MADness #12- Behind Enemy Lines!

MAD #415 contained my 12th job for the magazine, a spoof of the film “Behind Enemy Lines” starring Gene Hackman and Owen Wilson, written by Dick DeBartolo. The issue was dated March 2002, but the art was done in December of 2001.

This was the first movie parody I drew that was written by Dick, and the script was both funny and pretty vicious! The only thing I remember about working on this one was having a really tough time drawing Gene Hackman, and looking back at it now I still don’t like many of the caricatures of him I did.

Actually this is one of my least favorite pieces I ever did for MAD. The movie wasn’t very good but is wasn’t actively awful either, so I had a kind of “meh” reaction to it that didn’t translate into much interest or energy for the art.

One of the questions I always get asked if if I like doing the art for a parody of a movie or show I liked or one I hated. The answer to that is “yes”. If I have an emotional reaction to it at all, that makes it interesting to draw. If I really hated the show, I can take evil glee in ripping it a new one in the spoof. If I really liked it, it’s still fun to make fun of it and I’m interested enough in the show, its plot, and its characters, to come up with some good inside visual gags and better capture the characters visually. It’s when a show is boring or uninteresting that it is harder to “get into” the parody. Dick’s script was good (big surprise there), so that helped.

Little did I know that I was about to get another assignment for a movie spoof that also starred Hackman and Wilson, but first toon in next week for a return to sports related art for the next issue!