I drew live caricatures at my Valleyfair theme park operation the last few days, but forgot my camera. I took one picture with my iPhone which turned out halfway decent: I also did a new park sample based on a past “sketch o’the week”: Next time I will try and remember the camera. READ MORE
While I do have a deadline I am too under the weather to get up the energy to do a real post today. All this travel has caught up to me and I came home with a bad cold… or maybe the Swine Flu (??). Tomorrow I will post a wrap up of our trip to Pittsburgh and the Toonseum show. READ MORE
After five full days here in San Diego, I am now fully reminded of what I love and hate about Comic-Con. Definitely the coolest costume I saw at the con I love the chance to meet artists and writers from basically every genre, see new and exciting projects and work, visit with old friends, meet new ones, attend panels and seminars that are informative and enjoyable, and most of all oogle and a mind-numbing amount of really cool toys and stuff. I hate the crowds, the lines and especially… strollers. I split my time this year between the booths of the National Cartoonists Society, the… READ MORE
A big thanks to the many (okay… sevaral… okay… three) folks who came looking for me at one of the booths I was at on Friday at the Comic-Con. Great to met you and I am glad you enjoy the MAD Blog. I was so busy drawing and meeting people yesterday I barely got to do anything at the con itself, but I had to sneak away and catch the presentation done by Pearls Before Swine creator Stephan Pastis. Pearls is one of those comic strips that makes me laugh almost every day, and while I enjoy and appreciate many strips that is a rare… READ MORE
Hey, I am only the 100,000th blogger to be blogging “live” from San Diego during Comic-Con! Woot! For anyone who might be interested, I will be drawing caricatures and have original pages of MAD art for sale at the National Cartoonist’s Society booth (pictured above, space 1307) for a few hours every day, and be doing the same at the ToonSeum booth on the mezzanine level, space 8. No set schedule for either place. Otherwise I will be hobbling around desperately looking for a place to sit down the rest of the weekend. READ MORE
I dimly recalling linking to this video once before, but here is a YouTube gem from 1970 featuring MAD publisher Bill Gaines on the gameshow To Tell the Truth: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NSoxQNJjkFs The show worked like this- three contestants came out claiming to be the same person who was described by the host. The panel of celebrities (sort of) would question them and then guess who was really the person they claimed to be. The impostors told lies while the actual person described had to tell the truth. The contestants won if they were able to fool the panel, so the impostors won money for wrong votes.… READ MORE
Back in the days before the internet, on-line selling, blogs and cheap foreign book printing the world of publication was a lot simpler. The creators (writer, artist, musician, cartoonist, etc.) submitted their work to a publisher. The publisher decided if it was worthy of publication, then did the editing, promotion, printing, distribution and collection of the money. The creator got their royalties (often after an advance on the royalties first) and the publisher kept the rest. The publisher was the middleman with a hammer… they wielded the power to decide what got published, how it was edited and how it was promoted. “Vanity Press”, or… READ MORE
Spoiler Free!!- Tuesday night at midnight I found myself shuffling along in a gigantic line of over 2,000 theater goers to watch the sixth and latest Harry Potter film. I was chaperoning two of my kids, a nephew and a few friends… none of which were decked out in cloaks, hats and spectacles waving about wands with a red lightning bolt drawn onto their foreheads, but they were none the less excited to see the movie. I was as well, to tell you the truth. The Richmond family have been Harry Potter fans since the first J.K. Rowling book became all the rage back in… READ MORE
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