A MAD Caricature Convention!

The International Society of Caricature Artists (ISCA, formerly known as the NCN) just announced their guest speaker(s) for the 2009 Annual Caricature Convention and Competition on November 2nd-7th in Sandusky, Ohio:

It’s an all MAD lineup featuring:

• Sam Viviano– Longtime MAD artist and current art director
• Mark Fredrickson– Frequent MAD cover artist, former airbrush demigod and current digital painting master
• Hermann Mejia– The brilliant “artist’s artist” for MAD, caricaturist, painter, sculptor, genius
• Tom Richmond– An unworthy schlub along for the ride

That’s quite a lineup, and as far as I know very unique. As Sam pointed out to me, it will be possibly the first time that something like this has been organized that features predominately new generation MAD artists. Sam’s actually been with the magazine for over 30 years, but compared to guys like Mort Drucker, Jack Davis, Sergio Aragones and Al Jaffee, that’s like just starting last week. The legends get plenty of well deserved accolades, but these guys (at least three of them, anyway) deserve some attention for their work… which often gets overlooked in the shadows of the MAD giants.

This should be fun. Each speaker will have a presentation, there will be a MAD panel discussion and possibly some workshops done by the guests. I’m planning one on some form of cartooning, possibly another inking workshop but more likely storytelling as it applies to MAD.

Ordinary these conventions are only open to members of the organization. As I understand it, there will be a special fee available for anyone who is not a member but wants to attend just the MAD speaker presentations.

More details here as they become available.