizza will be provided with your donation. Cash bar.

I’m teaching all the caricature classes, BTW. You’ll notice this list mentions “backer rewards” numerous times, because, well, they need backers. As in moola. For this purpose they are doing an independent crowd-fundraiser (i.e. NOT a Kickstarter), but it is like a Kickstarter in that there are rewards depending on the level of the donation, but not like a Kickstarter in that they don’t have to give 9% away for fees and processing. They have a very modest goal of $2,000, and as part of the rewards I am donating four original pages of art from MAD. All the pages are from the parody of “Parks and Recreation” from MAD #511. Here are scans of the art (clicky any to embiggen):

Page 3

Page 4

Page 5

Page 6

I’ll sign them, of course. . . I’ll even sign my own name, although they’d be more valuable if I signed them “Sergio”. There are a whole host of other things that you get with a donation that are a lot more exciting than this crap, like buttons and stuff, but this is also available. Any extra money raised over the $2000 goal will defray additional 2013 expenses, and/or roll over to help with the 2014 festival.

Visit this link to look at donating to help support the festival. They’ll be back next year with a real cartoonist(s) for their standard three-day event, but this year I’m the best they could do. I hope that won’t discourage you from donating.