MADness #94: Fixer Upper!

Welcome to another edition of Monday MADness, where we continue on our seemingly endless trek through my work at MAD Magazine. This week it’s yet another spoof of a show targeted at that huge MAD-loving demographic, HGTV viewers! Yes, I am still scratching my head over why we did a parody of a show like “Fixer Uppers” in 2016 when we ignored huge hits like “NCIS”, “Blue Bloods”, “Criminal Minds”, “Empire” and “The Blacklist”. However we can’t complain about MAD‘s MADdset writer Dick DeBartolo‘s damn funny script for this one… and frankly I didn’t mind ridiculing Chip and Joanna Gaines‘s show. We did it all in MAD #541, Oct 2016.

There were a couple of unique things for me about this six page parody. First, I did all but the opening page fully digitally. I used pen and ink for that first page, but all the other pages I penciled and inked digitally using my Wacom Cintiq tablet as well as doing the color. To be honest I don’t remember exactly why I did that, because if you remember my previous try at doing a completely digital process on a parody (“The Swallowing”, MAD #525, Feb 2014) resulted in my not being very satisfied with the results. I suspect I was either traveling during a time when I needed to both finish the inks and start the color, or there was some issue with the deadline that necessitated a different approach. Regardless I did it that way. I was a bit happier with the final results, but not enough to give up the real pen, brush and inks.

Here’s the other things that was different about this job. I happened to be in New York either when I got the assignment or right after. I think I was teaching a workshop. I was staying with my pal and fellow Usual Gang of Idiots member Ed Steckley and his (then) wife Heather‘s place in Sunnyside (Queens). So I decided to make them the couple that are the house hunters in the show. I took a bunch of pictures of them while at their place, and used them as references throughout the spoof. Yes, Ed is really that goofy looking and Heather is really that fetching and charming.

That took this project up in difficulty level, because I needed to be concerned with the likenesses of characters beyond just the stars of the show, even though 99% of people who saw this parody would have no idea who these people were.

Dick’s script for this was brutal. I remember it getting featured on an HGTV-centric website right after if came out, but we got roasted by comments about how awful we were to the Gaines’s. I lost no sleep over it.

Heather hasn’t spoken to me since this came out*, so I learned a valuable life lesson about caricaturing friends that I’d prefer to stay friends with. This didn’t bother Ed because he refused to believe these caricatures looked anything like him. Other than that this job turned out fine and I got paid and everything.

Toon in next week when we switch from the world of TV and movie parodies to the world of politics!

* Actually Heather was a great sport about this and we are still good friends. She’s a lovely person and a super talented TV graphics wizard.