February 17th, 2007 | Posted in Freelancing
I received the following e-mail from artist Ernie Kwiat: Every company I work for seems to have a different Work for Hire contract for me to sign. Since I usually am dealing with licensed characters and have no claim to their copyright or trademark, I usually just sign the contracts and hope to get my money. Lately these contracts have been getting more and more objectionable to me. How do you handle them? I’d have used that as a mailbag question but it needs a lot more than a quick answer. It also opens up the opportunity for me to write about the differences between… READ MORE
February 16th, 2007 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Hard to believe pitchers and catchers are reporting to spring training this week. Baseball season is right around the corner. Here is a quick study of Boston Red Sox slugger (and former Minnesota Twin) David Ortiz. Twin’s GM Terry Ryan is a wizard at trades and knowing who to keep and who to let go, but this was one of his few glaring mistakes. READ MORE
February 15th, 2007 | Posted in General
??ᬨ‚Ć To be honest I am not under any pressing deadlines but am just too busy with everything today to get any blogging done. Sorry…. READ MORE
February 14th, 2007 | Posted in Wall of Shame
This piece is the one example of something that is not my own art on the Wall of Shame. Back in August my friend and hilarious syndicated strip cartoonist Stephen Pastis gave me a “cameo” in his popular strip Pearls Before Swine. Here it is again as it appeared in the Sunday funnies: Click for a closer look I told the story about how it came about in this post, but to make a long story short Stephen is a fan of MAD and likes my work. He came up with this gag and sprung it on me when we visited him in Santa Rosa… READ MORE
February 13th, 2007 | Posted in MAD Magazine
This issue is already in subscriber’s mailboxes and in comic shops this week, and should be on news stands in the next week: MAD # 475 (March 2007) Cover (Mark Frederickson) The Fundalini Pages (Ray Alma, Paul Coker, Desmond Devlin, Duck Edwing, Garth Gerhart, Jeff Kruse, Francis Mao, Adam Rust, Kiernan P. Schmitt) A Day in the Life of Dane Cook (Scott Maiko, Hermann Mejia) The Snowman: The Alternate Version (Emily Flake) John Caldwell’s Thanks to YouTube… (John Caldwell) Refrigerator Art Reviews (Jeff Kruse, Irving Schild) MAD Decontructs TV Talk Shows… “The Best Damn Sports Show Period” (Desmond Devlin, Tom Richmond) Signs You Have a… READ MORE
February 12th, 2007 | Posted in General
Saturday was Comic Book Day, which saw Tommy and I reading our prized purchases while munching Roly Poly sandwiches and sipping soda pop. Of course the big release this week was Marvel’s The Dark Tower: The Gunslinger Born issue #1 of a seven issue series. As I’ve already written, I have looked at this series with a suspicious eye being a huge fan of the Stephen King series of novels. I was not sure anybody could really do it justice in comic book form. Therefore I bought issue one with low expectations. I liken this situation somewhat to when I first heard that there was… READ MORE
February 11th, 2007 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: What does your business card look like? Surely an artist like you has put some creativity into your own advertising. A: Until this past June, I hadn’t had a business card for over ten years. I just felt there was no need for it. Serious clients contacted me through either another art director or via one of my marketing efforts like a direct mail piece or a sourcebook ad. It seemed like the only people who asked for a business card were ones I didn’t want to hear back from… generally people who wanted a caricature of grandpa for Christmas or an artist to… READ MORE
February 10th, 2007 | Posted in General
We had a few of the neighbors over in the home theater to watch the “spring premiere” of “Lost” on Wednesday. After a 15 week hiatus, the show began a promised 16 consecutive week run to the end of the season with no repeats. I wrote this post back in November with my thoughts on the shows direction, or lack thereof. In short I felt the show was being too stingy with any real plot advancement, and that the little glimpses of actual story-line development we got were not enough for viewers to continue to stay on the wagon. Saying the show is “about the… READ MORE
