MADness #75: Man of Steel!

Look, Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s… MONDAY! That means it’s time to upend truth, justice, and the American Way with another look at the alien life form that was my work for MAD Magazine! This week we have a look back at MAD‘s parody of the movie “Man of Steel”, written by my claptrap co-hort Desmond Devlin and first appearing in MAD #524, December 2013.

I don’t have much in the way of backstory for this job. It was just the usual rigamarole. I do remember having a lot of fun drawing Michael Shannon as General Zod. There is also a cameo appearance by a couple of MAD editors…

In panel three on the above page, the two guys talking to Clark are Joe Raiola and Charlie Kadau, MAD Senior Editors. I honestly don’t remember why drew then into this parody. I dimly recall one of them making a smart assed comment to me about how MAD staffers Sam Viviano, John Ficarra, Nick Meglin and Ryan Flanders all had been drawn into one or more of my MAD pieces, but not them. That sounds about right, but I can’t remember for sure. If they did prompt me, all I can say is be careful what you wish for.

I’m pretty sure it was Des’s idea to dress Russell Crowe up in costumes from his other movie roles when he appeared as his hologram self. A good running gag.

I do remember one anecdote from this parody. The actor Mackenzie Gray who played Jax-Ur, one of Zod’s crew, contacted me some years after this came out. He told me he was a huge MAD fan growing up and just found out from a friend that not only was “Man of Steel” spoofed in MAD but he was drawn in it…twice! He wanted to know if I could print out the panel where he was most prominent and send him a signed print. I did, and he sent me a signed movie still in exchange. That was up on my corkboard wall in the studio for ages but disappeared at some point. He was a very nice guy who was genuinely thrilled to be drawn in MAD, and he did a great job covering up his disappointment that Mort Drucker wasn’t the one who drew him.

You can tell I was running out of time with that last page of pencils. This really is the full extent of the details of the “roughs” I SHOULD be doing and sending to MAD, but I am helpless to not spend the time drawing all the details at this stage.

That’s it for another super-lame look back at my work for MAD. Toon in next week when we revisit a piece where I did something new and experimental with the art for a TV show parody…. something I never did again!