April 21st, 2016 | Posted in General
Official news outlets are reporting that music superstar Prince died today at age 57. Having moved to the Minneapolis/St. Paul area in 1985 for college, I was here right when the Prince “Purple Rain” rocket was going full blast and he was literally the biggest name in music. Rumors abounded at the time that, despite being a very young mid-twenties, he had already written and recorded enough music stashed in his “vault” that he could release albums regularly for the rest of his life and not have to write another song. He played every instrument and created a sound that was a huge influence on… READ MORE
April 18th, 2016 | Posted in General
In subscribers mailboxes, comic book shops and via digital now, and on news stands tomorrow!!: Cover (Tom Richmond) Letters and Tomatoes (Ed.) The Fundalini Pages (Jeff Kruse, John Martz, Matt Lassen, Tom Hart, Rick Tulka, Mike Leow, Evan Waite, Kevin Pope, Kenny Keil, Stephen Silver, Bob Staake, Shannon Wheeler, Dick Debartolo, Ward Sutton, P.C. Vey, Josh Mecouch, Anton Emdin) The Trumpalini Pages (Artist: Hermann Mejia) Star Bores: The Snores Awaken (David Richards, Tom Richmond) A MAD Look at Man Caves (Sergio Aragonés, colorist: Jim Campbell) Chilling Thoughts (Desmond Devlin, Jonathan Edwards) Obama’s Gray Hairs (Desmond Devlin, Sam Sisco) Spy vs. Spy (Peter Kuper) The Darker… READ MORE
April 10th, 2016 | Posted in General
Q: Congrats on doing your first cover for MAD, but my initial reaction to seeing your post was “this was his FIRST cover???” Why did it take so long for you to get a cover? A: MAD has always tended to use different illustrators for the covers than they do interiors. Norman Mingo, Richard Williams, Kelly Freas, and a host of others, most recently Mark Fredrickson, have done basically nothing but cover art… but a lot of it. Mort Drucker and Jack Rickard are the only two regulars from the interior of the magazine that have done 30 or more covers, and their styles were… READ MORE
April 1st, 2016 | Posted in General
There is an empty lot up on a very busy intersection up near my house that until about a year ago had a BP gas and service station on it. That was razed and the lot still stands empty with no signs on it about what may be coming on the space. At 4 am this morning I put this sign up on the lot. It’s 4’x8′. The only clue it’s a prank is a small Alfred E Neuman face at the bottom right corner. Sadly it’s very windy today, so I have twice been up there to fix the sign. I took this photo… READ MORE
March 28th, 2016 | Posted in General
I really did like Batman v Superman… I just couldn’t resist. READ MORE
March 27th, 2016 | Posted in General
Q: I’m a published Illustrator, have even won a few awards. I don’t use any computer programs. I simply draw everything by hand. I’m finding it very hard to compete with other illustrators who do use alot of technology to do their work. What I’m really wanting to know is if it’s worth getting out of my comfort zone and learning to do digital drawings or at least digitally enhanced drawings? I can make my work look just as good but I find it takes me soooo long to do compared to artists using Adobe/Photoshop. A: I still mostly draw (and ink when inking is required) the… READ MORE
March 25th, 2016 | Posted in General
I’m way too busy for an indepth review of this movie (and since I don’t want to include any spoilers anyway) here’s just a brief few thoughts: It does not deserve the hate it’s getting– No, it’s not your enjoyable but cartoonish Marvel movie full of cutsie one liners and popcorn plots, but there is plenty to like about it. These movies dare to examine the way the world would actually react to having super-powered beings among us. It is too heavy handed but not as slit-your-wrists depressing as the haters seem to think. I loved Henry Cavill, Gal Gadot, Jeremy Irons, Amy Adams, Lawrence… READ MORE
March 24th, 2016 | Posted in General
So right after I finished the art for the MAD 80’s special above, I found myself with this big pile of black and white, inked caricatures of 80’s celebrities/icons that were used on the squares of the Rubik’s Cube. I said to myself, “Self, what am I going to do with these little pieces of MAD cover art?” SELL THEM, of course. They are all pretty small, the images themselves being about 4×5 inches, done in dip pen/brush and ink on smooth bristol. They are also oddly cropped in some instances, since I did two on a page and sometimes they were too close together… READ MORE
