Mailbag
February 1st, 2009 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Q: When I was a kid, Mad was all in black and white.¬¨‚Ć All your jobs are in color.¬¨‚Ć Do you feel this affects how you work compared to when Mad artists didn’t have to worry about coloring?¬¨‚Ć Are there things in the sketching and inking process you have to sacrifice because of the coloring phase? A: As I have said here in the past, I will always feel a little like I missed out on the “good old days” having not been a part of the old black and white MAD. That isn’t exactly accurate, as I technically did appear in the last issue… READ MORE
January 25th, 2009 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: In a past article you said, regarding showing potential clients your reliability and professionalism: “the easiest way to demonstrate this is by having a body of work already established… in comics, magazine illustration, advertising, etc.”¬¨‚Ć As someone who has only done commissions for friends and very small published works, my big question is how do you go about getting professional freelance work in the first place?¬¨‚Ć You have an impressive client list and I realized I don’t know the first thing about trying to contact those types of clients (ex: Scholastic, magazines, advertising).¬¨‚Ć Any hints, tips or tricks for a beginning freelancer on how… READ MORE
January 18th, 2009 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: MAD’s big 500th issue is coming up up in March… can you spill the beans on any plans MAD might have for the milestone? Will you have anything in it? A: The guys at MAD are being pretty tight lipped about the plans for No. 500. I actually don’t know much at all about what to expect, and that includes what little I know that I cannot tell you. Rumor has it that the issue will be bigger than a normal issue (more pages anyway), but that is not confirmed officially. MAD‘s Maddest Writer Dick Debartolo has posted the following in several MAD Message… READ MORE
January 11th, 2009 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: When you work from reference materials, the facial expressions of the people are rarely (never) what you need to incorporate into your drawings. Are there any principles you can give for altering facial expressions to comic proportions and situations while still retaining a good likeness? A: It’s very true that if I were to need to rely on finding the exact angle and facial expression of a given actor in order to pull off a recognizable caricature of them for a given panel in a MAD parody, I’d never get anything done. Instead I gather up multiple references of an actor from various angles,… READ MORE
January 4th, 2009 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: Do you ever have a client give you a vague job proposal, then ask for endless changes once they see something on paper? A: Yes, of course. That may happen if you do not take steps to make sure it does not, specially if you recognize that you have a client that might be a problem in that regard. Sometimes that is impossible to spot, but usually you can sense it coming right away. Part of an illustrator’s job is to solve a visual problem, so you can expect in any job to do pencil sketches and sometimes to explore ideas. However a client… READ MORE
December 28th, 2008 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: While in school at Syracuse I heard (maybe from Nick Meglin) that the artists of MAD were not paid that well. Essentially they traded exposure in MAD to secure freelance work from other sources. Can you tell me if that was true and if it is still true? If not is payment in accordance with the Graphics Artist Guild standards. Also there is the usual gang of idiots but does Mad negotiate on a separate basis for say a “visiting artist” i.e.. CF Payne? A: This is a bit of a delicate subject, because I am not sure if it is proper to discuss… READ MORE
December 21st, 2008 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: As an artist who has done a lot of caricaturing both in the past and currently in your career-when you go out in public do your eyes see people in caricature form? In other words your eyes are trained to study peoples faces for caricature do you find your eyes constantly studying people as if you’re working? Also have you ever gone out-met someone briefly-gone home and been able to draw them from memory with great accuracy to test your visual recall? A: To the first part of your question: Yes, I’m afraid I cannot look at a person without seeing a caricature of… READ MORE
December 14th, 2008 | Posted in Mailbag
Q:¬¨‚Ć After all of these years of cartooning, I should know this, but one of the biggest issues I have when it comes to drawing and cartooning is when I erase something on my bristol board it ruins that area (that I erased in) when it comes down to inking it.¬¨‚Ć What happens is that area that I erased in ends up creating awful, bleeding lines (or runny) from my ink, therefore not allowing me to have control and achieve the desired effect.¬¨‚Ć I’m always afraid to erase too much.¬¨‚Ć I don’t erase ‘rough’ or anything, and I use Strathmore 300 series Vellum.¬¨‚Ć I realize… READ MORE
