MADness #124: MAD 20 2017!

Time again for another stop on the long and winding road that was my work for MAD Magazine. We have arrived at the penultimate “New York” MAD issue, #549 (Feb 2018), which happened to be the year end issue contain the “MAD 20 Dumbest People, Events and Things of 2017”. I did the art on two of the “MAD 20” pieces for this issue. We’ll look at the second one next week, but this was the first of them. No writer is credited, meaning it was written by the editorial staff.

This is of course a spoof of the movie poster for “Wet Hot American Summer”, a 2001 comedy flop that had a cast of relative unknowns, many of which went on to have very successful careers. Even though the movie was a commercial and critical bust, it ended up becoming a cult classic and spawned a franchise with several web series, a documentary, and other media treatments. Anyway the movie poster featured a car driving toward the audience with the cast sticking out on all sides. The parody image is from the 2017 Charlottesville, VA “Unite the Right” protest march and a short documentary made of the event and its fallout, including then president Donald Trump’s comments, for “VICE News Tonight”. Most of the people in the car are actual protesters or prevalent figures in the white supremest movement. The lady on the right running with the microphone is the VICE correspondent who did the news piece.

I remember working on the final of this one the way back from a trip to Europe, sitting in my seat on the airplane and working on a mobile Wacom tablet. I was zoomed in painting the “JEWS WILL NOT REPLACE US” sign when The Lovely Anna leaned over and told me maybe it was not the best idea to work on that piece in a public place. I don’t know what would have been worse, having someone confront me thinking I was working on some racist propaganda, or someone leaning over to say “Damn Straight!”.

Toon in next week when we look at the other MAD 20 peice I did for this issue featuring… wait for it… Donald Trump!