General
October 18th, 2020 | Posted in General
Q: How did you first get into MAD? A: I used about 60 feet of rope, a glass cutter, and a crowbar. Just kidding, my road getting into MAD was both a long and a short one. It was long when you consider the time between my first showing my work to a MAD editor and when I got my first assignment (about 10 years), and short if you consider how quickly I ended up with that first assignment after really getting serious about pursuing work with the magazine. Like many American boys I had a time when I was really “into” MAD Magazine. This… READ MORE
October 15th, 2020 | Posted in General
This past weekend I took part in the Lakes International Comic Art Festival based in Kendall, UK. Like everything else on Planet Earth these days, it was held online rather than in person. That didn’t stop it from being fascinating and a lot of fun. In fact they did a fantastic job with the online experience. One of the events I participated in was a “Pass the Panel” collaborative comic, where 16 different comics artists were challenged to draw a page on an ongoing comics story. The idea is that the first artist (in this case Luke McGarry) draws a page starting a story, and… READ MORE
October 11th, 2020 | Posted in General
Today’s your last chance to get a comic-con style commission from me at my virtual NYCC Artist’s Alley table. The table shuts down at 5pm EDT, just like it would have if I’d been set up at the Javits Center this weekend… except I don’t have to pack up all my stuff and schelp it out to the curb in NYC! This will be my last virtual comic-con offering in 2020. In fact the next time I will do one would be the end of March 2021 for C2E2 (assuming that one will not be happening). So stop on in! READ MORE
October 11th, 2020 | Posted in General
Q: Now that MAD is basically a reprint publication, do you consider it dead? A: I would not say “dead”. I would say it’s on life-support. First let’s dispel the persistent rumor that MAD is no longer being published. MAD still publishes bi-monthly, although it is no longer on news stands and the only way for you to get it is either in comic book shops, via mail subscription or digitally on Apple iBooks, ComiXology, Google Books and ReadDC. Yes, MAD is now almost entirely classic material. It will always have a new cover, and a new Fold-In by Johnny Sampson, but other than the… READ MORE
September 29th, 2020 | Posted in General
We are officially one week into Desmond Devlin and my CLAPTRAP book project campaign, and we are off to a terrific start! Thanks to over 200 backers, we are already at 44% of our goal! THANK YOU to all of you who have backed the project! Here’s what’s been going on this week with the book and the campaign: Book Stuff! Des and I are already working on the second movie parody. The script is done, and I’m working on the art. We’ll be releasing a sneak peek at the splash page for this one soon. EVERYONE is going to love that we picked this… READ MORE
September 25th, 2020 | Posted in General
Yesterday I posted a picture of my drawing board for an online challenge. A corner of my Al Hirschfeld original of me was showing, and I got several messages asking me to show the whole thing. I’ve done that several times on the blog, but here’s the story of “The Big Three” again. A good portion of one wall in my studio is filled by three caricatures of me by three of the greatest caricaturists ever, Al Hirschfeld, Sebastian Krüger and Mort Drucker. There’s a story behind each (if you only read one, read the Mort Drucker Story): The one on the left is by… READ MORE
September 24th, 2020 | Posted in General
It’s a “thing” right now for artists to post a picture of your drawing board, so here’s mine. I cut and recessed the LED light table into the board myself (the Batman “Shakespeare” bust switch turns it on). There’s a piece of plexi over the light table that is flush with the green drawing board cover so it’s one level surface. The two framed MAD splashes are signed by Jack Black and Kyle Gass (Fools of Rock) and the entire cast of “Mad Men”. That’s Greg Preston‘s picture of a bunch of the “Usual Gang of Idiots” from the 2012 NCS Reuben Awards, signed my… READ MORE
September 22nd, 2020 | Posted in General
Are you sad that MAD Magazine has stopped producing the movie parodies that they helped make a part of American Pop Culture? MAD writer Desmond Devlin and I are too, mostly because we have been doing the majority of them for the last twenty years and they aren’t paying us anymore! Well we decided to do something about it! We are pleased to announce the launch of our IndieGoGo campaign to produce a book FULL of movie parodies in the classic, humorous vein. Full color! Real paper! Hardcover! Reasonably proficient grammar! It’s called Claptrap!: Our first parody is already done (see splash page above)! MAD… READ MORE
