News
February 19th, 2011 | Posted in News
I had another short article about myself in yet another local suburban newspaper, this time the Sun Current: Burnsville cartoonist goes MAD – and beyond This one has quotes from MAD art director Sam Viviano and The Lovely Anna! And they didn’t even slam me! The article should have been in the Friday print edition. So, why the local news interest? It’s because of the recent press releases sent out by The Cartoonists Studio website, which had it’s “hard” opening recently and as one of the cartoonists in their collective I was part of that press release. READ MORE
February 14th, 2011 | Posted in News
Photo by John Gessner: ThisWeek Newspapers This Week Newspapers, a suburban weekly around these parts, must really be scraping the bottom of the barrel for feature articles because they published a story on me last week which includes the most awkward picture of me ever (see above)… and that’s saying something. Clearly the bat-stuff in my studio intrigued the author. I refused to put on the suit for him but I did throw a couple of batarangs around to demonstrate my mad batarang skilz. By way of clarification (should you be sufficiently bored today to follow the link and read the article), it is not… READ MORE
February 5th, 2011 | Posted in MAD Magazine
There is going to be a new book on the career and art of Jack Davis set to be released on Aug 17th. From the publisher: Jack Davis: Drawing American Pop Culture is a gigantic, unparalleled career-spanning retrospective, between whose hard covers resides the greatest collection … in terms of both quantity and quality … of Jack Davis’ work ever assembled! It includes work from every stage of his long and varied career, such as: excerpts of satirical drawings from his college humor ‘zine, The Bull Sheet; examples of his comics work from EC, MAD, Humbug, Trump, and obscure work he did for other companies… READ MORE
January 25th, 2011 | Posted in News
The image above is one of my most prized possessions… a caricature of me by the great Al Hirschfeld. There was no intriguing or unique story behind how I got that piece of art. Not like the story behind my original Mort Drucker. I simply commissioned him to do it. As legendary as Hirschfeld was, he was still available to do personal commissions. Expensive, but a genuine treasure. Hirschfeld died in 2003 just 5 months shy of his 100th birthday. Almost 8 years after his passing, this month the last chapter in his amazing career is finally coming to a close. His widow, Louise Hirschfeld… READ MORE
January 24th, 2011 | Posted in News
Stephan and me in Tikrit, Iraq Stephan Pastis, the cartoonist behind the syndicated comic strip “Pearls Before Swine”, is a friend of mine. We’ve literally been to the wars together (okay, touring Iraq and Afghanistan with the USO isn’t exactly BEING in a war, but there was one going on around us to I’m going with that). Stephen once drew me into a Sunday “PBS” and I drew him into a MAD parody. He’s a talented guy and deserves all of his considerable success with the strip. Stephan has lately been working on animated shorts of his strip, and The Daily Cartoonist reported today that… READ MORE
January 11th, 2011 | Posted in News
Every year the National Cartoonists Society gets together for a weekend of fun, seminars and speakers culminating in the Reuben Awards dinner. Known as the Oscars of cartooning, the Reuben Awards honors the “Cartoonist of the Year” with the coveted “Reuben” and also recognizes many other cartoonists for excellence in a variety of categories. It’s that time of year again, and entries for consideration for the various divisions are due on February 6th. It’s important to understand these awards are for excellence in professional cartooning as a whole, not for NCS members only. You do not have to be a member to be considered for… READ MORE
January 7th, 2011 | Posted in News
Wally Wood was arguably one of the greatest cartoonists of the 20th century. His work for MAD and the E.C. Science Fiction titles as well as for other comics titles like Daredevil are examples of the mastery of graphic storytelling, drawing and inking. Wood also had a reputation as a guy who didn’t mind doing some risk?¬© work… in fact a lot of his sketches and personal work were sexually graphic. He was a master of drawing the sexy female… with or without clothes. One of the more famous “blue” pieces he did was called the Disneyland Memorial Orgy, (fair warning if you click on… READ MORE
December 30th, 2010 | Posted in News
Every U.S. publication having periodical publication mail privileges must furnish to the Postal Service and publish somewhere in their publication a “Statement of Ownership, Management and Circulation” (required by the Act of August 12, 1970, Section 3685, Title 39 of the United States Code). This is usually done in a publication’s year end issue. Yesterday on The Beat comics blog they posted an examination of the 2010 DC Comics circulation figures. MAD publishes theirs in the last issue on the news stands of the year. According to the figures in issue #507, MAD‘s annual paid distribution average per issue in 2010 was 188,825. That’s up… READ MORE
