MADness #82: Balloon Boy!

I’m not making this up… it really is Monday! Time for another high-flying episode of the seemingly endless flight that is our trek through my work at MAD Magazine. This week we reach new heights of mendacity both in the subjects of the work I did and my being credited for new work in issue #503 at all!

I had two pieces in MAD #503, May 2010, although neither were technically new. One was part of a one pager that included three spoof DVD covers originally done for MAD‘s website. Yes, MAD used to do original content for their website. In fact, MAD pioneered that sort of thing way back in 2000, but I digress. I did the art for a spoof of the movie poster from Pixar’s “UP” featuring Richard Henne and the “Balloon Boy” hoax for the website as seen above, and that art was printed as part of this page in MAD #503:

I also had a spot illustration of MLB slugger Mark McGwire in the “Fundalini Pages” feature in that same issue:

This also was from a previous thing I did for MAD, “MAD‘s 50 Worst Things about Sports’ from MAD #408:

This begs the question as to if I actually can count MAD #503 as an issue I appeared in, thus keeping what would eventually be a streak of 71 consecutive issues with my work in it alive, or is my appearance in this issue as phony as Falcon Henne‘s balloon ride or Mark McGwire’s home run stats? I’m counting it because the “Made Up” piece was done for MAD and this is the first time it appeared in print. So THERE!

That’s it for another soaring episode of Tom’s Monday MADness! Toon in next week when we begin what would become my longest streak of consecutive issues with a movie or TV parody in it… nine total issues!