MAD KIDness #3- Clone Wars Cover!

It’s Monday! That means another trip to the Dark Side as we continue our weekly revisiting of my work at MAD Magazine and, as is the case today, its related publications like the short lived MAD KIDS. Today we have a look at my second cover for that “junior” version of MAD… this time for a Thanksgiving issue with a “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” theme for MAD KIDS #13, Dec 2008.

This job was unique in that I was being asked to tray and ape the look and feel of the art style of the “Star Wars: The Clone Wars” movie and animated series. They wanted me to put my own spin on it, add some gags and in general make it MAD-like. The concept was a loose spoof of the famous Norman Rockwell painting “Freedom from Want” (the Thanksgiving scene MAD has ridiculed many times over the years). The main gag they wanted was Anakin carving the “turkey” with his light saber. Art Director Sam Viviano sent me a rough doodle and I came up with this pencil:

I wanted to add a couple of gags just to make it more interesting, hence Yoda levitating the salt shaker, the alien eyes in Dooku’s stuffing, etc. Since the piece needed to be painted in the “Clone Wars” style I didn’t do any inking but just went straight from the pencil into PhotoShop and worked each character out as well as the table, elements on the table and the light saber’s “trail”. Here are some close ups of parts of the image:

Here’s the final cover image with all text and graphics in place:

Apparently the gang at MAD liked the results, based on the next assignment they gave me for the magazine… which you’ll have to wait until next week to see! Fa fa fa!