MADness #4: Malcontent in the Muddle!

Each Monday I’m doing an installment of a complete, chronological look at every job I did for MAD over my 20 year run for the magazine, complete with whatever stories, anecdotes, or milestones, might apply along with the full article.

This week’s installment is a look at my fourth appearance in MAD, which was my first TV/movie parody. The subject was TV show “Malcolm in the Middle” entitled “Malcontent in the Muddle” written by my CLAPTRAP co-hort, Desmond Devlin for MAD #403, March 2001.

I made no secret to MAD art director Sam Viviano that I REALLY wanted to do a movie or TV show parody in the magazine. I was told to be patient, that I would get a chance. My fourth job was the charm, when I got a script by Desmond of a spoof of the popular TV show “Malcolm in the Middle”.

MAD #403 was significant in that is was the first issue that was acknowledged by the editors as being in “full color” and for being the first since MAD #32, April 1957, to have advertising. The editors announced the switch to color and taking ads in a brief letter to readers in the contents page, but actually the magazine had been being printed on upgraded stock and with at least some color content since issue #400.

I was very excited to get this job, hoping it would be the first of a lot of parody assignments. I was very surprised to get a big package in the mail from MAD, containing the bristol boards for the art with the word boxes and panels/gutters already penciled in. These were done by former MAD production artist and later art director Lenny “The Beard” Brenner, and such boards were sent to the artists as standard practice at the time. There was also a folder with a bunch of photo reference from the show.

I remember being stunned at how big the boards were. Sam explained that most MAD artists always worked “twice up”, meaning 200% of print size. This went back to the old EC days on titles like “Tales from the Crypt”. That made an original art page about 16.75″ x 21.5″ with a bleed. Modern comic books, by comparison, are usual done at 130% of print size, or around 11″ x 17″. I’ve been working at the 200% size ever since, with the exception of one experimental parody job many years later.

This was the first movie/TV parody to be published in full color in MAD since “The Barefoot Nocontessa” in MAD #23, May 1955, which was the last issue of the comic book version of MAD.

After the parody was published, I got a call from actor Bryan Cranston, who played the dad on the show. He was inquiring about buying some of the original art. After a frantic call to Sam about what I might charge for something like that, I quoted a price to Bryan. Apparently I was too high, as he didn’t buy any of the art. He did tell me that everyone on the show loved the spoof, except for star Frankie Muniz. Frankie apparently didn’t appreciate my caricatures of him. C’est la vie.

I didn’t have to wait long for my next parody assignment, because shortly after finishing the art on this one, I got assigned another spoof… this time of a movie! Toon in next week for that art and story!