MADness #151- Batman Cover!

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Time again for another entry into the seemingly never ending trek through my work at MAD Magazine. In this episode we look at what was my fifth cover for MAD… one featuring Batman no less! The gag for this one was written by Desmond Devlin.

The gag for this one is a little hard to “get”, especially if you don’t know what gargoyles on gothic buildings are actually for. The term “Gargoyle” comes from the French term gargouille, composed of the root garg (a form of gurg)– a word meant to imitate the sound of water (i.e. gurgling) and the Old French word goule meaning “animal mouth or throat”. A gargoyle was a decorative water spout that directed rain water from the roofs of Gothic structures away from the sides of the buildings to prevent erosion of the facades and mortar. The gag here is that water is spurting from Alfred’s gap in his teeth, but it isn’t raining.

Anyway I was so focused on the image of Batman and the under lighting and cast shadows and such that I didn’t notice the unfortunate positioning of Batman’s pelvis and the jet of water coming from Alfred’s head. In my defense no one at MAD or DC noticed it either.

Like my last cover, the folks at MAD wanted some changes to the color. This was the original cover art:

They wanted a shift to a very red based palette, and an overall darkening of the image. I think the lighting hits harder in the original but the revised one is more moody, and since it’s supposed to be based on the Robert Pattinson “The Batman” movie, moody was the operative word.

Anytime I get to draw Batman is a good time. Speaking of Batman, Desmond and I teamed up for some actual new content inside this issue as well, but you’ll just have to wait until next week for that!