MADness #76: Abysmal House!

Welcome to Monday, and another nauseatingly nostalgic look back at my work for MAD magazine! Nostalgic? Seems like current events to me! French writer Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr once wrote “the more things change the more they stay the same”… or maybe that was Jon Bon Jovi. Anyway this piece was part of MAD‘s “Dumbest People, Events, and Things of 2013” from MAD #525. Written by Jay Rath. This was 2013, and here we are in 2023 looking at the same garbage on Capitol Hill. 

Poor Rick Meyerowitz… his classic illustration for the Animal House movie poster might be the most parodied movie poster ever. MAD got in on the action with this spoof of that famous movie poster that also lampooned our dysfunctional government. My pencil rough and final pencil below (this never got inked… I stuck with pencil to get the Meyerowitz look and added the color digitally).

Trying to meld the Meyerowitz style, which is very eclectic and “60’s underground comix” feeling, with likenesses of politicians and pundits was surprisingly easy. Part of it is the rough pencil lines shading. The textured quality ties it all together.

Here are some close ups… there’s a lot going on in this one:

That’s it for another miserable Monday of MADness. Toon in next week for a look at the other piece I did for MAD #525… a TV spoof where I did something I’d never attempted to do with a MAD parody.