MADness Bonus: Oscar Cover!

Monday MADness is here again, but this week we have a look at a side project for the MAD gang I did in 2016 that was published between MAD #537 and #538.

These publications were called “Bookazines” and were 96-ish page square bound “specials” usually billed as “Special Collector’s Editions”, and contained reprinted material around some theme. This one was entitled “MAD Presents Oscar Winners (and Losers!)”, and mostly contained movie spoofs of Oscar winning movies plus a smattering of other movie related features.

I got the cover assignment, which I suspect was a bit of a trial run for a “real” cover assignment that I would get just a few months later.

My big job here was to do a convincing “Alfred” Oscar statue. They wanted it based on these:

I honestly still do not get the “shovel and dirt” part of this image. However I do as I am told! Here’s the pencil sketch:

Like the book cover above, the filmstrip was going to contain dropped in close ups from some of the features inside the bookazine. I was determined to do a really convincing gold metal finish on the statuette itself. I remember spending a LOT of time painting in the reflections. Just a lot of meticulous rendering, but here is the final result:

The rest of the final cover art was a piece of cake:

MAD has used that Alfred Oscar image a few times since then, so I guess they liked the results… or at least they are too cheap to pay someone to do a new one.

Thats it for another MAD Monday. Toon in next week when we go back to the regular run of the magazine with another movie spoof of not just one but TWO movies in one parody!