General
November 28th, 2011 | Posted in General
Jeff, AJ and me Early in the summer of 2010 I received a call from some gentlemen out in LA who represented world-famous comedian/ventriloquist Jeff Dunham to inquire about my doing some work for him. I was told Jeff was a big fan of MAD Magazine and my work, and wanted to explore the possibility of using some of my artwork for various projects. In the ensuing year and a half, I’ve done quite a bit of work for him, including detailed illustrations of his various characters, some more simplified line-art type work of same, a few things for merchandising/products and some conceptual work on… READ MORE
November 28th, 2011 | Posted in General
Tonight’s episode of MAD on the Cartoon Network will feature a segment I worked on called “Superhero Millionaire Matchmaker”. Check it out at 8:30/7:30 Central time on the CN. I’ll post some of the art I did for it tomorrow. READ MORE
November 25th, 2011 | Posted in General
Thinking about ordering a signed copy of The Mad Art of Caricature for Christmas? Better hurry, especially if you are ordering from overseas. We have had a number of horror stories about customs in the destination countries sitting on the package for several weeks before finally clearing it and allowing delivery. In some cases, it has taken as long as 5-6 weeks from shipment to delivery when going overseas… and even just to Canada. There seems to be no rhyme or reason with this… two shipments to same country can vary from delivery in 10 days or so to 5 weeks or longer. Luck of… READ MORE
November 24th, 2011 | Posted in General
For all my fellow Americans out there, all the best on Thanksgiving. I hope you are enjoying it with family and friends. To all the rest of the world, happy… uh… Thursday. READ MORE
November 21st, 2011 | Posted in General
One of the typical things you will find in any how-to book is a definition of the book’s subject. It is cliche but a good jumping-off point. On page 2 of my book The Mad Art of Caricature, I wanted to play the definition card. The problem was that the best definition I ever heard was one I could not for the life of me remember where I had heard it. That definition was: “A caricature is a portrait with the volume turned up.” I spent a fair amount of time trying to find out where I had heard that quote. At the time I… READ MORE
November 17th, 2011 | Posted in General
Photo by Jamie Smith I had a chance to meet a number of very talented and hospitable professors, underclassmen and grad students during my visit to the Savannah College of Art and Design last week. One of them got saddled with me as my “handler” (poor schmuck) and really did a great job making sure I had everything I needed for my student portfolio review session and the workshop I did at the SCAD museum. His name was Jamie Smith, and he has written a really terrific recap of the time he spent keeping me out of trouble in Savannah over on his blog… he… READ MORE
November 15th, 2011 | Posted in General
Team Cul de Sac is the brainchild of Chris Sparks, who has worked tirelessly to organize this fundraising program for Parkinson’s research. It’s a part of TeamFox, the Michael J Fox Foundation’s fundraising arm, which in the last year alone raised almost 4 million dollars for research. The fundraiser revolves around the brilliant comic strip Cul de Sac by Richard Thompson, an incredibly talented cartoonist who happens to have Parkinson’s. Team Cul de Sac invitied professional cartoonists, illustrators, artists and animators to donate original art made especially for a book, published by Andrews & McMeel, about Parkinson’s awareness. Part of the profits from the sales… READ MORE
November 10th, 2011 | Posted in General
Regarding Bil Keane‘s passing… they say you measure your life by how many other people’s lives you influence. If so, Bil led as influential a life as one can. Yesterday I was called and interviewed by both the New York Times and NPR about Bil (in my capacity as current president of the National Cartoonists Society), and have heard and read about his passing in at least two dozen places in the last 24 hours. He was certainly one of the most beloved cartoonists both by the public and within the industry, ever. The image above is an original Family Circus Sunday that was given… READ MORE
