Mailbag
August 19th, 2018 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: When you draw caricatures, do you start with the shape of the head or another feature, i.e. the eye and from there work around it? A: When I am working in the studio on a caricature I always start with the head shape, then work in the basic shapes of the eyes, nose, and mouth. Then I continue to add more and more details until I have a finished drawing: When working live, I do the opposite. While I THNK about the overall head shape and how the interior feature shapes fit inside of it, I draw from the inside out, starting with the… READ MORE
August 12th, 2018 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: You’ve done three issues with the new MAD staff now, is it a lot different than working with the old staff? If so, how? A: It would be impossible for it not to be different. I spent 17 plus years working with the same art directors and editors, and now I am working with an entirely new group of people. I went from knowing exactly what the staff wanted to see and what I could “get away with” to having to learn that all over again. The NYC staff had a way of doing things that was honed by 65 years of continuous publishing,… READ MORE
August 5th, 2018 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Some faces are a challenge to exaggerate and get the needed likeness despite changing many elements or shapes of the face’s features. More often, I had to use another photo to get the likeness or stop drawing for a few days before starting again. How do you overcome such challenges and what techniques do you find useful in your kind of work? A: Some faces can be elusive for various reasons, but most of them boil down to your just not being able to physically capture the image you have in your head. Sometimes you approach a caricature with a preconceived idea of what… READ MORE
July 29th, 2018 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Your new MAD parodies now have rounded corner dialogue boxes. Why? A: When the Burbank staff took over I was told they wanted to have rounded corners on all the word boxes in the parodies. So we went from this: From “Rough One”, MAD #545 To this: From “Star Bores: Half Assed Jedi”, MAD #1 Why? No reason other than just to give it a little bit different look, I guess. I was not given a real reason. It serves no functional purpose, so just aesthetics. It’s a huge pain in the ass for me, since I hand ink these balloons. Now instead of… READ MORE
July 1st, 2018 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Q: Aside from whatever contributions you make to an issue of Mad Magazine, to what other contents in the magazine are you privy before it hits the newsstands? Do you get to see artwork for the cover or are you told about random articles in the upcoming issues, or are you as much in the dark as any regular Mad Magazine reader whose only contribution is the $5.99 (cheap!) we cough up every two months? A: Other than my piece, I get to see none of it. If I happen to be in town and drop into the offices, and the staff has an advanced… READ MORE
June 17th, 2018 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Being self-employed, what have you done about medical insurance? Have you found affordable medical insurance with decent coverage? It is something we all need. A: Believe it or not, I wrote the post below a week ago, before my self-employed daughter had her sudden medical crisis without having any health coverage. Since then this hits home a lot more… in fact some of the sentences I wrote below are downright spooky in the light of my daughter’s current situation. I have been self-employed for about 30 years now, and getting affordable health insurance has always been a challenge… and it keeps getting harder and… READ MORE
June 10th, 2018 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Your understandable reluctance to do ‘blue’ art reminds me that I recently bought (here in Australia) a couple of oldish German and Dutch MADs out of curiosity (Torres, Aragonés but no Drucker). Anyway there was more than a few x-rated cartoons which I found was not in the spirit of the MAD I know. How do the UGOI feel about this and what power do/did they have to influence it? A: The foreign editions of the magazine license the MAD name and logo, Alfred and some other properties they own, and a certain amount of the US MAD’s content for reprint, but the foreign… READ MORE
May 20th, 2018 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: I heard a great tip from Lynn Johnston that she uses toys for references. I always thought that was such a great tip. You can use toys from different angles and can give your more depth than looking at a photo and…some toys can be cheap. I recently bought a farm animal toy pack from Walmart for $3 and a matchbox truck for $1! My question is…do you use toys for references? If so, any examples you can give us when you did? A: Toys and props are great for references, especially these days where they are often VERY accurate to the real thing…… READ MORE
