Archive for December 29th, 2021
December 29th, 2021 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
This week’s SotW is of the magical comedy duo Penn & Teller! The original sketch of this is available in my Studio Store! I’ve actually met Teller. He is a friend of fellow caricaturist and the editor of my “The Mad Art of Caricature” book Celestia Ward. I was at her wedding years ago in Las Vegas and Teller was also in attendance. I chatted with him briefly and yes, he does talk. A subscriber of my “Ink Stained Wretch” newsletter wrote me after I shared this in a recent edition to tell me he saw Penn & Teller in one of their first appearances… READ MORE
November 29th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
Pay attention, class! We are taking a quick recess from our chronological review of my work in MAD magazine to have a lesson on some stuff I did for its all-too-brief sister publication, MAD KIDS. In late 2005, MAD started publishing a second magazine aimed at the grade school “Nickelodeon” market called MAD KIDS. It featured some reprinted content from the MAD archives that was often softed up for younger readers, but also had a lot of new content as well as puzzles and games. There were younger, kid versions of Alfred and Spy vs. Spy, and in general the humor was aimed at the… READ MORE
September 29th, 2021 | Posted in Sketch O'The Week
Still under the gun with deadlines this week, so no time for a new sketch today. Instead, here’s a look at an inked version of a sketch of Jackie Gleeson from a month or so ago. Someone commissioned it after missing out on the sketch. I’ve been doing a lot of inking this week, so I working it up in between waiting for wet pages to dry. This is mostly crow quill pen and ink, with some #2 brushwork as well. READ MORE
August 29th, 2021 | Posted in Mailbag
Q: If a client just has a low budget, do you sometimes offer to draw with a “lower” quality? I mean, are you maybe accepting a lower wage, if you can in return reduce the amount of work like maybe fewer sketches or less worked out coloring? A: No. I would not intentionally do something with less effort or lesser quality in order to justify accepting a lower rate. If what a client wants me to do and what they are offering to pay for it don’t equate, I just won’t accept the job. My name is still on the art, and I don’t want… READ MORE
July 29th, 2021 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
This is a 1/2 page illustration I did for School Library Journal back in 2009 for a story about how magazines were becoming more popular with teenagers at the time. The idea was the kids were ignoring their electronics in favor of physical reading material. Of course I snuck MAD in as one of the magazine. Something tells me the boon in popularity of magazines was short lived. Here is the pencil sketch for that illustration: READ MORE
June 29th, 2021 | Posted in Freelancing
I really got a lot of positive comments on my illustrations for CNN’s “History of the Sitcom” documentary. Thanks to everyone who had nice things to say about the art. For those whose only comments were “WHY ISN’T (insert name of their favorite show) INCLUDED?!?”, please contact CNN Original Series to complain and/or just put it on your TS list. Many people asked about the process and how I put together the compositions. Because there were so many people and they needed to be put together in both a vertical and horizontal format, I did individual sketches of each “show” character(s) and then played around… READ MORE
April 29th, 2021 | Posted in Illustration Throwback Thursday
I got tired of typing out “Illustration Throwback Thursday”, so from now on the internets will be using the term “Thurowback”. You’re welcome. Back in November of 2015 My pal and fellow National Cartoonists Society member Jeff Knurek asked me to be the guest artist on his widely syndicated comic feature “The Jumble”. “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” was about to come out in theaters and Jeff thought doing something around that would be a fun and timely idea. This is what we came up with. Here’s a closer look at the art: READ MORE
March 29th, 2021 | Posted in MAD Magazine
We continue our relentless chronological crawl through my MAD work with a look at my 19th job for the magazine, a TV parody of the show “Scrubs”, written by MAD Senior Editor Charlie Kadau, and appearing in MAD #426, Feb 2003. This was the only piece I ever worked on with Charlie, who wrote a number of TV parodies among his many other writing credits for the magazine, on top of being an editor for a measly 35 years or so. There are a number of doctor cameos in the splash but also two “insider” ones. The guy with the curly red hair putting on the rubber glove by Dr.… READ MORE
