Hermann on the Web at Last

Sculpture by MADman Hermann Mejia

MAD artist Hermann Mejia has finally gotten a website up showcasing his incredible work. Check it out here.

Hermann has been working for MAD for quite some time now, and from the beginning his art was something special. He used to do a feature called “Celebrity cause of Death Betting Odds”, where he illustrated a tombstone with a crazy caricature/statue integrated into it to accompany the odds of various ways the celebrity might met their end. That was a great little feature and made greater by Hermann’s fantastic art. Eventually he started doing parodies of films and TV shows as well as just about anything else MAD might throw his way. He is unbelievably versatile, working in pen and ink, watercolors, digital panting and other mediums. In the last “MAD 20″, he did sculptures for a chess set featuring the players in the Iraq war, the Donald Rumsfeld above is from that set.

Hermann is a native Venezuelan who had to have his first jobs from MAD translated for him, as he spoke little English. He did some work for DC on some LOBO titles early in his career. Hermann got his start in MAD thanks to a gentleman named Charlie Kochman, who saw his portfolio while Hermann was doing some work for DC Comics. Charlie was a book editor for DC who edited a lot of the comic company’s graphic novels and prestige format specials. He got a load of Hermann’s work, and marched the portfolio straight upstairs to Nick Meglin at MAD. Nick immediately recognized Hermann’s gift for humor and put him to work. He’s been one of the “Usual Gang of Idiots” ever since.

MAD editor John Ficarra calls Hermann the “artist’s artist”, meaning his biggest fans are other artists who understand all too well the tremendous talent he possesses. I’m one of those fans. His art is mind boggling. His skill with expressions and pure, uncompromising ability to DRAW are nothing short of amazing.

I’ve never met Hermann. For some reason we never end up at the same MAD functions. Maybe he’s avoiding me. Who could blame him? I hope I’ll get a chance to meet him sometime soon. He’s a rare talent.